Sadhu Meaning: Why Buddhists Say Sadhu, Sadhu, Sadhu

By Tim Yu, Founder & Editor · Published 5 November 2026

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Sadhu (Pāli and Sanskrit sādhu) means “good”, “excellent” or “well done”. Buddhists say it — in some chanting books three times, sādhu, sādhu, sādhu — to approve a Dhamma talk, to answer the precepts and to rejoice in someone’s good deed. In the early texts the Buddha says it to a disciple who has understood him, and it turns a request into “please”. In India the same word also names a religious ascetic or holy person.

This page is one of our getting-started guides, with Buddhist chanting close by. On this site, when you thank Novice Santi, the AI guide in Ask the Dharma, he replies with a short blessing that ends “Sādhu 🙏”.

What does sadhu mean?

The Pali Text Society’s Pali-English Dictionary gives sādhu three jobs: an adjective, “good, virtuous, pious”; an adverb, “well, thoroughly”; and, “very frequent”, an interjection, either a request (“come on, welcome, please”) or “assent & approval in replies to a question”. Access to Insight’s glossary puts it in a line: “It is well”; “an expression showing appreciation or agreement.”

The Pāli word continues an older one. The dictionary marks it “Vedic sādhu”, and Monier-Williams’ Sanskrit-English Dictionary (1899), citing the Rig Veda for its first senses, begins with “straight, right” and “hitting the mark, unerring (as an arrow or thunderbolt)”, before “good, virtuous, honourable, righteous” and the exclamation “good! well done! bravo!”

The adjective runs through the Dhammapada. Verse 35’s cittassa damatho sādhu is “it’s good to tame the mind” (Dhp 35), and verse 223 counsels defeating “villainy with virtue”, asādhuṁ sādhunā (Dhp 223; both trans. Bhikkhu Sujato).

How the suttas use sadhu: four jobs

In the Pāli discourses the word does at least four kinds of work. One short discourse, SN 22.63, shows the first two.

”Good, good”: the Buddha’s approval

A monk asks the Buddha for a teaching in brief and receives two short sentences: “When you grasp, mendicant, you’re bound by Māra. Not grasping, you’re free from the Wicked One.” Asked how he understands that in detail, the monk works it through each of the five aggregates, and the Buddha replies:

The Pāli is Sādhu sādhu, bhikkhu. Sādhu kho tvaṁ, bhikkhu, mayā saṅkhittena bhāsitassa vitthārena atthaṁ ājānāsi — the word three times in two sentences, twice as an exclamation and once as “it’s good that”. The discourse ends: “And that mendicant became one of the perfected” — an arahant.

”Please”: sādhu in a request

The same monk opened with the word. His request begins sādhu me, bhante, bhagavā saṅkhittena dhammaṁ desetu:

The request recurs word for word in at least five other discourses: SN 35.64, SN 35.86, SN 47.3, AN 4.257 and AN 8.63. In the Right View discourse (MN 9) the monks ask Sāriputta the same way: Sādhu vatāyasmantaṁyeva sāriputtaṁ paṭibhātu etassa bhāsitassa attho, “May Venerable Sāriputta himself please clarify the meaning of this."

"Listen well”: sādhukaṁ

From sādhu comes the adverb sādhukaṁ, “well, thoroughly”, in a phrase that comes before many teachings. Sāriputta answers the monks of MN 9 with it: “Well then, reverends, listen and apply your mind well, I will speak” (suṇātha, sādhukaṁ manasi karotha, bhāsissāmī). In the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta (DN 16) the Buddha, on his last night, says the same to the wanderer Subhadda (suṇāhi sādhukaṁ manasikarohi).

”Good, reverend”: listeners approving

Listeners use the word back. Again and again in MN 9, as Sāriputta finishes an answer, “Saying ‘Good, reverend,’ those mendicants approved and agreed with what Sāriputta said.” In MN 44 a layman approves a nun: “Saying ‘Good, ma’am,’ Visākha approved and agreed with what Dhammadinnā said” (see Khemā and Dhammadinnā). The Pāli for “approved and agreed” is abhinanditvā anumoditvā, and anumoditvā is a form of anumodati, the verb from which the dictionary derives anumodana, the rejoicing discussed below.

Applause has its own word, sādhukāra, which the dictionary glosses “saying ‘well,’ approval, cheering, applause”. Outside the suttas, in the Milindapañha, when Nāgasena has finished his chariot argument, “the five hundred Bactrian Greeks applauded the Venerable Nāgasena” (trans. John Kelly). The Pāli says they gave him sādhukāra: sādhukāraṁ datvā.

Why do Buddhists say sadhu three times?

Because that is how the liturgy gives the response. The liturgies we can document come from two Theravāda chanting books, and neither says why the number is three.

The Chanting Book of Amaravati Buddhist Monastery in England (2015) sets it out under “Acknowledging the Teaching”. One person leads — Handa mayaṃ dhammakathāya sādhukāraṃ dadāmase, “Now let us express our approval of this Dhamma Teaching” — and the response is:

Sādhu, sādhu, sādhu, anumodāmi — “It is well, I appreciate it.”

