Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
The generous brahmin student Māgha asks the Buddha to confirm his charitable giving and then to explain who is truly worthy of a gift; after an extended catalogue of such qualities, the discourse turns to the giver's own heart, teaching that a properly accomplished sacrifice is grounded in a mind of limitless love.
A generous young man's confidence
Māgha opens not with a question but with a claim: “I'm a giver, worthy Gotama, a donor; I am bountiful and committed to charity. I seek wealth in a principled manner,” giving to “one person, to two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, a hundred people or even more.” He asks, plainly, whether all this “brims with much merit.” The Buddha's answer is a direct and unqualified yes.
But then he asks the harder question
Confirmation given, Māgha pushes further, into verse: how, exactly, is such an offering “purified”? The Buddha's first answer is characteristically unadorned — the offering succeeds “due to those who are worthy of donations” — which only sharpens Māgha's real question: “explain to me who is worthy of donations.”
The list of the worthy
What follows is a long, cumulative catalogue closely paralleling the one given in the previous discourse, Snp 3.4, on the same theme — several lines recur here almost verbatim, including “freed of greed, with senses stilled, like the moon released from the eclipse” (found in both 3.4 and here). The qualities named: wandering the world unattached and owning nothing; having cut off all fetters and bonds, tamed and liberated, “with no need for hope”; having given up greed, hate, and delusion, defilements ended, “the spiritual journey completed”; having crossed the flood and living unselfishly; craving no state of existence “in this life or the next”; living “as their own island, everywhere free, owning nothing”; and knowing directly, “this is my last life, there are no future lives.” Each verse closes on the same refrain: that is where a brahmin seeking merit should bestow a timely oblation as sacrifice.
How to accomplish the sacrifice
Having named the recipient, Māgha asks how the giver should “accomplish the sacrifice” itself. The answer marks the discourse's real turn: “Sacrifice, and while doing so, be clear and confident in every way. Sacrifice is the ground standing upon which the sacrificer sheds their flaws.” What matters, the Buddha continues, is that the giver be “free of greed, rid of anger, developing a heart of limitless love,” spreading that limitlessness “in every direction, ever diligent day and night.” The recipient's worth, catalogued at such length, turns out to matter less, in this final analysis, than the state of the giver's own mind while giving.
Becoming like divinity
Māgha's closing questions are strikingly personal and unguarded: “Who is purified, freed, awake? How can one go to the realm of divinity oneself?… the Buddha is the divinity I see in person today! To us you are truly the equal of divinity.” The Buddha's reply is brief: one who accomplishes the sacrifice “with three modes” — traditionally explained elsewhere as purity of intention before, during, and after the act of giving — succeeds through the worthy, and such a giver, “rightly committed to charity, is reborn in the realm of divinity.”
A different kind of ending
Māgha's response closes the discourse with the familiar formula of praise, though the surviving text elides its full wording with an ellipsis, following the same convention used elsewhere in this collection to avoid repeating a well-known refrain verbatim. He goes for refuge “from this day forth… as a lay follower who has gone for refuge for life.” It is worth noting what does not happen here: unlike Bhāradvāja in the discourse just before this one, or Sabhiya two discourses later, Māgha does not ask for ordination. He remains, by his own evident choice, exactly what he arrived as — a committed and generous layperson, now more precisely instructed in how to give.
Key terms
The text
A generous young man's confidence
§1So I have heard. At one time the Buddha was staying near Rājagaha, on the Vulture’s Peak Mountain. Then the student Māgha approached the Buddha and exchanged greetings with him. When the greetings and polite conversation were over, he sat down to one side, and said to the Buddha:
§2“I’m a giver, worthy Gotama, a donor; I am bountiful and committed to charity. I seek wealth in a principled manner, and with that legitimate wealth I give to one person, to two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, a hundred people or even more. Giving and sacrificing like this, worthy Gotama, do I brim with much merit?”
§3“Indeed you do, student. A giver or donor who is bountiful and committed to charity, who seeks wealth in a principled manner, and with that legitimate wealth gives to one person, or up to a hundred people or even more, brims with much merit.” Then Māgha addressed the Buddha in verse:
But then he asks the harder question
§4“I ask the bountiful Gotama,”
said Māgha,
“wearing an ochre robe, wandering homeless.
Suppose a lay donor who is committed to charity
makes a sacrifice seeking merit, looking for merit,
giving food and drink to others here:
how is their offering purified?”
