Reading guide
A king's routine duty prompting a moral question
Transferring a childless estate to the crown was a standard administrative function of Pasenadi's office; what turns this routine duty into an occasion for teaching is the king's own observation of how strangely the financier lived relative to his fortune.
Wealth and lived poverty, side by side
The king's report juxtaposes exact figures — eight million in gold, not counting silver — against equally specific details of deprivation: gruel with false pepper, three patches of hemp cloth, a leaf for a parasol — the numbers and the poverty made to sit together without commentary before the Buddha responds.
A distinction between true and untrue persons
The Buddha's teaching does not moralize about wealth as such but distinguishes how a ‘true person’ and an ‘untrue person’ relate to wealth once acquired: the true person makes themselves and others happy with it and gives religious donations; the untrue person does none of this, leaving the wealth exposed to confiscation, fire, flood, or unwanted heirs.
A pond visited, and a pond ignored
The matched similes turn on location and use, not on the water's quality: a lotus pond in an uninhabited region, however clear and sweet, goes unused simply because no one is there to use it, while an identical pond near a settlement gets drunk, bathed in, and put to purpose — wastage located in circumstance and choice, not in any flaw in the resource itself.
A duology's first half, ending without the deeper cause
This discourse offers a general moral framework for understanding the financier's strange poverty but does not explain why this particular man became the kind of person who could not enjoy his own wealth — a cause SN 3.20, reporting a second, even wealthier financier's near-identical case, will supply in specific, karmic detail.
Key terms
The text
§1At Sāvatthī. Then King Pasenadi of Kosala went up to the Buddha in the middle of the day, bowed, and sat down to one side. The Buddha said to him, “So, great king, where are you coming from in the middle of the day?”
§2“Sir, here in Sāvatthī a financier householder has passed away. Since he died childless, I have come after transferring his fortune to the royal compound. There was eight million in gold coin, not to mention the silver coin. And yet that financier ate meals of rough gruel with false black pepper. He wore clothes consisting of three patches of sunn hemp. He traveled around in a vehicle that was a dilapidated little cart, holding a leaf as parasol.”
§3“That’s so true, great king! That’s so true! When an untrue person has acquired notable wealth they don’t make themselves happy and pleased. Nor do they make their mother and father, partners and children, bondservants, workers, and staff, and friends and colleagues happy and pleased. And they don’t establish an uplifting religious donation for ascetics and brahmins that’s conducive to heaven, ripens in happiness, and leads to heaven. Because they haven’t made proper use of that wealth, rulers or bandits take it, or fire consumes it, or flood sweeps it away, or unloved heirs take it. Since that wealth is not properly utilized, it’s wasted, not used.
§4Suppose there was a lotus pond in an uninhabited region with clear, sweet, cool water, clean, with smooth banks, delightful. But people don’t collect it or drink it or bathe in it or use it for any purpose. Since that water is not properly utilized, it’s wasted, not used. In the same way, when an untrue person has acquired notable wealth … it’s wasted, not used.
§5When a true person has acquired notable wealth they make themselves happy and pleased. And they make their mother and father, partners and children, bondservants, workers, and staff, and friends and colleagues happy and pleased. And they establish an uplifting religious donation for ascetics and brahmins that’s conducive to heaven, ripens in happiness, and leads to heaven. Because they make proper use of that wealth, rulers or bandits don’t take it, fire doesn’t consume it, flood doesn’t sweep it away, and unloved heirs don’t take it. Since that wealth is properly utilized, it’s used, not wasted.
§6Suppose there was a lotus pond not far from a town or village with clear, sweet, cool water, clean, with smooth banks, delightful. And people collected it and drank it and bathed in it and used it for their own purpose. Since that water is properly utilized, it’s used, not wasted. In the same way, when a true person has acquired notable wealth … it’s used, not wasted.
§7As cool water in an uninhabited region evaporates when not drunk; so too when a reprobate acquires wealth, they neither use it themselves nor give it away. When the attentive and sensible acquire wealth, they use it, being dutiful. That boss, having supported the family unit, blameless, goes to a heavenly place.”
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