[365] 5.
Having broken reeds with my hands and made a hut, I dwelt there;
hence my name came to be, by common designation,¹ "Sarabhaṅga" [Reed-breaker].
Today it is not allowable for me to break reeds with my hands:
the training rules (sikkhāpada) have been laid down for us by Gotama the glorious.
Never before did I, Sarabhaṅga, see the disease whole and entire;
this very disease has now been seen by me, a doer of the word of the deva beyond devas (atideva).
By the very path along which Vipassī went,
by the very path along which Sikhī and Vessabhū,
Kakusandha, Koṇāgamana, and Kassapa went,
by that same straight road went Gotama.
Free of craving (taṇhā), without grasping, the seven Buddhas, plunged into the ending [of defilements],
by whom this Dhamma was taught — by those become Dhamma, the ones of such nature —
the four noble truths (ariyasacca), out of compassion for living beings:
suffering (dukkha), the origin (samudaya), the path (magga), cessation (nirodha) — the complete destruction of suffering —
wherein suffering, endless in saṃsāra, is turned back.²
With the breakup of this body and the exhaustion of life,
there is no further renewed existence (punabbhava):
I am well liberated in every way.
¹ Ma. and Yu. editions read *sammutiyā*.
² Yu. edition reads *nibbattate* ("arises").
The Elder Sarabhaṅga.
Summary (uddāna):
The Elder Sundarasamudda, the Elder Lakuṇṭabhaddiya,
the Elder Bhadda, and Sopāka, and Sarabhaṅga the great seer:
in the [Book of the] Sevens, the elders are five and the verses thirty-five.
The Book of the Sevens (Sattakanipāta) is finished.
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Theragāthā: The Book of the Eights (Aṭṭhakanipāta)
English translation from the Pali (Siam Raṭṭha edition) — under review, not for citation.