Hārita (2nd) — The Book of the Threes · Chapter One · Poem 15 of 16
Setting
General teaching, not autobiography, without a translated attribution
Speaker
Hārita (2nd), credited with a poem identical to another elder's
Form
Three four-line verses, word for word identical to Thag 3.3
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; the interest here is structural
Why this text
This poem's three verses — on procrastination, on saying only what one will do, and on the bliss of extinguishment — are word for word identical to Thag 3.3, credited there to Bākula. This is the most complete duplication this reading guide has found anywhere on this site: not a shared line, not a shared couplet, but all twelve lines, attributed to two different named elders.
Reading guide
Every line, matching another poem exactly
Verse for verse, word for word, this poem's Pali is identical to Thag 3.3: the same warning against procrastination, the same rule about saying only what one will do, the same declaration of extinguishment as ‘sorrowless, stainless, secure’. This collection has found many partial echoes — shared openings, shared closings, shared single lines — but never before a complete poem repeated in full under a second name.
Two names, one text, no explanation offered
Neither this poem nor Thag 3.3 carries a surviving comment addressing the duplication. This reading guide does not know why the same twelve lines were preserved under both Bākula's name and Hārita's — whether one poet borrowed consciously from the other, whether both drew on a shared stock of teaching verses circulating independently of any single author, or whether the transmission itself duplicated the attribution by accident. The text offers no signal either way, and this reading guide does not guess beyond what the text supports.
Closing a second same-name chain in this book
This poem also completes this collection's Hārita chain: Hārita (1st), at Thag 1.29 in the Book of the Ones, commands himself by name to straighten his mind like a fletcher straightens an arrow. The two Hāritas share nothing but a name — this poem's content belongs entirely to the duplicate teaching it shares with Bākula, not to any theme carried over from the first Hārita.
Key terms
karaṇīyāni — “what should be done” — identical to Thag 3.3's opening term.
akarontaṁ bhāsamānaṁ — “one who talks without doing” — who the wise are said to recognize, matching Thag 3.3 exactly.
nibbānaṁ — “extinguishment” — declared sorrowless, stainless, and secure, in lines identical to Thag 3.3's closing verse.
sammāsambuddhadesitaṁ — “as taught by the fully awakened Buddha” — crediting the same source as Thag 3.3.
yattha dukkhaṁ nirujjhati — “where suffering all ceases” — the poem's final line, matching Thag 3.3 word for word.
The text
The text in full: three verses, with no separate attribution line in this chapter, and identical throughout to Thag 3.3. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).
§1Whoever wishes to do afterwards tasks they should have done before has lost the causes for happiness, and afterwards they’re tormented by regrets.
§2You should only say what you would do; you shouldn’t say what you wouldn’t do. The wise will recognize one who talks without doing.
§3Oh! Extinguishment is so very blissful, as taught by the fully awakened Buddha: sorrowless, stainless, secure, where suffering all ceases.
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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
How does this poem's Pali compare to Thag 3.3 (Bākula)?
Correct: D. The most complete duplication this reading guide has found in this collection.
Question 2 of 10
How does this level of duplication compare to this collection's other echoes?
Correct: C. Never before a complete poem repeated in full under a second name.
Question 3 of 10
Does a surviving comment explain why the same text appears under two names?
Correct: C. This reading guide does not guess beyond what the text supports.
Question 4 of 10
What possible explanations does this reading guide consider, without endorsing any one?
Correct: A. The text offers no signal either way, so none is asserted as fact.
Question 5 of 10
What earlier poem completes this collection's Hārita chain?
Correct: A. The two Hāritas share only a name, not theme.
Question 6 of 10
Does this poem's content connect thematically to Hārita (1st)'s fletcher image?
Correct: D. The duplication with Thag 3.3 is this poem's defining feature, not any link to Hārita (1st).
Question 7 of 10
What does the poem's third verse declare about extinguishment?
Correct: B. Identical to Thag 3.3's closing verse.
Question 8 of 10
What rule about speech does the second verse state, matching Thag 3.3?
Correct: A. A discipline about the gap between word and follow-through, word for word as in Thag 3.3.
Question 9 of 10
What is lost by habitual delay, according to the first verse?
Correct: B. Sukhā so dhaṁsate ṭhānā — identical to Thag 3.3.
Question 10 of 10
Where does this poem fall in the Book of the Threes?
Correct: B. Following Aṅgaṇikabhāradvāja through Gotama (2nd), immediately before the book's final poem.
