Read, reflect, pray
Sutta Nipāta 5-15: Posālamāṇavapucchā
Viggo Fausböll, 1881 · Historical English translation
1. ‘He who shows the past (births, &c.),’—so said the venerable Posāla,—‘who is without desire and has cut off doubt, to him who is accomplished in all things (dhamma), I have come supplicatingly with a question. (1111)
2. ‘O Sakka, I ask about his knowledge who is aware of past shapes, who casts off every corporeal form, and who sees that there exists nothing either internally or externally; how can such a one be led (by anybody)? (1112)
3. ‘Tathāgata, knowing all the faces of consciousness, O Posāla,’—so said Bhagavat,—‘knows (also) him who stands delivered, devoted to that (object). (1113)
4. ‘Having understood that the bonds of pleasure do not originate in nothingness (?), he sees clearly in this (matter), this (is) the knowledge of a perfect, accomplished Brāhmaṇa.’ (1114)
Posālamāṇavapucchā is ended.
Translation, numbering and rights
Viggo Fausböll, 1881. Public-domain 1881 translation, from the free non-commercial EPUB distributed by Reading Faithfully (edition 1.0, February 2012), transcribed by Christopher M. Weimer for the Internet Sacred Text Archive. This reader is free and non-commercial. Pali diacritics follow the EPUB. Translator introductions and footnotes are omitted; discourse prose, verses and the concluding passages are retained.
This 1881 edition uses consecutive verse numbers ending at 1148. It differs from the Japanese edition and must not be aligned by verse number alone. The final reading includes the concluding praises and Piṅgiya’s dialogue. The source’s printed numbering is retained, including gaps. A repeated “1041” in the source is retained; the expected “1047” is not silently substituted. No verse text is supplied by guesswork.
This historical English translation uses older vocabulary. It is independent of the Japanese translation linked from this site. The Japanese edition’s translator and license are credited there.