SN 1.13

Natthiputtasama sutta: There’s Nothing Like a Child

Natthiputtasamasutta

Nandanavagga

Like many of these discourses, here the Buddha repeats a god’s verses with a subtle twist towards the Dhamma.

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At Sāvatthī.

Standing to one side, that deity spoke this verse in the Buddha’s presence:

“There’s no fondness like that for a child,
no wealth equal to cattle,
no light like that of the sun,
and of streams the ocean is paramount.”

Vājasaneyi Saṁhitā 23.48b says cattle have no measure.

These lines closely mirror the question at Vājasaneyi Saṁhitā 23.47a (quoted at Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa 13.5.2.13), “What light equals the sun? What lake equals the ocean?” The answers given in the next verse are “Brahmā” and “heaven”. This points to the myth that the rivers, especially the Ganges, originate in the “causal ocean” (garbhodaka) of heaven. The rivers of northern India, bringing life down from the Himalayas, naturally suggest a divine origin.

Sara means originally “flow”, hence “stream, river”, then “lake”. The ocean as the paramount lake is a destination, the final point where rivers converge. As such it evokes the Upaniṣadic idea that consciousness converges in Divinity (see notes on SN 1.61:2.4 and MN 9:53.2). This is ultimately the same as the “causal ocean” from which the rivers flow.

“There’s no fondness like that for oneself,
no wealth equal to grain,
no light like that of wisdom,
and of streams the rain is paramount.”

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