Reading guide
A name that is also the poem's entire subject
Ekavihāriya — ‘one who dwells alone’ — names both the elder and the whole content of his verse. Every one of the ten verses returns to solitude: dwelling alone, going alone, walking alone, bathing alone. Few names in this collection map this directly onto the entirety of their own poem's content.
A future tense, then a fulfilled one
Most of the poem is voiced as intention or wish — ‘I'll go alone’, ‘I'll quickly enter’, ‘I'll bathe my limbs’, ‘when will I dwell alone... my task complete’ — before the closing verse shifts to accomplished fact: ‘I've got all I wished for... with the utter ending of all defilements, now there'll be no more future lives.’ The poem's own grammar tracks its speaker's journey from aspiration to arrival.
Solitude as this collection's recurring theme, returning
This poem's insistence on solitary forest dwelling echoes this site's own Thag 9.1 (Bhūta), whose entire book-length poem alternated doctrine with nature scenes under an identical refrain, and the ‘alone like a rhinoceros horn’ epithet that closing uddāna gave him, itself invoking this site's own Snp 1.3, The Horned Rhino. Solitude recurs here not as a single poem's theme but as a thread running across consecutive books.
Armor, splitting, and other combative images
Despite its peaceful subject, the poem's language turns occasionally martial: ‘fastening my armor, I'll enter the forest’, ‘I'll split ignorance apart’. Solitude here isn't passive withdrawal but an active undertaking, framed with the vocabulary of battle even as its setting remains a quiet grove.
A moon simile for a completed wish
The closing verse's image — ‘I've got all I wished for, like the moon on the fifteenth day’ — describes the full moon, marking completion and wholeness rather than any waxing or waning phase, an apt closing image for a poem organized entirely around a single wish finally fulfilled.
Key terms
The text
§1If no-one else is found before or behind, it’s extremely pleasant to be dwelling alone in a forest grove.
§2Come now, I’ll go alone to the wilderness praised by the Buddha. It’s pleasant for a mendicant to be dwelling alone and resolute.
§3Alone and self-disciplined, I’ll quickly enter the delightful forest, which gives joy to meditators, and is frequented by rutting elephants.
§4In the Cool Grove, so full of flowers, in a cool mountain cave, I’ll bathe my limbs and walk mindfully alone.
§5When will I dwell alone, without a companion, in the great wood, so delightful, my task complete, free of defilements?
§6This is what I want to do: may my wish succeed! I’ll make it happen myself, for no-one can do another’s duty.
§7Fastening my armor, I’ll enter the forest. I won’t leave without attaining the end of defilements.
§8As the cool gale blows with fragrant scent, I’ll split ignorance apart, sitting on the mountain-peak.
§9In a forest grove covered with blossoms, in a cave so very cool, I take pleasure in the Mountainfold, happy with the happiness of freedom.
§10I’ve got all I wished for like the moon on the fifteenth day. With the utter ending of all defilements, now there’ll be no more future lives.
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