Puṇṇamāsa — The Book of the Ones · Chapter One · Poem 10 of 10
Setting
No narrative setting; a short verse closing Chapter One, with a closing attribution
Speaker
An unnamed voice describing Puṇṇamāsa
Form
One four-line verse and its attribution, followed in the Pali by an untranslated chapter colophon and mnemonic summary verse
Length
under 1 minute to read
Northern parallel
This reading guide does not assert a specific matching text for this poem in other Buddhist literatures.
Difficulty
★☆☆☆☆ — a compact closing portrait, plus a chapter's own structural close
Why this text
Puṇṇamāsa's verse closes Chapter One with a knowledge master — rid of concern for this world and the next, unsullied amid all things, knowing the arising and passing of the world. In the Pali text itself, this poem's attribution is followed by two structural elements Sujato left untranslated: a line marking ‘the first chapter is finished’, and a six-line mnemonic verse naming all ten monks of this chapter in sequence.
Reading guide
A knowledge master, unsullied amid all things
The verse itself describes someone rid of concern for ‘this world and the world beyond’, ‘unsullied in the midst of all things’, who knows ‘the arising and passing of the world’ — a description pitched at a wider scope than most of this chapter's more compact epithet-verses, closing on cosmic terms rather than a single image or a personal confession.
A chapter's own closing line, left untranslated
Immediately after this poem's attribution, the Pali text carries the phrase vaggo paṭhamo, ‘the first chapter is finished’ — a structural colophon Sujato's translation leaves untranslated, the same way Therīgātha's own closing colophon was left untranslated at the end of Thig 16.1.
A mnemonic verse naming all ten monks, also untranslated
After that chapter colophon, the Pali carries an uddāna — a six-line tabulation verse naming, in order, all ten monks whose verses make up this chapter: Subhūti, Koṭṭhika, Revata, Mantānīputta, Dabba, Sītavaniya, Bhalliya, Vīra, Pilindavaccha, and Puṇṇamāsa. This memorization aid, too, is absent from Sujato's translation, and does not appear as part of this page's text below.
A chapter's arc, briefly reviewed
Chapter One opened with the collection's own self-explanation and Subhūti's contented hut, moved through a run of third-person portraits drawing on an increasingly visible shared bank of formulaic phrases, returned briefly to the first person with Pilindavaccha, and closes here with a wider, more cosmic description — ten poems, and eleven more chapters still to come in the Book of the Ones alone.
Key terms
vedagū — “knowledge master” — the epithet opening this verse.
anūpalitta — “unsullied” — describing this knowledge master's state amid all things.
udayabbaya — “arising and passing” — a standard pair of terms for impermanence, named directly in this verse's closing line.
uddāna — a “tabulation” or mnemonic summary verse, appearing at the end of this chapter in the Pali but absent from Sujato's translation, naming all ten of its monks in sequence.
vaggo — “chapter” — the structural unit this poem closes, marked in the untranslated Pali colophon ‘vaggo paṭhamo’, ‘the first chapter is finished’.
The text
The text in full: one verse, with its closing attribution. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).
§1A knowledge master, peaceful and self-controlled, is rid of concern for this world and the world beyond. Unsullied in the midst of all things, they’d know the arising and passing of the world.
§2That is how this verse was recited by the senior venerable Puṇṇamāsa.
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Self-check quiz
Ten questions. Click an answer to see immediate feedback. No score is recorded — this is for your own checking.
Question 1 of 10
What does this verse call Puṇṇamāsa?
Correct: A. The verse's opening epithet.
Question 2 of 10
What is Puṇṇamāsa said to be rid of concern for?
Correct: B. Named directly in the verse's second line.
Question 3 of 10
What Pali phrase, left untranslated by Sujato, immediately follows this poem's attribution?
Correct: C. A structural colophon marking the end of Chapter One.
Question 4 of 10
What does the untranslated uddāna after that colophon do?
Correct: D. A traditional tabulation verse, absent from the translation and from this page's text.
Question 5 of 10
How does this verse's scope compare to several more compact epithet-verses earlier in the chapter?
Correct: C. A broader closing note for the chapter's final poem.
Question 6 of 10
What does 'udayabbaya' mean?
Correct: A. A standard pair of terms for impermanence.
Question 7 of 10
How many monks' verses make up Chapter One in total?
Correct: B. Subhūti through Puṇṇamāsa, named in sequence in the untranslated uddāna.
Question 8 of 10
Where else in this reading guide's series does a similar untranslated closing colophon appear?
Correct: B. The same pattern of an untranslated structural colophon.
Question 9 of 10
Does this page's text include the uddāna naming all ten monks?
Correct: C. Consistent with how this site handles untranslated structural material.
Question 10 of 10
How many more chapters remain in the Book of the Ones after this one?
Correct: D. Twelve chapters in total make up the Book of the Ones.
