Bhaddaji — The Book of the Twos · Chapter Three · Poem 2 of 10
Setting
A vision of a legendary king's court, recalled from a distant past life
Speaker
Bhaddaji, describing what he recollects
Form
Two four-line verses, without a translated attribution, entirely descriptive
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
★★☆☆☆ — vivid, fantastical imagery, with no doctrinal statement attached
Why this text
Bhaddaji describes, in fantastic detail, a golden sacrificial post belonging to a legendary king named Panāda — sixteen times taller than it was wide, with a thousand panels, a hundred ball-caps, and centaurs dancing by the thousands — without ever stating outright that this is a memory.
Reading guide
A king's golden monument, described in numbers
The poem is built almost entirely from numbers: a height sixteen times the width, a thousand panels, a hundred ball-caps, forty-two thousand dancing centaurs (six thousand, seven times over). The effect piles up scale rather than narrating an event — a vision rendered as an inventory.
No explicit frame, but a natural context
Nothing in this poem itself states that this is a recollected past life, but its position immediately before Thag 2.23 (Sobhita), whose verse states plainly ‘I recollected five hundred eons in a single night’, supplies the natural context: this vivid, specific vision most plausibly belongs to the same faculty of memory the next poem names directly.
Gold, cross-checked against an outside source
Sujato's own comment on this poem's ‘harita’ (here translated ‘sun gold’) notes that this same word for gold is attested outside the Buddhist canon, at Atharvaveda 11.2.12a — a small piece of shared vocabulary between early Buddhist and Vedic literature.
A legendary king, without further identification
This site has no other page discussing a king named Panāda, and this guide does not assert an identification with any particular commentarial legend; the poem itself supplies no further narrative context beyond the monument's own fantastic scale.
Key terms
yūpo — “sacrificial post” — the central object of this poem's vision, belonging to King Panāda.
harita — “sun gold” — a word for gold also attested in the Atharvaveda, per Sujato's own comment.
gandhabbā — “centaurs” — celestial musician-dancer figures, described dancing by the thousands around the monument.
ubbhamāhu sahassadhā — “the top was a thousandfold” — part of the poem's inventory of the post's fantastic scale.
satageṇḍu — “a hundred ball-caps” — another item in the same numerical inventory.
The text
The text in full: two verses, without a translated attribution. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).
§1There was a king named Panāda who had a sacrificial post all golden. Its height was sixteen times its width, and the top was a thousandfold.
§2It had a thousand panels and a hundred ball-caps, all adorned with banners, and made of sun gold. There danced the centaurs, numbering seven times six thousand.
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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 object does this poem describe?
Correct: C. A fantastic monument, described in numbers.
Question 2 of 10
How is the post's height described, relative to its width?
Correct: D. One of several numerical details piling up the post's scale.
Question 3 of 10
How many centaurs are said to dance there?
Correct: C. A striking, specific number closing the poem.
Question 4 of 10
Does this poem explicitly state that this vision is a recollected past life?
Correct: C. An inference from context, not a stated claim within the poem itself.
Question 5 of 10
What does Sujato's comment note about 'harita', the word for gold used here?
Correct: D. A cross-reference to Vedic literature outside the Buddhist canon.
Question 6 of 10
Does this guide identify King Panāda with a specific commentarial legend?
Correct: B. An honest gap, left open rather than filled with unconfirmed legend.
Question 7 of 10
What does 'gandhabbā' mean?
Correct: A. The figures described dancing around the golden post.
Question 8 of 10
What is the overall style of this poem?
Correct: B. Pure description, unlike the declarative register common elsewhere in this book.
Question 9 of 10
What does 'yūpo' mean?
Correct: A. The central object of this poem's vision.
Question 10 of 10
Where does this poem fall in Chapter Three?
Correct: B. Following Uttara (2nd), the chapter's opener.
