Vaṇṇupatha — Book of the Ones · Chapter One (Apaṇṇakavagga) · Poem 2 of 10
Setting
No narrative scene — a single self-contained simile verse
Speaker
Unspecified in the canonical verse itself
Form
One four-line stanza
Length
Under 1 minute to read
Northern parallel
This reading guide does not assert a specific matching text for this poem in other Buddhist literatures.
Difficulty
★☆☆☆☆ — one short, clear simile
Why this text
This poem's single image — diggers who, by not giving up, eventually strike an underground stream beneath a sandy waste — is a compact, self-sufficient teaching on persistence in practice, needing no commentarial story to make its point (unlike several of its neighboring poems in this same chapter).
Reading guide
A single, self-explanatory simile
The verse's first half describes diggers working ‘untiringly in a sandy waste’ until they find water at an underground stream; per Sujato's comment, ‘udaṅgaṇa’ is best read as ‘water passage’ rather than the commentary's own reading. The second half applies the image directly: ‘in the same way, a sage with strength aroused untiringly finds the peace of the heart.’
A verse that needs no separate story to make its point
Unlike this site's own Ja 1, which leans on a commentarial story (the yakkha and the caravan) to fill out its gambling metaphor, this poem's simile is complete in itself: the labor of digging through sand for water directly mirrors the sustained effort of meditation practice, without needing any narrative frame to explain it.
Key terms
akilāsuno — “untiringly” — the quality shared by both the diggers and the sage, repeated in both halves of the verse.
udaṅgaṇa — “underground stream” — per Sujato's comment, best read as a water passage, against the commentary's own differing gloss.
viriyabalūpapanno — “with strength aroused” — the sage's own energetic quality, matching the diggers' persistence.
hadayassa santiṁ — “the peace of the heart” — what the sage finds, corresponding to the water the diggers find.
Vaṇṇupathajātaka — the traditional title of this tale, ‘Sandy Waste’.
The text
The text in full: a single verse, with a technical comment on one term's reading discussed above. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).
§1Digging untiringly in a sandy waste, there at the underground stream he found water. In the same way, a sage with strength aroused untiringly finds the peace of the heart.
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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
What do the diggers in the verse eventually find?
Correct: B. The image the verse's second half applies to a sage's own persistence.
Question 2 of 10
What quality is repeated in both halves of the verse?
Correct: C. Shared explicitly by both the diggers and the sage.
Question 3 of 10
What does the sage find, corresponding to the diggers' water?
Correct: D. The verse's direct point of comparison.
Question 4 of 10
How does Sujato's comment read the term 'udaṅgaṇa'?
Correct: A. A technical philological note distinct from the traditional commentary's reading.
Question 5 of 10
Does this poem rely on a commentarial story to make its point?
Correct: B. The labor of digging for water directly mirrors sustained meditation effort without narrative framing.
Question 6 of 10
What quality does the sage have, matching the diggers' effort?
Correct: C. Directly paired with the diggers' own untiring labor.
Question 7 of 10
What is this poem's traditional title?
Correct: D. The second poem in the Apaṇṇakavagga.
Question 8 of 10
What form does this poem take?
Correct: A. Consistent with the brief, self-contained form of this whole opening chapter.
Question 9 of 10
What is being compared to what in this verse's simile?
Correct: B. The verse's entire structure rests on this single parallel.
Question 10 of 10
Where does this poem sit in the collection's own chapter structure?
Correct: C. Part of the same ten-poem opening chapter as Ja 1.
