Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
Asked what kind of being he is, the Buddha answers that he will not become any of them, because the defilements that would produce such a rebirth are gone.
The footprints
Doṇa sees the wheel-marks and concludes these could not be a human being’s. That is the premise of the whole conversation: he has already decided the answer is not ‘human’ before he asks anything.
The wheel on the sole is one of the thirty-two marks of a great man, a piece of brahminical lore the canon repeatedly puts in the mouths of brahmins. It is worth noting that the text does not argue for the marks; it uses them as the reason a brahmin gets interested, which is a slightly different thing from asserting them.
What Doṇa then finds is described carefully, and the description is not marvellous: sitting cross-legged, body straight, mindfulness present, faculties peaceful, self-controlled, like a tamed elephant. The extraordinary sign leads to an ordinary posture, and the discourse spends more words on the composure than on the miracle.
The verb
“Might you be a god?” — “I will not be a god, brahmin.” The Pāli is na kho ahaṁ brāhmaṇa devo bhavissāmi, and bhavissāmi is future: I will not become.
Sujato keeps the tense, and it changes the discourse completely. The common rendering — ‘I am not a god’ — makes this a text about what the Buddha mysteriously is. With the future tense it becomes a text about rebirth: he is not going to be reborn as any of these, because he is not going to be reborn.
The explanation confirms it. If I had not given up defilements I might have become a god, a centaur, a spirit, or a human. But I have given up those defilements. The four categories are four possible destinations, and the answer is that none of them applies because there is no further destination at all.
This is a case where a translation choice carries the meaning, and it is worth showing students both versions. The mystical reading is not available once the tense is restored.
The four categories
God (deva), centaur (gandhabba), spirit (yakkha), human (manussa). These are four of the possible rebirth destinations in the cosmology, running from the highest downward and ending with the ordinary.
Doṇa is asking a taxonomic question in good faith. Given the footprints, something non-ordinary is in front of him, and his framework has a slot for that. The discourse’s answer is that the framework has no slot, not because the Buddha is more exalted than the highest slot but because he has stepped out of the system the slots belong to.
The lotus
Though it sprouted and grew in the water, it would rise up above the water and stand with no water clinging to it. In the same way, though I was born and grew up in the world, I live having mastered the world, unsullied by the world.
The simile answers the question Doṇa actually asked, in a way the negations did not. It concedes the origin fully — born in the world, grew up in it, sprouted in the water — and locates the difference entirely in the present relationship. Nothing about the lotus’s substance differs from the water it grew in.
That is a deflationary image in the best sense. It rules out the reading that the Buddha is made of some other material, which is precisely the reading the footprints had invited.
“Remember me as a Buddha”
Buddhoti maṁ brāhmaṇa dhārehi — hold me in mind as a Buddha. The word is offered as the answer to ‘what are you?’, and it is a term for someone who has done something rather than for a kind of being.
That is the discourse’s resolution and it is a category shift rather than an answer within the category. Doṇa asked which of four species; he is told the relevant word names an achievement.
For teaching, this pairs naturally with AN 4.15 and AN 4.34, both of which place the Buddha at the top of a list of beings. This discourse says the list is the wrong shape. The collection contains both moves and it is more honest to show the seam than to smooth it.
Key terms
The text
The footprints
§1At one time the Buddha was traveling along the road between Ukkaṭṭhā and Setavyā, as was the brahmin Doṇa. Doṇa saw that the Buddha’s footprints had thousand-spoked wheels, with rims and hubs, complete in every detail. It occurred to him, “Oh lord, how incredible, how amazing! Surely these couldn’t be the footprints of a human being?” The Buddha had left the road and sat at the root of a tree cross-legged, setting his body straight, and bringing mindfulness to the present. Then Doṇa, following the Buddha’s footprints, saw him sitting at the tree root—impressive and inspiring, with peaceful faculties and heart, attained to the highest self-control and serenity, like an elephant with tamed, guarded, and controlled faculties. He went up to the Buddha and said to him:
Four questions
§2“Sir, might you be a god?” “I will not be a god, brahmin.” “Might you be a centaur?” “I will not be a centaur.” “Might you be a spirit?” “I will not be a spirit.” “Might you be a human?” “I will not be a human.”
§3“When asked whether you might be a god, centaur, spirit, or human, you answer that you will not be any of these. So what then might you be?”
The lotus
§4“Brahmin, if I had not given up defilements I might have become a god … a centaur … a spirit … or a human. But I have given up those defilements, cut them off at the root, made them like a palm stump, obliterated them so they are unable to arise in the future. Suppose there was a blue water lily, or a pink or white lotus. Though it sprouted and grew in the water, it would rise up above the water and stand with no water clinging to it. In the same way, though I was born and grew up in the world, I live having mastered the world, unsullied by the world. Remember me, brahmin, as a Buddha.
The verses
§5I could have been reborn as a god, or as a centaur flying through the sky. I could have become a spirit, or returned as a human. But I’ve ended those defilements, they’re blown away and mown down.
§6Like a graceful lotus, to which water does not cling, the world doesn’t cling to me, and so, brahmin, I am a Buddha.”
Self-check quiz
Ten questions. Click an answer to see immediate feedback. No score is recorded — this is for your own checking.