Reading guide
A house on fire, extended to the whole world
The verse's opening image is domestic and immediate: rescuing a useful pot from a burning house, leaving behind whatever is already ruined. The second stanza expands this single-house scale to the entire world, on fire ‘with old age and death’ — treating impermanence itself as the fire, and giving as the only genuine rescue available.
Giving as the only lasting form of keeping
The verse's logic is deliberately counterintuitive: what is given bears fruit as happiness, while what is kept is eventually lost anyway — to theft, taxation, fire, or simple misfortune. Rather than framing giving as a sacrifice of what could otherwise be kept safely, the verse treats unshared possessions as already, inevitably, lost.
A corpse cast off with everything unshared
The verse's final image is stark: death casts off the corpse ‘along with all your possessions’ — nothing kept is kept past that point regardless of how carefully it was guarded. A clever person, understanding this, both enjoys their possessions and gives them away, according to their means.
A vagga named for an opening image, again
Like the Sattivagga before it, this vagga takes its name from its opening discourse's central image — here, fire — rather than from a recurring group of deities or a closing simile. The pattern of naming a vagga after its first discourse, established at SN 1.11 and SN 1.21, continues here.
Key terms
The text
A deity arrives, and speaks at length
§1So I have heard. At one time the Buddha was staying near Sāvatthī in Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika’s Monastery. Then, late at night, a glorious deity, lighting up the entire Jeta’s Grove, went up to the Buddha, bowed, stood to one side, and recited these verses in the Buddha’s presence:
§2“When your house is on fire, you rescue the pot that’s useful, not the one that’s burnt. And as the world is on fire with old age and death, you should rescue by giving, for what’s given is rescued.
§3What’s given has happiness as its fruit, but not what isn’t given. Bandits take it, or rulers, it’s consumed by fire, or lost. Then in the end this corpse is cast off, along with all your possessions. Knowing this, a clever person would enjoy what they have and also give it away. After giving and using according to their means, blameless, they go to a heavenly place.”
Self-check quiz
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