Reading guide
A godling once a founder of his own teaching
The text describes Tāyana as ‘formerly a religious founder’, a detail found nowhere else in this vagga — a deity whose past life, before rebirth as a godling, involved leading his own sect.
Cut the stream, cast aside sensual pleasures
The verses open with direct imperatives — cutting the stream after striving, casting aside sensual pleasures — before turning to two contrasted claims: a bad deed is better left undone since it plagues you later, a good deed is better done since it does not.
Kusa grass, wrongly grasped
The verses' central simile compares the ascetic life, wrongly taken up, to kusa grass wrongly grasped, which cuts the hand — the same image appears in the Dhammapada (verse 311), a cross-collection echo this book has already noted at SN 1.5 and SN 1.22, now recurring a third time.
A verbatim repeat, elided in the source
The Buddha's retelling to the mendicants repeats Tāyana's verses word for word; the source text marks this repetition with blank segments rather than typing the verses out twice (sn2.8 segments 9 through 13), following the same convention this collection's compilers used for other verbatim repeats. This reading guide follows this book's own earlier precedent and does not quote the elided repeat a second time.
A charge to memorize, unusual in this book
The discourse closes with the Buddha directly instructing the mendicants to learn, memorize, and remember these verses — a closing charge not found elsewhere in this vagga, and consistent with these verses' continued recitation by Theravādin monastics today.
Key terms
The text
§1At Sāvatthī. Then, late at night, the glorious godling Tāyana, formerly a religious founder, 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“Cut the stream after striving! Cast aside sensual pleasures, brahmin. A sage who doesn’t give up sensual pleasures is not reborn in a unified state.
§3If one is to do what should be done, one should staunchly strive. For the life gone forth when laxly led just stirs up dust all the more.
§4A bad deed is better left undone, for it will plague you later on. A good deed is better done, one that does not plague you.
§5When kusa grass is wrongly grasped it only cuts the hand. So too, the ascetic life, when wrongly taken, drags you to hell.
§6Any lax act, any corrupt observance, or suspicious spiritual life, is not very fruitful.”
§7That’s what the godling Tāyana said. Then he bowed and respectfully circled the Buddha, keeping him on his right side, before vanishing right there.
§8Then, when the night had passed, the Buddha told the mendicants all that had happened. “Mendicants, tonight, the glorious godling Tāyana, formerly a religious founder, lighting up the entire Jeta’s Grove, came to me, bowed, stood to one side, and recited these verses in my presence.” The Buddha repeated the verses in full, adding:
§9“That’s what the godling Tāyana said. Then he bowed and respectfully circled me, keeping me on his right side, before vanishing right there. Mendicants, learn the verses of Tāyana! Memorize the verses of Tāyana! Remember the verses of Tāyana! These verses are beneficial and relate to the fundamentals of the spiritual life.”
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