Khaṇḍasumana — The Book of the Ones · Chapter Ten · Poem 6 of 10
Setting
A retrospective account spanning an immense cosmic timescale
Speaker
Khaṇḍasumana, in the first person
Form
One four-line verse, treating merit as a resource that gets spent
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 striking number
Why this text
Khaṇḍasumana offered a single flower, then spent eighty koṭi — eight hundred million — years enjoying the heavens; with what was left over of that offering's result, he says, he has become quenched. It is the most concrete large number named anywhere in this collection so far.
Reading guide
One flower, eight hundred million years
Asīti vassakoṭiyo, ‘eighty koṭi years’ — koṭi being a standard large-number unit in Indian counting, ten million — gives a specific figure where most of this collection's verses speak only in general terms of ‘countless rebirths’ or ‘many lifetimes’. The disproportion is the point: a single flower (ekapuppha), and eight hundred million years of heavenly enjoyment as its result.
Merit as a resource, spent to the end
Sesakenamhi nibbuto, ‘with what's left over I've become quenched’, treats the offering's result almost like a store of currency: eight hundred million years of heavenly life drew down most of it, and the remainder was still enough to carry Khaṇḍasumana to final liberation in this life. This economic framing — merit as something spent rather than a cause simply ripening — is distinctive among this collection's many descriptions of how liberation was reached.
A name that matches its own gift
Khaṇḍasumana likely reads as khaṇḍa (‘piece, fragment’) plus sumana, which can mean either ‘good-minded’ or, as a flower name, ‘sumanā’ (jasmine) — giving ‘a piece of a jasmine flower’ as a plausible reading. Set against a verse entirely about offering ‘a single flower’, the name and the verse's own content align, unlike the previous poem in this chapter (Thag 1.95, Cakkhupāla), where they stood in contrast.
Key terms
ekapuppha — “a single flower” — eka (‘one’) plus puppha (‘flower’), the verse's opening offering.
koṭi — a standard large-number unit in Indian counting, equal to ten million.
paricāreti — “amuses oneself, enjoys” — the verb describing the heavenly enjoyment this offering produced.
sesaka — “remainder, what's left over” — what the verse says finally carried Khaṇḍasumana to quenching.
Khaṇḍasumana — possibly “a piece of a jasmine flower” — khaṇḍa (‘piece’) plus sumana (a flower name).
The text
The text in full: one verse, with no separate attribution line in this chapter. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).
§1I offered a single flower and then amused myself in heavens for 800 million years; with what’s left over I’ve become quenched.
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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 did the speaker offer, according to this verse?
Correct: A. Ekapuppham cajitvāna, the verse's opening act.
Question 2 of 10
How many years does the verse say this offering's result was enjoyed in the heavens?
Correct: C. Asīti vassakoṭiyo, 'eighty koṭi', eighty times ten million.
Question 3 of 10
What does 'koṭi' mean as a number?
Correct: D. A standard large-number unit in Indian counting.
Question 4 of 10
How does this verse describe the offering's result being used up?
Correct: A. An economic framing of merit, distinctive among this collection's verses.
Question 5 of 10
What finally carried the speaker to quenching, according to the verse?
Correct: B. Sesakenamhi nibbuto, 'with what's left over I've become quenched'.
Question 6 of 10
What does the name Khaṇḍasumana possibly mean?
Correct: A. Khaṇḍa ('piece') plus sumana (a flower name).
Question 7 of 10
How does this reading guide relate this name to this verse's content?
Correct: B. Unlike Cakkhupāla, the poem immediately before this one, whose name contrasted with its own verse.
Question 8 of 10
What does 'paricāreti' mean?
Correct: D. Describing the heavenly enjoyment this offering produced.
Question 9 of 10
What is unusual about this verse's number, compared to most other verses in this collection?
Correct: D. The most concrete large number named anywhere in this collection so far.
