Gatha | Sentence Translation | Sentence Structure
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List of Abbreviations

# mase mase kus'aggena balo bhubjeyya bhojanaj

# na so savkhatadhammanaj kalaj agghati solasij

# (DhP 70)

Sentence Translation:

Month by month can a fool eat his food with a blade of the kusa grass,
he is not worth a sixteenth part of those, who have realized the Dharma.

Sentence Structure:
List of Abbreviations

mase mase kusa+aggena balo bhubjeyya bhojanaj
| | | | | | |
N.m. N.m. N.m. N.n. N.m. V.act. N.n.
Loc.Sg. Loc.Sg. | Ins.Sg. Nom.Sg. 3.Sg.opt. Acc.Sg.
|________| |_____| | |_________|
|_____________|_________|____________|
|____|
|______________________________________________

List of Abbreviations

na so savkhata+dhammanaj kalaj agghati solasij
| | | | | | |
neg. Pron.m. Adj. N.m. N.f. V.act.in. Num.f.
| Nom.Sg. | Gen.Pl. Acc.Sg. 3.Sg.pres. Acc.Sg.
| | |_________| |________|_______|
| | |_________________| |
|______|___________________|______________|
| |_______|
|_______________|
______________|

Vocabulary and Grammar:
List of Abbreviations

mase: masa-, N.m.: month. Loc.Sg. = mase.

kus'aggena: kus'agga-, N.n.: the blade of the kusa grass. It is a compound of:
kusa-, N.m.: a kind of sacred grass.
agga-, N.n.: tip, uppermost part.
Euphonic combination: kusa- + agga- = kus'agga-.
Ins.Sg. = kus'aggena.

balo: bala-, Adj.: childish, young. As an N.m.: "like a child", fool, ignorant person. Nom.Sg. = balo.

List of Abbreviations

bhubjeyya, V.: may eat. The verb root is bhuj- (to eat). 3.Sg.act.opt. = bhubjeyya.

bhojanaj: bhojana-, N.n.: food, meal. Acc.Sg. = bhojanaj.

na, neg.: not.

so: tat-, Pron.n.: it. Nom.Sg.m. = so.

List of Abbreviations

savkhatadhammanaj: savkhatadhamma-, N.m.: one who has realized the Dharma.
It is a compound of:
savkhata-, Adj.: calculated, reckoned, considered. It is a p.p. of the verb savkhayati
(to calculate, to consider). The verb root is khya- (to count) with the prefix sam- (together).
dhamma-, N.m.: dhamma-, N.m.: Buddha's Teaching. The Law. Derived from the verb
dha-, to hold. Thus dhamma "holds the world together".
Gen.Pl. = savkhatadhammanaj.

kalaj: kala-, N.f.: a small part, a fraction. Acc.Sg. = kalaj.

agghati, V.: to be worth, to have value of. The verb root is arah- or aggh-. 3.Sg.act.in.pres. = agghati.

solasij: solasi-, Num.f.: sixteenth. Acc.Sg. = solasij.
List of Abbreviations

Two lines of this verse form two separate sentences.
In the first sentence, the subject is the noun balo (fool, nominative singular). The noun is bhubjeyya (can eat, 3rd person, singular, active, optative). It has two attributes, the compound kus'aggena (with the tip of the kusa grass, instrumental singular) and the noun phrase mase mase (month by month, both words in locative singular). The object is the noun bhojanaj (food, accusative singular).
In the second sentence, the subject is the personal pronoun so (he, nominative singular). The verb agghati (deserves, 3rd person, singular, active, indicative, present tense) is negated by the negative particle na (not). The object is the noun kalaj (part, accusative singular). It has two attributes, the cardinal numeral solasij (sixteenth, accusative singular) and the compound savkhatadhammanaj (of those, who have realized the Dharma, genitive plural).

Commentary:

In the city of Savatthi there lived a young man of a rich family. His name was Jambuka. He had very strange habits. He would sleep only on the floor and eat his own excrements. When he grew up, his parents sent him to the ascetics. But even those ascetics felt his habits were too disgusting so they sent him away. After that he lived alone in the forest. During the day he would stay on one leg (as he said, he was to heavy for the earth to bear him) and with his mouth open (he boasted that he lived only on air). He also used to say that he never sits down and never sleeps. But at night he slept on the floor and ate his own excrements.
Many people started to count themselves as his followers; they would bring him food and gifts. But he did not take anything, only sometimes he would take a little bit of food and eat it with the tip of the kusa grass, which was quite common practice for ascetics. Thus he lived many years.
Once the Buddha came to where he was staying and asked for a place to spend the night. Jambuka let him sleep in the nearby cave. At night, many gods and supernatural beings came to pay homage to the Buddha. Jambuka saw this and asked the Buddha what happened.
When the Buddha told him that these beings were gods, Jambuka was impressed. He told the Buddha that he must be a very holy person, because although he himself spent years standing on one leg and eating only air, no god ever came to pay homage to him. The Buddha told him that he could not be fooled. He said that he knew very well that Jambuka slept on the ground every night and ate his excrements.
The Buddha also explained, that during one of his previous existences Jambuka had prevented a certain monk to go obtain alms food and how he threw away the food that was sent with him for that very monk. As a result of these actions he was born with these strange habits.
Jambuka realized his mistakes and paid respects to the Buddha. The Buddha delivered a discourse, at the end of which Jambuka attained arahantship and became one of the Buddha's monks.
When Jambuka's followers arrived they were surprised to see their teacher with the Buddha. Jambuka announced that he was now a member of Buddha's Sangha, the Order and a disciple of the Buddha. The Buddha explained that the cruelest austerities practiced for a long period of time are not worth even one-sixteenth of understanding of the true Dharma.

Sentence pronunciation:

Sentence pronunciation

Word pronunciation:
mase
kus'aggena
kusa
aggena
balo
bhubjeyya
bhojanaj
na
so
savkhatadhammanaj
savkhata
dhammanaj
kalaj
agghati
solasij