Verses of the Senior Nuns 3.4

The Book of the Threes

Dantikā

Leaving my day’s meditation

on Vulture’s Peak Mountain,

I saw an elephant on the riverbank

having just come up from his bath.

A man, taking a pole with a hook,

asked the elephant, “Give me your foot.”

The elephant presented his foot,

and the man mounted him.

Seeing a wild beast so tamed,

submitting to human control,

my mind became serene:

that is why I’ve gone to the forest!