Sacca Cariyā — The Chapter With Yudhañjaya · The Perfection of Truth (2nd of 6)
Setting
No narrative setting whatsoever; the Buddha speaks in the first person about his past life as an ascetic named Truthful
Speaker
The Buddha, recounting his life as the ascetic Truthful
Form
A single four-line verse — the shortest story in the entire Cariyapitaka
Length
a few seconds to read
Northern parallel
This reading guide does not assert a specific matching text for this story in other Buddhist literatures.
Difficulty
★☆☆☆☆ — no narrative complexity at all, only what four lines can carry
Why this text
This is the shortest of all thirty-five Cariyapitaka stories: one verse, no crisis, no dialogue, no test to pass. Where Cp 27's monkey demonstrates truthfulness through a clever escape under real pressure, this ascetic's truthfulness is simply stated as a settled fact about who he was — a reputation, not an episode.
Reading guide
The shortest story in the collection
At a single four-line verse, this is shorter than every other story in the Cariyapitaka, including Cp 5's three-verse Mahāgovinda — there is simply less text here than anywhere else in the collection's thirty-five stories.
A name that states the whole story
The ascetic is identified only by his descriptive title, ‘Truthful’ — unlike most of this collection's figures, who are named and then shown acting, this character's name and his conduct are presented as the same thing.
Truth as a public, stabilizing force
The verse's claim is social rather than personal: he ‘protected the world with his truth, uniting the people.’ Nothing in the text describes a specific act of protection or unification — only the general, sustained reputation for reliability that presumably made it possible.
A deliberate contrast with the story before it
Read directly after Cp 27's technically honest but strategically evasive monkey, this story's plain, untested truthfulness reads almost as a correction — where the monkey's truth served his own escape, this ascetic's truth is described as serving everyone around him.
Key terms
sacca — “truth” — the perfection this story illustrates, the second of six stories on this theme, and the very name this ascetic is known by.
cariyā — “conduct” — this collection's title, and the word used for each of its thirty-five stories, this one its twenty-eighth and shortest.
saṅgaha — “unification” or “inclusiveness” — the effect this text says the ascetic's truthfulness had on the people around him.
Yudhañjaya-vagga — “the Chapter With Yudhañjaya” — this collection's third chapter, continuing here with its six stories on truth.
isi — “seer” or “ascetic” — the kind of figure ‘Truthful’ is described as.
The text
The text in full: a single verse, the shortest story in the Cariyapitaka. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).
§1“Then again when I was an ascetic known as Truthful, I protected the world with my truth, uniting the people.”
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Self-check quiz
Ten questions. Click an answer to see immediate feedback. No score is recorded — this is for your own checking.
Question 1 of 10
How does this story compare in length to every other story in the Cariyapitaka?
Correct: B. Shorter even than Cp 5's three-verse Mahāgovinda.
Question 2 of 10
What is this ascetic's name?
Correct: B. His name and his conduct are presented as the same thing.
Question 3 of 10
What specific incident does this story describe?
Correct: B. A settled fact about who he was, not an episode.
Question 4 of 10
What does the verse claim the ascetic's truthfulness accomplished?
Correct: B. A social, stabilizing effect rather than a personal outcome.
Question 5 of 10
How does this story's truthfulness compare to Cp 27's monkey?
Correct: B. A deliberate contrast between the collection's two adjacent truth-stories.
Question 6 of 10
What perfection does this story illustrate?
Correct: B. Continuing the sequence of six truth-stories in this chapter.
Question 7 of 10
What does 'saṅgaha' refer to in this story?
Correct: B. Named as the outcome of his reputation for truth.
Question 8 of 10
Does this story include any dialogue?
Correct: B. A settled reputation, stated rather than dramatized.
Question 9 of 10
What perfection did the story immediately before this one illustrate?
Correct: B. Cp 27's monkey, opening the same chapter.
Question 10 of 10
What does 'isi' mean?
Correct: A. The identity given to 'Truthful' in this text.
