Saṅkhapāla’s Conduct (CP20)

The Conduct Leading to Buddhahood

The Chapter on an Elephant

The Perfection of Ethics (10th)

Saṅkhapāla’s Conduct

“Then again when I was

Saṅkhapāla, a dragon of great psychic power,

deadly-fanged, lethally venomous,

two-tongued, lord of serpents.

At a crossroad on a highway

crowded with many people,

I resolved on the four factors,

and made my home there.

‘My outer skin and inner, flesh,

sinews and bones:

whoever has use for these,

they are already given, please take them.’

Seeing me, the Bhojans,¹

those violent and pitiless hunters,

came to me there

with sticks and hammers in their hands.²

Having pierced my nose,

tail, and spine,

and fastened me to a pole,

the Bhojans carried me away.

The earth from sea to sea,

with its forests and mountains—

had I wished, right there

I could have burnt it up with a blast from my nose.

Though pierced with stakes,

and stabbed with knives,

I did not get upset with the Bhojans:

this is my perfection of ethics.”