Ātuma — The Book of the Ones · Chapter Eight · Poem 2 of 10
Setting
A moment of departure: asking for release from an arranged marriage
Speaker
Ātuma, in the first person
Form
One four-line verse, built on a single simile
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
★★☆☆☆ — plain vocabulary, one clear image
Why this text
Where the chapter's opening poem was an impersonal teaching, this one is sharply personal: Ātuma compares his marriage — arranged for him, not chosen — to a young bamboo shoot that was easy to pull up when small but is now ‘hard to extract’ once grown woody and branching. He asks for release. It is the first verse anywhere in this collection so far to name a wife at all.
Reading guide
A bamboo shoot, grown too woody to pull
The verse's entire force rests on one image: a bamboo shoot (kaḷīra) is simple to pull up while young, but once it has grown tall and put out side-branches (pasākhajāto), it becomes ‘hard to extract’ (dunnikkhamo). Ātuma applies this directly to his own marriage — not a marriage he chose, but one ‘arranged for him’ (bhariyāya ānitāya) — which has grown just as entangling.
The collection's first named wife
Across the seventy-one poems already covered in this collection, no verse has named a wife until this one. Domestic renunciation has appeared before in general terms — leaving household life, giving up sensual pleasures — but this is the first time the specific relationship being left is spelled out as a marriage, and an arranged one at that.
A request, spoken after the fact
The verse's closing line is grammatically unusual: ‘give me permission’ (anumaññaṁ maṁ) sits beside ‘now I've gone forth’ (pabbajitomhi), a present-perfect form describing an already-completed act. Read plainly, Ātuma is asking for consent to something he has, in the same breath, already done. This reading guide does not resolve who the request is addressed to — the verse itself does not say — only notes the unusual timing: permission sought at, or just after, the moment of departure, not before it.
Two opening poems, two registers
Chapter Eight opens by juxtaposing genres: Vacchapāla's verse (Thag 1.71) is an impersonal teaching about a type of person, entirely free of narrative detail; Ātuma's verse, immediately after, is the opposite — a single concrete image drawn from one man's own domestic life. The chapter's first two poems could hardly be more different in kind.
Key terms
kaḷīra — “bamboo shoot” — the verse's central image, easy to pull when young.
dunnikkhama — “hard to extract, hard to pull out” — describing the bamboo once grown woody and branching.
pasākhajāta — “having put out side-branches” — the stage at which the shoot becomes hard to remove.
bhariyā — “wife” — named here for the first time in this collection.
pabbajita — “one who has gone forth”, i.e. ordained — here in a present-perfect form describing an act already completed.
The text
The text in full: one verse, with no separate attribution line in this chapter. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).
§1A young bamboo is hard to extract when the point is grown and become all woody. That’s how I feel with the wife who was arranged for me. Give me permission—now I’ve gone forth.
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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 image does this verse use for the speaker's marriage?
Correct: A. The verse's single governing simile.
Question 2 of 10
What is named for the first time anywhere in this collection in this verse?
Correct: D. No prior verse in the collection has named a wife.
Question 3 of 10
According to the verse, was this marriage chosen by the speaker?
Correct: A. Bhariyāya ānitāya, 'the wife who was arranged/brought for me'.
Question 4 of 10
What does 'dunnikkhama' mean?
Correct: C. Describing the bamboo once it has grown branches.
Question 5 of 10
What grammatical oddity does this reading guide point out in the verse's closing line?
Correct: D. Anumaññaṁ maṁ ('give me permission') beside pabbajitomhi ('I have gone forth').
Question 6 of 10
Does this reading guide identify who Ātuma's request for permission is addressed to?
Correct: B. The addressee is left open by the text.
Question 7 of 10
How does this poem's register compare to Thag 1.71, the poem immediately before it?
Correct: A. The chapter's first two poems contrast sharply in kind.
Question 8 of 10
What does 'pasākhajāta' describe?
Correct: C. The stage of growth at which the bamboo becomes hard to remove.
Question 9 of 10
Where does this poem fall in the Theragātha?
Correct: D. Immediately after Vacchapāla's verse, which opens the chapter.
Question 10 of 10
What kind of verse is this, according to this reading guide?
Correct: B. One image, drawn from lived experience, not an abstract teaching.
