Bhāradvāja — The Book of the Twos · Chapter One · Poem 2 of 10
Setting
No narrative setting; two four-line verses with a closing attribution
Speaker
Bhāradvāja the Alms-Gatherer (Piṇḍola Bhāradvāja), on the danger of honor
Form
Two four-line verses and their attribution
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
★★☆☆☆ — two compact images, swamp and dart, packed into a short space
Why this text
Bhāradvāja opens by rejecting an extreme — you can't live by fasting alone, though food itself doesn't bring peace of heart — then turns to a sharper danger than hunger: the veneration he receives in respectable households, which he calls a swamp, and a subtle dart, hard for a lesser person to give up.
Reading guide
Neither fasting nor food itself is the point
The verse opens by denying that starving oneself is a viable path — ‘you can't live by fasting’ — but immediately denies the opposite too: food doesn't lead to peace of heart either. Seeing how this ‘bag of bones’ depends on food, he wanders on, still seeking, rather than resting in either extreme.
Honor as a swamp, a dart hard to extract
The second verse turns from food to something more insidious: the homage and veneration he receives ‘in respectable families’. He names it a swamp (paṅka) that ‘they’ recognize as such, then sharpens the image further — honor is a subtle dart, hard to extract, and hard for a reprobate to give up. Two images in four lines, moving from mire to a barbed point lodged under the skin.
Still wandering, not yet arrived
Unlike many Book of the Ones verses that speak from already having reached the goal, this poem's first verse ends mid-motion — ‘I wander, seeking’ — a present-tense, still-in-process voice rather than a retrospective declaration of attainment.
The same monk, silent elsewhere on this site
This site's Udāna collection includes Ud 4.6, ‘The Alms-Gatherer’, where the Buddha watches this same Piṇḍola Bhāradvāja sit in disciplined silence and distills what he sees into six lines summarizing monastic training as a whole — there, the Buddha speaks and Bhāradvāja says nothing; here, Bhāradvāja speaks for himself about a danger the Buddha's silent portrait doesn't address directly.
Key terms
anaya — “wrong method” or ruinous course — what this verse says life can't be sustained by, opening with fasting as an example.
esā — “seeking” — the verb closing the first verse, describing Bhāradvāja's own ongoing search rather than a completed attainment.
paṅka — “swamp” or “mire” — what Bhāradvāja calls the homage and veneration he receives in respectable households.
sallaṁ — “dart” or “arrow” — the second image for honor, ‘subtle’ and ‘hard to extract’.
kāpurisa — “lesser person” or “reprobate” — who the verse says finds honor hardest of all to give up.
The text
The text in full: two verses and the closing attribution. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).
§1You can’t live by fasting, but food doesn’t lead to peace of heart. Seeing how this bag of bones is sustained by food, I wander, seeking.
§2They know it’s just a swamp, this homage and veneration in respectable families. Honor is a subtle dart, hard to extract, and hard for a reprobate to give up.
§3That is how these verses were recited by the senior venerable Bhāradvāja the Alms-Gatherer.
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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 does the first verse say about living by fasting?
Correct: B. Both extremes are denied in the same breath.
Question 2 of 10
What does Bhāradvāja say prompts him to 'wander, seeking'?
Correct: D. A plain observation about the body's dependence on food.
Question 3 of 10
What does the second verse call the homage and veneration Bhāradvāja receives?
Correct: C. Paṅka — mire that 'they' recognize as such.
Question 4 of 10
What second image does the verse use for honor?
Correct: A. Sharpening the swamp image into something barbed.
Question 5 of 10
Who does the verse say finds honor hardest to give up?
Correct: D. The verse's closing claim about honor's grip.
Question 6 of 10
Where else on this site does Piṇḍola Bhāradvāja appear?
Correct: C. A cross-collection connection to an already-translated Udāna.
Question 7 of 10
How does Bhāradvāja's own voice in this poem compare to the Buddha's silent portrait of him in Ud 4.6?
Correct: C. Two different postures toward the same figure, across two collections.
Question 8 of 10
What does 'paṅka' mean?
Correct: A. The first of two images this verse uses for honor's danger.
Question 9 of 10
Does this poem's first verse speak from a position of already having attained the goal?
Correct: B. A present-tense, still-in-process voice, unlike many retrospective Book of the Ones verses.
Question 10 of 10
What does 'kāpurisa' mean?
Correct: D. Who the verse says finds honor hardest to relinquish.
