Reading guide
A question rooted in the questioner's own occupation
The brahmin's curiosity isn't abstract; he's genuinely engaged in supervising construction work at that moment, and his question about the Buddha's own ‘work’ grows naturally out of his own activity rather than any hostility or philosophical agenda.
A wordplay carrying the entire answer
The Pali word vana names both the literal forest surrounding them and, in related usage found elsewhere in the canon, the tangled inner jungle of craving and attachment; the Buddha's reply depends on this double meaning, a nuance easy to lose entirely in translation.
Withered rather than merely cut
The verse doesn't just say the inner jungle has been cut down; it specifies the root itself is severed and the whole thing has withered away — a completed, irreversible process rather than an ongoing act of maintenance.
Freedom described through the absence of obstruction
‘Free of snarls and thorns’ continues the same forest imagery from the opposite direction, describing liberation not as a positive achievement to list but as the simple absence of what used to catch and wound.
Solitude and contentment named as the direct result
The verse's closing line ties this uprooted inner jungle directly to present enjoyment — solitude, with discontent given up — making clear that the wordplay isn't decorative; it's describing exactly why this particular kind of aloneness feels like ease rather than isolation.
Key terms
The text
§1At one time the Buddha was staying in the land of the Kosalans in a certain forest grove. Now at that time the brahmin Bhāradvāja the Builder was having some building work done in that jungle thicket. He saw the Buddha sitting down cross-legged at the root of a certain sal tree, his body set straight, and mindfulness brought to the present. Seeing this, it occurred to him, “I enjoy having this building work done here in the jungle. I wonder what the ascetic Gotama enjoys having done?” Then Bhāradvāja the Builder went up to the Buddha and addressed him in verse:
§2“What kind of works are done by you, a mendicant in the sal jungle? How do you find enjoyment alone in the wilderness, Gotama?”
§3“There’s nothing I need do in the jungle; my jungle’s cut at the root, it’s withered away. Free of snarls and thorns in the jungle, I enjoy solitude, having given up discontent.”
§4When he had spoken, the brahmin Bhāradvāja the Builder said to the Buddha, “Excellent, worthy Gotama … From this day forth, may the worthy Gotama remember me as a lay follower who has gone for refuge for life.”
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