At her coming,
he didn’t delight;
at her leaving,
he didn’t grieve.
A victor in battle, freed from the tie:1
He’s what I call
a brahman.
Notes
1. This line is a double wordplay on Saṅgāmaji’s name. Literally, it means a victor in battle–a compound of saṅgāma (battle) and -ji (victor)–but the Buddha also extracts from the first member of the compound the word saṅgā, which means “from the tie.” Strictly speaking, saṅgāma and saṅgā are not related to each other. The ability to engage in wordplay using unrelated words like this was considered a sign of intelligence and wit.
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