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Buddhism

Thig 3:4 · Dantikā & the Elephant

Thai temple painting: Prince Vessantara gives away the white elephant
Vessantara Jātaka, Chapter 2 (Himavanta Forest) · Thai, Rattanakosin, c. 1850–1870 · Walters Art Museum

Coming out from my day’s abiding

on Vulture Peak Mountain,

I saw on the bank of the river

an elephant

emerged from its plunge.

A man holding a hook requested:

“Give me your foot.”

The elephant

extended its foot.

The man

got up on the elephant.

Seeing what was untrained now tamed

brought under human control,

with that I centered my mind—

why I’d gone to the woods

in the first place.


Translated by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu. © 2014 / rev. 2017 Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu — released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 licence, for free distribution only. Source: dhammatalks.org (Metta Forest Monastery).

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