Nandamāṇavapucchā

“‘There are sages in the world,’ people say,”
said Venerable Nanda.
“How is this so?
Do they call him a sage because of his wisdom,
or rather because of his way of life?”

“Not because of view, learning or knowledge,
do the skilled here speak of a sage, Nanda.
Those who live having laid down arms,
untrembling, wishless —
I call them sages.”

“Those ascetics and brahmins,”
said the venerable Nanda,
“who speak of purity through view and learning,
through behaviour and practice,
through the multitude —
perhaps they, Auspicious One, living restrained in that,
have gone beyond birth and aging, good sir?
I ask you this, Auspicious One, do tell me so.”

“Those ascetics and brahmins, Nanda,”
said the Auspicious One,
“who speak of purity through view and learning,
through behaviour and practice,
through the multitude —
though they live restrained in that,
they’ve not gone beyond birth and aging, I say.”

“Those ascetics and brahmins,”
said the venerable Nanda,
“who speak of purity through view and learning,
through behaviour and practice,
through the multitude —
if you say they have not crossed the flood, O sage,
then just who in the world of gods and men
has gone beyond birth and aging, good sir?
I ask you this, Auspicious One, do tell me so.”

“Not all ascetics and brahmins, Nanda,”
said the Auspicious One,
“I say are enveloped in birth and aging.
Those here who have left behind the seen, the heard, and the thought,
and all behaviour and practice;
they who have left behind the multitude —
fully understanding craving, they are without inundations.
Those men have truly crossed the flood, I say.”

“I rejoice in these words of the great seer!
Well-related, O Gotama, is the state without dependence!
They here who have left behind the seen, the heard, and the thought,
and all behaviour and practice;
they here who have left behind the multitude —
fully understanding craving, without inundations,
I too say they have crossed the flood.”