Reading guide
A name that states the allegory directly
Unlike this chapter's animals, ascetics, and kings, this story's central figure is named for the very quality he embodies: Dhamma, a spirit who travels ‘establishing the populace in the ten ways of skillful deeds’, with sympathy for the whole world.
An opposite number, given equal weight
The story does not present Dhamma alone; it introduces a mirror-image rival, a ‘wicked, miserly spirit promoting the ten wicked ways’, traveling the same roads with his own retinue — the two forces described almost identically in structure, opposite only in content.
A collision framed as a looming war
When their chariots meet, the language escalates quickly: ‘a dreadful quarrel ensued’, and ‘a great war loomed’ over who would be pushed off the road — the everyday problem of two parties meeting on a narrow path, inflated to cosmic stakes by what each party represents.
Victory ceded, then delivered anyway
Dhamma has the power to destroy the wicked spirit and his whole retinue, and instead steps down off the path, yielding the road entirely. The story does not end there: once Dhamma has quelled his own mind, ‘the earth opened up for that wicked spirit’ — a consequence that arrives on its own, not one Dhamma inflicts.
Key terms
The text
§1“Then again when I was of great retinue and psychic power, a great spirit named Dhamma, I had sympathy for the whole world.
§2Establishing the populace in the ten ways of skillful deeds, I wandered from village to town, with friends and associates.
§3A wicked, miserly spirit promoting the ten wicked ways was also wandering the earth with friends and associates.
§4The righteous and unrighteous, we were each other’s foe. Slamming chariot poles, we collided together.
§5A dreadful quarrel ensued between the good and the ill, a great war loomed aiming to push the other off the road.
§6If I had been upset with him, if I had broken my asceticism, I could have reduced him to dust, together with his companions.
§7Nevertheless, for the sake of guarding my ethics, I quelled my heart. I left the road with my folk, giving it to the wicked one.
§8As soon as I stepped down off the path, and I had quelled my mind, the earth opened up for that wicked spirit.”
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