Reading guide
A fire ritual, named and abandoned
The second and third verses describe the former practice bluntly: ‘I used to perform a diverse spectrum of sacrifices; I served the sacred flame... imagining, “this is purity”’, ‘caught in the thicket of wrong view, deluded by misapprehension’. This joins Thag 3.1 (Aṅgaṇikabhāradvāja)'s fire-to-Dhamma conversion as a second instance of this pattern in this collection, though this poem names the error ‘blind and ignorant’ twice over, more insistently than the earlier case.
Fire, redirected rather than simply abandoned
The fourth verse doesn't reject fire practice outright but redirects it: ‘I serve the fire for those worthy of a religious donation’, reframing sacrificial vocabulary toward almsgiving to the Saṅgha, ‘I bow to the Realized One’ closing the same verse.
One of two fire-ascetic brothers, named back to back
This poem is immediately followed in this chapter by Thag 5.7 (Gayākassapa) — and the names themselves, ‘Kassapa of the river’ and ‘Kassapa of Gayā’, echo the well-known account of fire-worshipping brahmin brothers converted together with their followers, the occasion for the Buddha's teaching already translated on this site as SN 35.28, The Fire Sermon, delivered to former fire-ascetics on how everything is ‘burning’ with greed, hatred, and delusion — a sermon whose central image plays directly off exactly the background this poem describes.
A closing formula, now five times found
The poem's final two lines — ‘transmigration through births is finished; now there'll be no more future lives’ — are the same formula (vikkhīṇo jātisaṁsāro, natthi dāni punabbhavo) already found in the Book of the Ones (three times) and in Thag 3.12, in the Book of the Threes. This is its fifth occurrence in this collection.
Key terms
The text
§1It was truly for my benefit that the Buddha went to the river Nerañjara. When I heard his teaching, I shunned wrong view.
§2I used to perform a diverse spectrum of sacrifices; I served the sacred flame, imagining, “This is purity.” I was a blind, ordinary person.
§3Caught in the thicket of wrong view, deluded by misapprehension. Thinking impurity was purity, I was blind and ignorant.
§4I’ve abandoned wrong view; all rebirths are shattered. I serve the fire for those worthy of a religious donation: I bow to the Realized One.
§5I’ve given up all delusion; craving for continued existence is shattered; transmigration through births is finished; now there’ll be no more future lives.
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