Dhaniya — The Book of the Threes · Chapter One · Poem 4 of 16
Setting
General teaching, not autobiography, without a translated attribution
Speaker
Dhaniya, teaching contentment with monastic simplicity
Form
Three four-line verses, each opening with the same repeated couplet
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, repetitive teaching
Why this text
Dhaniya teaches contentment three times over, each verse opening with the identical couplet — ‘if you wish to live in happiness, longing for the ascetic life’ — before naming a different discipline each time: not looking down on the Saṅgha's robes and food, making do with its lodgings, and being content with whatever is offered.
Reading guide
The same couplet, three times over
Every verse in this poem opens with the exact same two lines: ‘sukhañce jīvituṁ icche, sāmaññasmiṁ apekkhavā’, ‘if you wish to live in happiness, longing for the ascetic life’. This collection has found many poems that share an opening with another poem, but this is its first instance of a single poem repeating its own opening couplet as a refrain across all three of its own verses, each time completing the thought differently.
Three completions of one refrain
The first verse completes the refrain with a warning not to look down on the Saṅgha's robes, food, and drink. The second completes it with an image: stay in the Saṅgha's lodgings ‘like a snake making use of a mouse's hole’ — taking modest shelter as it comes, not demanding more. The third names the underlying quality directly: contentment with whatever is offered.
A name that may match a converted rancher
This site's own Snp 1.2 (The Wealthy Rancher) tells of the cattle-rancher Dhaniya, boasting of his comforts on the riverbank, who converts on the spot after the Buddha answers each of his boasts with a spiritual counterpart. No comment on this specific poem confirms the identification, but if this is the same Dhaniya, a poem urging contentment with the Saṅgha's meager robes, food, and lodging reads as a fitting sequel — a former man of comfortable means, now teaching others not to measure monastic life by what it lacks.
Key terms
sāmaññasmiṁ apekkhavā — “longing for the ascetic life” — the second half of the refrain repeated at the start of all three verses.
saṅghikaṁ nātimaññeyya — “don't look down on the Saṅgha's [robes]” — the first verse's completion of the refrain.
ahi mūsikasobbhaṁva — “like a snake making use of a mouse's hole” — the image for taking modest lodging as it comes.
itarītarena tusseyya — “be content with whatever is offered” — the quality named directly in the third verse.
ekadhammañca bhāvaye — “develop this one quality” — closing the poem's third completion of its own refrain.
The text
The text in full: three verses, with no separate attribution line in this chapter. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).
§1If you wish to live in happiness, longing for the ascetic life, don’t look down on the Saṅgha’s robes, or its food and drinks.
§2If you wish to live in happiness, longing for the ascetic life, stay in the Saṅgha’s lodgings like a snake making use of a mouse’s hole.
§3If you wish to live in happiness, longing for the ascetic life, develop this one quality: be content with whatever is offered.
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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 is unusual about how this poem's three verses each open?
Correct: C. This collection's first instance of a poem repeating its own opening as an internal refrain.
Question 2 of 10
What does the first verse's refrain complete with?
Correct: A. Saṅghikaṁ nātimaññeyya.
Question 3 of 10
What image does the second verse use for taking lodging as it comes?
Correct: D. Modest shelter, not demanding more.
Question 4 of 10
What quality does the third verse name directly?
Correct: B. Itarītarena tusseyya, ekadhammañca bhāvaye.
Question 5 of 10
What already-translated poem on this site may feature the same Dhaniya?
Correct: A. A cattle-rancher converted on the spot by the Buddha's answers.
Question 6 of 10
How does this poem read, if it is the same Dhaniya as Snp 1.2's rancher?
Correct: B. This reading guide's own cautious reading, not confirmed by a comment.
Question 7 of 10
What does 'sāmaññasmiṁ apekkhavā' mean?
Correct: A. The second half of the poem's three-times-repeated refrain.
Question 8 of 10
Is the identification with Snp 1.2's Dhaniya confirmed by a comment on this poem?
Correct: B. Offered cautiously, in the same spirit as this collection's other signature-name cases.
Question 9 of 10
What does 'itarītarena tusseyya' mean?
Correct: C. The quality named in the third verse's completion of the refrain.
Question 10 of 10
Where does this poem fall in the Book of the Threes?
Correct: D. Following Aṅgaṇikabhāradvāja, Paccaya, and Bākula.
