Reading guide
A goad, credited by name
The opening, extended verse credits the whole awakening to one source: ‘so well was the goad shown to me by my mother... advised by my mother, energetic and resolute, I realized supreme awakening’. The mother is named as the direct cause, not a distant influence, in language that matches her own poem's closing lines almost word for word (anusiṭṭhiṁ janettiyā, ‘advised by mother’, in both poems).
A comment confirming direct continuation
Sujato's comment on this poem's opening line states plainly: ‘these verses continue from Thig 9.1, so I use only close quote’. This site's own Therīgāthā already carries that poem, Vaḍḍhamātā's own verses urging her son toward ordination and diligence — and this poem is presented, by the translator's own account, as the direct continuation of that same quoted speech, not merely a thematically related poem under a different name.
A sister, affirming what the mother began
The fourth verse introduces a second woman: ‘my self-assured sister said this to me: “now neither you nor I have any snarls”’. Whether this is a biological sister or a fellow renunciant addressed as one, the poem does not say; but the structure echoes the mother's role in the opening verse — another woman's words, quoted directly, marking a stage of the path.
Namuci's army, conquered
The second verse names Māra by an epithet found elsewhere in this collection, Namuci: ‘I've conquered the army of Namuci, and live without defilements’ — joining this collection's recurring martial vocabulary for victory over Māra, already met in various forms across earlier books.
Key terms
The text
§1Oh so well was the goad shown to me by my mother, on hearing whose words, advised by my mother, energetic and resolute, I realized supreme awakening.
§2I’m perfected, worthy of offerings, master of the three knowledges, seer of freedom from death. I’ve conquered the army of Namuci, and live without defilements.
§3Those defilements that were found in me, internally and externally, are all cut off without remainder, and will not arise again.
§4My self-assured sister said this to me: ‘Now neither you nor I have any snarls.’
§5Suffering is at an end; this bag of bones is my last in the transmigration through births and deaths; now there’ll be no more future lives.”
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