A single line spoken by the monk after the precepts, charging those who have taken them to guard them with care.
- When chanted
- Spoken once by the monk immediately after the eight precepts have been undertaken.
A note on this chant. The book prints this chant in Pali only, with no Thai translation. The English here is a working translation prepared for this edition — it is not the book's own, and has not yet been checked by a teacher.
Historical background
One sentence, and it belongs to the giver rather than to those receiving. The exchange on these pages has a definite shape — the request, the refuges, the precepts, and then this line, which closes it. The book prints no title; the name used here is taken from its opening words.
Meaning and purpose
The line names what has just happened and says what is now to be done with it: these eight training rules, well undertaken as the virtue of the observance, are to be guarded — อัปปะมาเทนะ, with heedfulness. The word is worth pausing on. Its opposite is not wickedness but inattention, and the tradition treats inattention as the way most undertakings are actually lost.
That is why the sentence exists at all. Taking a precept costs nothing and takes a moment; keeping one through an ordinary afternoon is the whole of the work. The charge marks the difference, so that the ceremony is not mistaken for the thing it begins.
The chant
As the book prints it: page 13 →
อิมานิ อัฏฐะ สิกขาปะทานิ อุโปสะถะสีละวะเสนะ สาธุกัง กัต๎วา อัปปะมาเทนะ รักขิตัพพานิ.
imāni aṭṭha sikkhāpadāni uposathasīlavasena sādhukaṃ katvā appamādena rakkhitabbāni.
These eight training rules, well undertaken as the virtue of the Uposatha, are to be guarded with heedfulness.