Vijaya — The Book of the Ones · Chapter Ten · Poem 2 of 10
Setting
No narrative setting; a general portrait of the arahant, in the third person
Speaker
An unnamed voice describing a person who has ended defilement
Form
One six-line verse, closing on a 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 memorable image
Why this text
This verse describes someone whose defilements have ended, unattached to food, ranging in the liberation of the signless and the empty — and closes: ‘their track is hard to trace, like birds in the sky’. Every line of it is word for word identical to Dhammapada verse 93, already complete on this site.
Reading guide
A verse shared word for word with the Dhammapada, again
Compared directly against this site's own Dhammapada pages, all six lines of this verse match Dhp 93 exactly — the same Pali, the same English translation, start to finish. This is the third connection this reading guide has found between this collection and the Dhammapada (after Dhp 326 at Thag 1.77 and Dhp 153 at Thag 1.78), and the most complete of the three: not a shared opening or a single matching quatrain, but the entire verse, word for word.
A twin already noted on this site
Dhp 93 doesn't stand alone in the Dhammapada either: this site's own reading guide for Dhp 92–93 (in Dhp 7, the Arahantavagga) already describes them as a ‘striking case of near-repetition’, sharing their final four lines while differing in their opening couplet — Dhp 92 speaks of ‘those’ (plural) who have nothing stored up, Dhp 93 (and this verse) of ‘one whose defilements have ended’ (singular). This Theragātha verse specifically matches the singular member of that existing Dhammapada pair.
Birds leaving no trace in the sky
The closing image — a track as hard to follow as a bird's path through open air — needs no unpacking: someone who has let go of accumulation leaves nothing behind for anyone to trace. The verse names two of the three traditional ‘doors to liberation’ — suññata (‘the empty’) and animitta (‘the signless’) — without naming the third, appaṇihita (‘the undirected’).
Key terms
āsava — “defilement, taint” — what this verse says has ‘ended’ in the person it describes.
anissita — “not attached, not dependent” — describing this person's relationship to food.
suññata — “the empty” — one of two liberations named in this verse, out of the traditional three.
animitta — “the signless” — the second of the two liberations this verse names.
durannaya — “hard to trace, hard to follow” — the verse's closing description of this person's track.
The text
The text in full: one verse, with no separate attribution line in this chapter. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).
§1One whose defilements have ended; who’s not attached to food; whose range is the liberation of the signless and the empty: their track is hard to trace, like birds in the sky.
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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: D. Confirmed by direct comparison with this site's own Dhammapada pages.
Question 2 of 10
How complete is this match, compared to the two earlier Dhammapada connections found in this collection (Thag 1.77 and Thag 1.78)?
Correct: D. Unlike the shared opening (Thag 1.78) or the single matching quatrain (Thag 1.77), this is a full match.
Question 3 of 10
What does this site's own Dhammapada guide (Dhp 7) already say about Dhp 92 and Dhp 93?
Correct: B. Already documented as a matched pair before this Theragātha connection was found.
Question 4 of 10
Which of the two Dhammapada twin verses does this Theragātha verse match?
Correct: A. Dhp 93 speaks of 'one whose defilements have ended', matching this verse's opening.
Question 5 of 10
What image does this verse close on?
Correct: C. Ākāseva sakuntānaṁ, padaṁ tassa durannayaṁ, the verse's closing simile.
Question 6 of 10
How many of the traditional three 'doors to liberation' does this verse name?
Correct: B. The verse omits the third, appaṇihita ('the undirected').
Question 7 of 10
What does 'āsava' mean?
Correct: A. What this verse says has ended in the person it describes.
Question 8 of 10
What does 'anissita' mean?
Correct: A. Describing this person's relationship to food.
Question 9 of 10
Is this verse first-person testimony or a third-person description?
Correct: C. Yassa ('of whom'), describing someone rather than declaring the speaker's own state.
Question 10 of 10
Where does this poem fall in Chapter Ten?
Correct: D. Immediately after Paripuṇṇaka's verse.