§5“Suppose a lay donor who is committed to charity,”
replied the Buddha,
“makes a sacrifice seeking merit, looking for merit,
giving food and drink to others here:
such a one would succeed due to those who are worthy of donations.”
§6“Suppose a lay donor who is committed to charity,”
said Māgha,
“makes a sacrifice seeking merit, looking for merit,
giving food and drink to others here:
explain to me who is worthy of donations.”
The list of the worthy
§7“Those who wander the world unattached,
consummate, self-controlled, owning nothing:
that is where a brahmin seeking merit
should bestow a timely oblation as sacrifice.
§8Those who have cut off all fetters and bonds,
tamed, liberated, untroubled, with no need for hope:
that is where a brahmin seeking merit
should bestow a timely oblation as sacrifice.
§9Those who are released from all fetters,
tamed, liberated, untroubled, with no need for hope:
that is where a brahmin seeking merit
should bestow a timely oblation as sacrifice.
§10Having given up greed, hate, and delusion,
with defilements ended, the spiritual journey completed:
that is where a brahmin seeking merit
should bestow a timely oblation as sacrifice.
§11Those in whom dwells no deceit or conceit,
with defilements ended, the spiritual journey completed:
that is where a brahmin seeking merit
should bestow a timely oblation as sacrifice.
§12Those rid of greed, unselfish, with no need for hope,
with defilements ended, the spiritual journey completed:
that is where a brahmin seeking merit
should bestow a timely oblation as sacrifice.
§13Those not fallen prey to cravings,
who, having crossed the flood, live unselfishly:
that is where a brahmin seeking merit
should bestow a timely offering as sacrifice.
§14Those with no craving at all in the world
for any state of existence in this life or the next:
that is where a brahmin seeking merit
should bestow a timely oblation as sacrifice.
§15Those who have left sensuality behind, wandering homeless,
self-controlled, straight as a shuttle:
that is where a brahmin seeking merit
should bestow a timely oblation as sacrifice.
§16Those freed of greed, with senses stilled,
like the moon released from the eclipse:
that is where a brahmin seeking merit
should bestow a timely oblation as sacrifice.
§17Those assuaged ones free of greed and anger,
for whom there are no destinies, being rid of them in this life:
that is where a brahmin seeking merit
should bestow a timely oblation as sacrifice.
§18They’ve given up rebirth and death completely,
and have gone beyond all indecision:
that is where a brahmin seeking merit
should bestow a timely oblation as sacrifice.
§19Those who live as their own island,
everywhere free, owning nothing:
that is where a brahmin seeking merit
should bestow a timely oblation as sacrifice.
§20Those here who know this to be true:
‘This is my last life, there are no future lives’:
that is where a brahmin seeking merit
should bestow a timely oblation as sacrifice.
§21A knowledge master, loving absorption, mindful,
who has reached awakening and is a refuge for many:
that is where a brahmin seeking merit
should bestow a timely offering as sacrifice.”
How to accomplish the sacrifice
§22“Clearly my questions were not in vain!”
said Māgha,
“The Buddha has explained to me who is worthy of donations.
You are the one here who knows this to be true,
for truly you understand this matter.
§23Suppose a lay donor who is committed to charity
makes a sacrifice seeking merit, looking for merit,
giving food and drink to others here:
explain to me how to accomplish the sacrifice.”
§24“Sacrifice, and while doing so,”
replied the Buddha,
“be clear and confident in every way.
Sacrifice is the ground standing upon which
the sacrificer sheds their flaws.
§25One free of greed, rid of anger,
developing a heart of limitless love,
spreads that limitlessness in every direction,
ever diligent day and night.”
Becoming like divinity
§26“Who is purified, freed, awake?
How can one go to the realm of divinity oneself?
I do not know, so please tell me when asked,
for the Buddha is the divinity I see in person today!
To us you are truly the equal of divinity.
Brilliant One, how is one reborn in the realm of divinity?”
§27“One who accomplishes the sacrifice with three modes,”
replied the Buddha,
“such a one would succeed due to those who are worthy of donations.
Sacrificing like this, one rightly committed to charity
is reborn in the realm of divinity, I say.”
A different kind of ending
§28When he had spoken, the student Māgha said to the Buddha, “Excellent, worthy Gotama! Excellent! … 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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