26.24 The Story about the Elder Mahā Panthaka
Mahāpanthakattheravatthu
Dhp 407
Burlingame: Did Mahā Panthaka Yield to Anger?
Compare: Dhp-a 2.3
When Elder Culla Panthaka could not remember even one verse even after three months of trying, and his elder brother, Elder Mahā Panthaka, asked him to leave the monastery, the bhikkhus could not believe Elder Mahā Panthaka had not been angry with his brother, but the Buddha confirmed his purity with a verse.
Keywords: Listening to Dhamma, Recitation, Foremost Disciples
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“Whoever has dropped off passion,” this Dhamma teaching was given by the Teacher while he was in residence at Veḷuvana with reference to Mahā Panthaka.
This venerable elder, when Culla Panthaka was unable in three months to learn by heart a single verse, expelled him from the monastery and closed the door, saying to him: “You lack the capacity
At that moment the Teacher drew near and asked them: “Bhikkhus, what is the subject that engages your attention now as you sit here all gathered together?” When the bhikkhus told him the subject of their conversation, he said: “No, bhikkhus, those who have rid themselves of the pollutants have not the defilements of lust and so on. What my son did he did because he put the meaning and the Dhamma before all other things.” So saying, he pronounced the following verse:
407. Yassa rāgo ca doso ca māno makkho ca pātito,
sāsapo-r-iva āraggā, tam-ahaṁ brūmi brāhmaṇaṁ.
Whoever has dropped off passion
and hatred, conceit and anger,
like a mustard seed from needle,
that one I say is a Brahmin.
At the end of the teaching many reached the fruition of Stream-entry and so on.