that’s who I declare a brahmin.
You should graciously honor
the one from whom you learn the Dhamma
taught by the awakened Buddha,
as a brahmin honors the sacred flame.
Not by matted hair or family,
or birth is one a brahmin.
Those who are truthful and principled:
they are pure, they are brahmins.
Why the matted hair, you simpleton,
and why the skin of deer?
The tangle is inside you,
yet you polish up your outsides.
A personage who wears robes of rags,
lean, their limbs showing veins,
meditating alone in the forest,
that’s who I declare a brahmin.
I don’t call someone a brahmin
after the mother’s womb they’re born from.
If they still have attachments,
they’re just someone who says “worthy”.
Having nothing, taking nothing:
that’s who I declare a brahmin.
Having cut off all fetters
they have no anxiety.
They’ve slipped their chains and are detached:
that’s who I declare a brahmin.
They’ve cut the strap and harness,
the halter and bridle too,
with cross-bar lifted, they’re awakened:
that’s who I declare a brahmin.
Abuse, killing, caging:
they endure these without anger.
Patience is their powerful army:
that’s who I declare a brahmin.
Not irritable or pretentious,
dutiful in precepts and observances,
tamed, bearing their final body:
that’s who I declare a brahmin.
Like water from a lotus leaf,
like a mustard seed off a pin-point,
sensual pleasures slip off them:
that’s who I declare a brahmin.
They understand for themselves
the end of suffering in this life;
with burden put down, detached:
that’s who I declare a brahmin.
Deep in wisdom, intelligent,
expert in the path and what is not the path;
arrived at the highest goal:
that’s who I declare a brahmin.
Mixing with neither
householders nor the homeless;
a migrant with no bastion, few in wishes:
that’s who I declare a brahmin.
They’ve laid aside violence
against creatures firm and frail;
not killing or making others kill:
that’s who I declare a brahmin.
Not fighting among those who fight,
quenched among those who have taken up arms,
not grasping among those who grasp:
that’s who I declare a brahmin.
They’ve discarded greed and hate,
along with conceit and contempt,
like a mustard seed off the point of a pin:
that’s who I declare a brahmin.
The words they utter
are polished, informative, and true,
and don’t offend anyone:
that’s who I declare a brahmin.
They don’t steal anything in the world,
long or short,
fine or coarse, beautiful or ugly:
that’s who I declare a brahmin.
They have no hope
in this world or the next;
with no need for hope, detached:
that’s who I declare a brahmin.
They have no clinging,
knowledge has freed them of indecision,
they’ve arrived at the objective, freedom from death:
that’s who I declare a brahmin.
They’ve escaped clinging
to both good and bad deeds;
sorrowless, stainless, pure:
that’s who I declare a brahmin.
Pure as the spotless moon,
clear and undisturbed,
they’ve ended relish for rebirth:
that’s who I declare a brahmin.
They’ve got past this grueling swamp
of delusion, transmigration.
Meditating in stillness, free of indecision,
they have crossed over to the far shore.
They’re quenched by not grasping:
that’s who I declare a brahmin.
They’ve given up sensual stimulations,
and have gone forth from lay life;
they’ve ended rebirth in the sensual realm: