Māṇava — The Book of the Ones · Chapter Eight · Poem 3 of 10
Setting
A retrospective account of what triggered the speaker's going forth
Speaker
Māṇava, in the first person, looking back on a completed decision
Form
One four-line verse, a single plain narrative
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, direct vocabulary throughout
Why this text
Māṇava gives the plainest possible account of a monastic conversion: seeing an old person, someone sick, and a corpse, he went forth, giving up sensual pleasure. No riddle, no dialogue, no simile carries the weight here — only the bare sequence of sights and the decision that followed.
Reading guide
Three sights, without a fourth
The verse names exactly three sights: an old person, someone ‘suffering from disease’, and ‘a corpse come to the end of life’. Readers familiar with the traditional story of the Buddha's own renunciation — encountering old age, sickness, death, and finally a renunciant, before leaving the palace — may recognize the first three of those four sights here. This reading guide does not assert that the verse itself alludes to that story; it notes only the well-known parallel in outline, as background, not as a claim this text makes.
A name that is also a common word
Māṇava is not, on its face, a distinctive personal name — the word literally means ‘young man’ or ‘young brahmin student’, and is used throughout the wider canon as an ordinary common noun as often as a proper name. Whether this particular elder had another name and was known by this generic title, or whether Māṇava was simply his name, is not something this verse or this reading guide can settle.
A settled retrospective, not a live plea
The verse's closing verb, pabbajiṁ (‘I went forth’), is a simple past form describing a completed act, told from a position of settled hindsight. This is a notably calmer grammar than the poem immediately before it, Thag 1.72, where Ātuma's verse mixed an already-completed going-forth with a present-tense request for permission. Side by side, the two verses show two different grammatical postures toward the same kind of event.
Key terms
jiṇṇa — “old, aged” — the first of the three sights named in this verse.
byādhita — “suffering from disease, sick” — the second of the three sights.
mata — “dead”, here as ‘a corpse come to the end of life’ — the third of the three sights.
pabbajiṁ — “I went forth” — a simple past (aorist) form, describing the act as already completed.
Māṇava — “young man” or “young brahmin student” — a generic term used across the wider canon as often as a proper name.
The text
The text in full: one verse, with no separate attribution line in this chapter. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).
§1Seeing an old person, and one suffering from disease, and a corpse come to the end of life, I went forth, becoming a wanderer, and giving up the pleasures of the senses.
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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 three things does the speaker say he saw that led him to go forth?
Correct: A. The verse's plain, three-part list of sights.
Question 2 of 10
What does this verse's final line explicitly give up?
Correct: B. Pahāya kāmāni manoramāni, 'giving up the pleasures of the senses'.
Question 3 of 10
What well-known story does this reading guide note as background, without asserting the verse alludes to it?
Correct: C. Old age, sickness, death, and a renunciant — the traditional four.
Question 4 of 10
How many of the traditional 'four sights' does this verse's account include?
Correct: D. The verse stops short of the fourth sight in the traditional story.
Question 5 of 10
What does the name Māṇava literally mean?
Correct: A. A generic term used across the wider canon.
Question 6 of 10
Is 'Māṇava' treated in this reading guide as a distinctive personal name or a generic term?
Correct: B. This reading guide does not settle whether it was his only name.
Question 7 of 10
What Pali verb form does the verse use for 'I went forth'?
Correct: C. Told from a position of settled hindsight.
Question 8 of 10
How does this poem's grammar differ from Thag 1.72, the poem before it?
Correct: D. Two different grammatical postures toward a similar kind of event.
Question 9 of 10
What does 'kāmāni manoramāni' mean?
Correct: A. What the speaker gives up at the close of the verse.
Question 10 of 10
What kind of verse is this, according to this reading guide?
Correct: B. The bare sequence of sights and the decision that followed.
