Reading guide
A buried hoard, and how it fails
The opening verses describe someone burying savings by the water's edge, against future need — debt, famine, slander, banditry. The text then lists, quite practically, five ways even a well-hidden hoard can still be lost: it shifts location, its marker is forgotten, dragons or spirits carry it off, or an unloved heir digs it up in secret.
A different kind of saving
Against that unreliable hoard, the text sets giving, morality, restraint, and self-control as a different kind of saving — one that ‘stays with you, undecaying’, immune to the five failures just listed, and, in the text's own words, ‘only this you take when you go’.
A long list of what merit secures
Roughly half the text is a cumulative list of what this kind of saving provides — from ordinary goods like good looks and a good voice, through worldly power up to the happiness of a Wheel-Turning Monarch, to specifically spiritual attainments: mastery of knowledge and freedom, the perfections of a disciple, and the plane of an independent Buddha, each closing on the same refrain, ‘through this they have it all’.
From ordinary benefit to full attainment
Like Kp 5's blessings, this list is not flat: it moves from mundane advantages any listener would recognize, up through progressively higher forms of success, ending at ‘attaining extinguishment’ and the rarest attainments named in the tradition.
A gap in the source text
One line of the eighth section is missing from the source manuscript this translation is drawn from (between ‘at a shrine or with the Saṅgha’ and ‘with mother or father’); this page reproduces the source exactly as it stands, gap included, rather than supplying a conjectural line.
Key terms
The text
A hoard, and how it fails
§1A person stores away their savings in a deep trove by the water’s edge: “When need arises it will be there to help
§2free me from rulers if I am slandered, or from bandits if harassed, or to release me from debt, or in case of famine or losses.” What the world calls savings get stored away for such reasons.
§3But no matter how well stored away they are in a deep pit by the water’s edge, all their savings will fail to aid them all the time.
§4For perhaps those savings shift from there, or they forget what marks the site, or dragons make off with them, or spirits carry them away,
§5or unloved heirs secretly unearth them. When their merit is used up, all of that will vanish.
A different kind of saving
§6But by giving and morality, restraint and self-control, a woman or man keeps their savings safe.
§7At a shrine or with the Saṅgha, with mother or father, or else an elder sibling,
§8those savings are kept safe, they stay with you, undecaying. We must go on leaving all behind, only this you take when you go.
§9You don’t have to share it with others, no thief makes off with your savings. An attentive one would make merit, the savings that stay with you.
What merit secures
§10Such savings grant every desire of gods and humans too. Whatever it is that they wish for through this they have it all.
§11Good looks, a sweet voice, a good shape, and good appearance, leadership and followers: through this they have it all.
§12Sovereignty of a local kingdom, the happiness of a Wheel-Turning Monarch, even kingship in the heavens: through this they have it all.
§13Human success, heavenly delight, attaining extinguishment: through this they have it all.
§14Relying on having good friends, rational application of effort, mastery of knowledge and freedom: through this they have it all.
§15Analytical knowledge, the liberations, the perfections of the disciple, the plane of an independent Buddha: through this they have it all.
§16This accomplishment in merit is so very beneficial. That’s why the attentive and the astute praise the making of merit.
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