Vulture's Peak Mountain, on a riverbank, after leaving a day's meditation
Speaker
The nun Dantikā, narrating what she personally witnessed and its effect on her mind
Form
Three four-line verses
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
★★☆☆☆ — a single concrete scene, simply told
Why this text
This poem breaks from the confessions and checklists just before it: instead of describing failure or listing attainments, Dantikā narrates a single scene she witnessed — a wild elephant submitting to a mahout's hook on a riverbank — and traces her own mind settling into serenity directly from watching it, a breakthrough triggered by observation rather than instruction.
Reading guide
A name that puns on its own scene
‘Dantikā’ shares its root with ‘danta’, ‘tamed’ — her name itself echoes the very scene this poem describes, an echo the collection has already used for Sukkā (‘bright’) later in this same book, and for Muttā (‘freed’) earlier in Thig 1.2 and 1.11.
A specific, watched scene, not a recited teaching
‘Leaving my day's meditation on Vulture's Peak Mountain, I saw an elephant on the riverbank having just come up from his bath’ — a dated, located observation, distinct from this book's confessions of inner struggle or lists of doctrinal categories.
The taming, described step by step
The scene itself is simple and complete: a man with a hook asks the elephant for its foot, the elephant presents it, the man mounts — three plain actions, given no more weight than they need.
Insight drawn from watching, and a wry closing line
‘Seeing a wild beast so tamed, submitting to human control, my mind became serene’ states the insight directly from the scene, and the poem closes on an unusually personal aside — ‘that is why I've gone to the forest’ — addressed almost conversationally to the reader.
Key terms
Dantikā — this poem's speaker, whose name shares its root with ‘danta’, ‘tamed’ — echoing the scene the poem describes.
Gijjhakūṭa — Vulture's Peak Mountain, the specific, named setting where this poem opens.
aṅkusa — the hook used by the mahout to direct the elephant, the instrument named in the poem's second verse.
samādhi — the settled, serene mind state Dantikā describes reaching, translated here as her mind ‘becoming serene’.
vana — “forest” — named in this poem's closing line as the destination this insight sent her toward.
The text
The text in full: three verses. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).
§1Leaving my day’s meditation on Vulture’s Peak Mountain, I saw an elephant on the riverbank having just come up from his bath.
§2A man, taking a pole with a hook, asked the elephant, “Give me your foot.” The elephant presented his foot, and the man mounted him.
§3Seeing a wild beast so tamed, submitting to human control, my mind became serene: <em>that</em> is why I’ve gone to the forest!
· · ·
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
Where does this poem's scene take place?
Correct: C. A specific, named setting, unusual for this book so far.
Question 2 of 10
What does Dantikā see when she leaves her day's meditation?
Correct: A. The scene that triggers the rest of the poem.
Question 3 of 10
What does the man with the hook ask the elephant to do?
Correct: D. A simple, specific request, immediately obeyed.
Question 4 of 10
How does the elephant respond to the man's request?
Correct: A. Full submission, described in a single plain action.
Question 5 of 10
What effect does watching this scene have on Dantikā's mind?
Correct: A. The insight is drawn directly from what she observed.
Question 6 of 10
What does Dantikā's name share a root with?
Correct: B. Like Sukkā's 'bright' or Muttā's 'freed', her name echoes her poem's own content.
Question 7 of 10
How does this poem's approach to breakthrough differ from the confessions in Thig 3.1–3.2?
Correct: B. An observation-triggered insight, distinct from confession or checklist.
Question 8 of 10
How does this poem end?
Correct: D. An unusually direct, almost conversational closing line for this collection.
Question 9 of 10
What is the aṅkusa mentioned in this poem?
Correct: C. The instrument named directly in the poem's second verse.
Question 10 of 10
What position does this poem hold in the Book of the Threes?
Correct: B. Following Thig 3.3, opening a new kind of scene in this book.
