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[1] The tank is earthly existence. The watery home is the world of desires.
[2] Mra—death, the personification of evil, rules the six highest desire-heaven-worlds: other great Gods are Mahbrahma and Sakka (Indra). Yama also, death, is the lord of the under-world. We may compare the Greek Gods, Zeus, Poseidon, and Pluto, who divide the rule of the manifested universe.
[3] Cp. v. 374, suññgra.
44.
Who shall discern this earth aright
And the Realm of Death and the World of Light?
Who shall choose out the Way
Of righteousness well displayed,
As a skilled hand chooseth a flower gay?
45.
The disciple[1] discerneth this earth aright
And the Realm of Death and the World of Light;
The disciple chooseth the Way
Of Righteousness well displayed,
As a skilled hand chooseth a flower gay.
46.
Seeing this body as like unto foam,
Illusive, by insight of wisdom alone,
Scattering Death's flower-tipp'd shafts,
He shall pass to a realm where Death is unknown.
47.
Culling life's blossoms here and there,
With his mind entangled by pleasures' delay,
Death comes and carries him off,
As a flood sweeps a slumbering village away.
48.
Culling life's blossoms here and there,
With his mind entangled by pleasures' delay,
Insatiate in desire,
Death makes him his bondsman and takes him away.
49.
As a bee on the wing flits from flower to flower,
Not harming the scent or the blossom's hue,
And is gone taking only the taste,
Let the sage his way through the village pursue.
50.
Not with other men's faults and other men's failings,
Nor the things they have done, nor the things left undone,
Should the wise man be concerned;
Let him look to his own things done and undone.
51.
Fair is the flow'r with its hue and its colour;
But if it lack odour its beauty is hollow.
So fair are the words well-spoken,
But how empty the words which deeds do not follow.
52.
Fair is the flow'r with its hue and its colour;
But if it have odour its beauty's not hollow;
So fair are the words well-spoken;
Well-spoken indeed are the words which deeds follow.
53.
As one from a heap of gathered flowers
Makes many a garland, many a crown;
So by a mortal being
Many a seed of good may be sown.
54.
The odour of flowers cannot prevail
'Gainst the wind, nor of sandal and tagara[2] fair;
'Gainst the wind goes the odour of saints;
The odour of saints goeth everywhere.
55.
Sweet is the sandal and sweet is the tagara,
And sweet of the lily the odour faint;
But of all sweet-savoured things
Sweetest by far is the scent of the saint.
56.
How small a thing is the odour of wood
Of the sandal or jasmine! How poor is their scent!
Yet the odour of saints prevails
E'en 'mongst the gods, most excellent.
57.
Men who live righteously, men who live heedfully,
Perfect in wisdom, rebirth have transcended:
Though he search for the prints of their feet,
Death cannot find them:[3] their journey is ended.
58-9.
On a heap of dung by the high road hurled,
As a lily may bloom and grow,
Delighting the mind with its fragrance pure:
So, lit by the wisdom of those who know,
'mid those who on the dung-hill grow[4]
A disciple shines out in the darkened world.
[1] "Disciple," sekho, one who has entered the Path, but has not become Arahat, who is asekho, Master.
[2] Tagara, an aromatic shrub.
[3] An Arahat at death leaves no skandhas or basis for another birth. Death, Mra, is pictured as hunting for a man's "rebirth consciousness". Cf. The Book of the Kindred Sayings p. 152 (Pali Text Translation Series).
