Thera 1.5: Dabba

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Adapted from the Archaic Translation by Mrs. C.A.F. Rhys Davids

= Dabba[1] (Of the Mallas) = He came to birth in the family of a clansman of the Mallas,[2] at Anupiyā. As a child of seven, he saw the Lord(Buddha) when the latter visited his country and home, and was so attracted that he asked his grandmother, his mother having died at his birth,[3] if he might leave the world(for monkhood) under the Lord(Buddha). She brought him to the Lord(Buddha), who asked a bhikkhu(monk) to initiate him into monkhood. And the boy, being one in whom past causes and an aspiration were taking effect, realized the Four Paths in succession, in the very act of having his curls cut off.

[11] And when the Lord(Buddha) left the Mallas' country for Rājagaha, Dabba, meditating alone, and desirous of devoting his body to the service of the Monk’s order, considered that he might both provide night's lodging and meals. The Lord(Buddha) approved his doing so, and his success in this, and his supernormal power in this, lighting the monks to their lodgings with his shining finger, is told in the Pali narrative.[4]

But it was after the baseless defamation,[5] by which the bhikkhas who followed Mettiya and Bhummajaka sought to ruin him, had been condemned by the Monk’s order, that the Monk, conscious of his virtuous compassion for others, uttered this verse:

[5] Once hard to tame, by taming tamed is now Dabba, from doubts released, content, serene. Victor is Dabba now, and void of fears; Perfected[6] he and staunch in firmness.

Thus verily did the venerable Monk Dabba utter his saying(gatha).

[1] Cf. below, verse 1218. On this eminent Monk, see also Vinaya Texts, iii. 4-18; Jātaka, 1. 21; Udāna, viii. 9; ''Ang. Nik.,'' 23.

[2] Lit., of a (king)rāja of the Mallas, a confederation of independent clans, located by the two great Chinese pilgrim chroniclers on the mountain slopes eastward of the Buddha's own clan.

[3] Before his birth, according to the Commentarial tradition.

[4] Vatthu-pāliyaŋ - viz., in Khandaka IV. See Vinaya Texts, iii. 4 ff.

[5] Iremain., pp. 10-18.

[6] Parinibbuto. On this Dhammapāla comments: 'There are two parinibbānas - the parinibbāna of evils (kilesā, the "ten sufferings," or "bases of corruption"; see my Buddhist Psychological Ethics, p 327 ff.), which is the element of Nibbāna, by which is yet remaining stuff of life; and parinihbāna of khandhas (factors of personality), which is the element of Nibbāna without that remainder. Here the former species is meant, inasmuch as there had been an entire putting away by the Path of everything that should be put away.' Cf. Compendium of Philosophy, p. 108: my Buddhism, p. 191.