Hatthārohaputta — The Book of the Ones · Chapter Eight · Poem 7 of 10
Setting
A retrospective account of disciplining a formerly wayward mind
Speaker
Hatthārohaputta, 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 vivid image
Why this text
Hatthārohaputta compares his formerly wayward mind, which ‘wandered how it wished, where it liked, as it pleased’, to a rutting elephant now to be guided with a trainer's hook. The verse is word for word identical, in both Pali and Sujato's English, to Dhammapada verse 326 in the Nāgavagga (‘Elephants’) chapter, already complete on this site — a genuine shared verse between the two collections, not merely a similar image.
Reading guide
A verse shared word for word with the Dhammapada
Compared directly against this site's own Dhammapada pages, this verse's four lines match Dhp 326 exactly — the same Pali, segment by segment, and the same English translation. Dhp 326 sits in the Nāgavagga, the Dhammapada's ‘Elephants’ chapter, among several other verses built on taming and elephant imagery. This is the clearest verbatim match this reading guide has found between the Theragātha and the Dhammapada: not an echo or a shared phrase, but the same verse appearing in two independent collections, attributed here to a named elder.
A name that supplies its own simile
Hatthārohaputta's name reads literally as hatthāroha (‘elephant-rider, mahout’) plus putta (‘son’) — ‘son of an elephant-rider’. Where other names in this collection have echoed a verse's specific wording or a narrated deed, this one works differently: it supplies the family trade that the verse's own central image draws from. A son raised around elephant-training reaches, naturally enough, for an elephant-training simile when describing how he now disciplines his mind.
Not any elephant, but one in must
The verse's simile is more specific than a generic ‘elephant’: hatthippabhinna describes an elephant in rut, or musth — a periodic state of heightened aggression and unpredictability in bull elephants, requiring a trainer's most careful handling. The image is not simply of size or strength but of a mind at its most dangerously unruly, guided all the same by a hook (aṅkusa) in a skilled hand.
Key terms
hatthāroha — “elephant-rider, mahout” — the trade this monk's name identifies as belonging to his father.
hatthippabhinna — “a rutting elephant”, literally one “whose temples have burst” — describing the heightened, dangerous state of musth.
aṅkusa — “hook, goad” — the tool a mahout uses to guide even an elephant in this state.
niggahessāmi — “I will restrain, I will guide” — a future-tense verb, describing a resolve rather than a completed act.
Nāgavagga — “Elephants”, the Dhammapada chapter (verses 320–333) containing Dhp 326, identical to this verse.
The text
The text in full: one verse, with no separate attribution line in this chapter. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).
§1In the past my mind wandered how it wished, where it liked, as it pleased. Now I’ll carefully guide it, as a trainer with a hook guides a rutting elephant.
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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 earlier-completed collection on this site contains a verse identical, word for word, to this one?
Correct: B. Confirmed by direct comparison with this site's own Dhammapada pages.
Question 2 of 10
What does 'hatthippabhinna' specifically describe?
Correct: A. Not merely any elephant, but one at its most unruly.
Question 3 of 10
What does the name Hatthārohaputta literally mean?
Correct: C. Hatthāroha ('mahout') plus putta ('son').
Question 4 of 10
How does this reading guide describe the connection between this name and the verse, compared to other name/verse connections in this collection?
Correct: A. A different kind of name/verse connection than the collection's earlier examples.
Question 5 of 10
What tool does the verse say a trainer uses to guide a rutting elephant?
Correct: D. Aṅkusaggaho, 'one who holds the hook'.
Question 6 of 10
What tense does 'niggahessāmi' use?
Correct: C. 'I will restrain/guide', not a completed act.
Question 7 of 10
According to the verse, how did the speaker's mind behave in the past?
Correct: D. Idaṁ pure cittamacāri cārikaṁ, the verse's opening line.
Question 8 of 10
Where does Dhp 326, the Dhammapada parallel to this verse, appear?
Correct: A. Among several other elephant-taming verses.
Question 9 of 10
Is the Pali wording of the Dhammapada parallel identical to this Theragātha verse, or only similar in theme?
Correct: C. A genuine verbatim match, not merely a shared image.
Question 10 of 10
What image does the verse use to describe the disciplined mind?
