Kaṅkhārevata — The Book of the Ones · Chapter One · Poem 3 of 10
Setting
No narrative setting; a short verse with a closing attribution
Speaker
Revata the Doubter, praising the wisdom of the Realized Ones in general terms
Form
One four-line verse, with a closing attribution note
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 single fire simile, praising wisdom that dispels doubt
Why this text
Revata's own epithet, ‘the Doubter’, carries the word kaṅkhā, ‘doubt’, built directly into his name — yet his one surviving verse is not about his own doubt at all. It praises the wisdom of the Realized Ones as a fire blazing in the night, giving light and vision, that ‘dispels the doubt of those who've come’.
Reading guide
A name built from doubt, a verse built from its opposite
‘Kaṅkhārevata’, rendered here as ‘Revata the Doubter’, carries kaṅkhā (‘doubt’) directly in his name. His verse never mentions his own doubt; instead, it describes exactly the wisdom capable of dispelling it in others — a quiet resonance between a name and the content of the one verse attached to it.
Fire, light, and vision as a single image
The verse's simile is entirely visual: wisdom is a fire blazing in the night, and its effect is described in two matched phrases, ‘giving light, giving vision’ — not just illumination in the abstract, but the specific gift of being able to see.
Praise pitched at the plural, not the personal
Where Mahākoṭṭhita's verse just before this one described one man, this verse speaks of ‘the Realized Ones’ as a class and of ‘those who dispel the doubt of those who've come’ in the plural — general praise of wisdom itself, rather than an account of any one person's experience of receiving it.
Key terms
kaṅkhā — “doubt” — built into Revata's own epithet, though absent from the content of his verse itself.
Tathāgata — “Realized One”, an epithet for the Buddha (and, here, by extension those who share his realization) — whose wisdom this verse praises.
āloka — “light” — the first of two effects this verse credits to that wisdom.
cakkhu — “eye” or “vision” — the second effect, paired directly with light in the same line.
vinayanti — “they dispel” or “they remove” — sharing a root with Vinaya, the monastic code, though used here simply to mean the removal of doubt.
The text
The text in full: one verse, with its closing attribution. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).
§1See this wisdom of the Realized Ones! Like a fire blazing in the night, giving light, giving vision, they dispel the doubt of those who’ve come.
§2That is how this verse was recited by the senior venerable Revata the Doubter.
· · ·
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 the word 'kaṅkhā', built into Revata's own name, mean?
Correct: B. The very word his epithet, 'the Doubter', is built from.
Question 2 of 10
Does Revata's verse describe his own doubt directly?
Correct: D. A quiet resonance rather than a direct personal account.
Question 3 of 10
What simile does the verse use for the wisdom of the Realized Ones?
Correct: A. Central image of the verse's second line.
Question 4 of 10
What two effects does this fire-wisdom give, according to the verse?
Correct: C. Named in a matched pair in the verse's third line.
Question 5 of 10
Whose doubt does this wisdom dispel, according to the verse?
Correct: B. Framed generally, not as a single personal episode.
Question 6 of 10
Is this verse addressed to one person's experience, or framed more generally?
Correct: C. Plural praise, not a personal narrative.
Question 7 of 10
What does 'Tathāgata' mean, as used in this verse?
Correct: B. The subject whose wisdom the verse praises.
Question 8 of 10
What root does 'vinayanti' ('they dispel') share with a familiar Buddhist term?
Correct: D. A shared root, though used here for dispelling doubt rather than for monastic rules.
Question 9 of 10
How is Revata's verse similar to Mahākoṭṭhita's verse just before it?
Correct: D. Both poems in this chapter praise rather than declare.
Question 10 of 10
What closes this verse?
Correct: A. The same closing formula used across the collection.