The book closes the five precepts the same way: after the leader’s verse on virtue, the response is “Sādhu, sādhu, sādhu”, then three bows; the eight precepts end alike.

A Chanting Guide of the Dhammayut Order in the United States records a shorter form. After someone has asked a monk’s forgiveness, “The monk will then recite a blessing, after which all say: Sādhu bhante” — “Very good, Venerable Sir.” The request use survives there too, in the formal offerings: Sādhu no bhante, bhikkhu-saṅgho … paṭiggaṇhātu, “May the Bhikkhu Saṅgha accept these foods of ours …” (see making offerings).

We found no other source that explains the number either, so we offer no explanation. Threes run through the same rites — “Repeat Namo… three times” and “Bow three times” in the Dhammayut guide, three bows after the precepts in Amaravati’s book — but neither book links them to the triple sādhu. In the suttas quoted above the Buddha’s exclamation is doubled; the triple form here comes only from Amaravati’s book.

Sadhu and anumodana: rejoicing in someone’s good deed

The Amaravati response pairs sādhu with anumodāmi, another form of the verb behind anumodana. Bhikkhu Khantipalo, in Lay Buddhist Practice, says anumodana “means literally ‘rejoicing with or after’ but implies ‘asking beings to rejoice in the good kamma which one has made and so benefit themselves.’” It is often translated “blessing”, he adds, but that “gives the wrong picture, as one is inviting other beings to rejoice at what one has done”. Those who do rejoice, on his account, “also make good kamma which is the direct cause of their happiness” — and since puñña, in his words, “is good kamma”, rejoicing is itself a way of making merit (see merit in Buddhism and dāna).

The standard dictionaries of Thailand and Myanmar record the same link in daily speech (the English renderings of the Thai are our own, not the dictionary’s):

• Thailand. The Royal Institute Dictionary (B.E. 2554, that is 2011) gives สาธุ three senses: ดีแล้ว, ชอบแล้ว, “it is good, it is right”, a word monks utter to confirm or certify a religious ceremony that has been performed; colloquially, a verb, to voice approval or to rejoice along with someone (its word is อนุโมทนา, anumodana), often paired as โมทนาสาธุ; and a verb for making the wai, palms joined in respect, the word used to tell a child to pay respect in the customary way, sometimes worn down to ธุ. (More in Buddhism in Thailand.)
• Myanmar. The Myanmar Language Commission’s Myanmar-English Dictionary (1993), as the SEAlang Library presents it, defines သာဓု as “Well done! (word of approbation)”, marking it as from Pali, and its compound သာဓုခေါ် as “praise a good deed”. (More in Buddhism in Myanmar.)

How do you pronounce sadhu?

Both chanting books give the long ā “as in father” and treat dh as one aspirated sound (“somewhat in the throat”, says the Dhammayut guide). They differ on the short vowels. For the Dhammayut guide length is time, not quality: ā and a “are both pronounced like the a in father”, ā held about twice as long, and u is “as in glue”. Amaravati’s book gives short a “as in about” and short u “as in put”. Thai chanters, the Dhammayut guide adds, say “dh as a throaty th”. Our guide to Pāli pronunciation sets out the disagreement.

Is sadhu used in Mahayana Buddhism?

In its sūtras, yes. In the Diamond Sutra, when Subhūti asks how one who has set out on the bodhisattva path should take his stand, the Sanskrit has the Buddha answer sādhu sādhu subhūte: “Well done, Subhūti, well done!” in Paul Harrison’s translation. The University of Oslo’s Bibliotheca Polyglotta sets the versions side by side: at that point Kumārajīva’s Chinese (T 235) has 善哉善哉須菩提, and the Tibetan rab ‘byor legs so legs so. A few lines on comes a close cousin of the Pāli idiom of listening well: śṛṇu sādhu ca suṣṭhu ca manasikuru, “listen, Subhūti, and pay attention closely and carefully” (Harrison).

We found no source we trust on how Mahāyāna communities use the word in ceremony today, so we do not describe one; the call-and-response above comes from two Theravāda chanting books.

Sadhu the holy man of India: same word, different use

The holy man’s title comes from the same Sanskrit word. Monier-Williams lists sādhu as a noun for “a good or virtuous or honest man” and “a holy man, saint, sage, seer”, and the feminine sādhvī for “a saintly woman”. Britannica’s entry “sadhu and swami” defines a sadhu, in India, as “a religious ascetic or holy person”, adds that “The class of sadhus includes renunciants of many types and faiths”, and says they “generally take vows of poverty and celibacy and depend on the charity of householders for their food.” That sadhu is a person; the sādhu Buddhists say aloud is an exclamation.

The Pāli canon has a cousin of the noun sense: in DN 16 Subhadda asks about the famous religious founders of his day, “deemed holy by many people” in Sujato’s translation (sādhusammatā bahujanassa; the Pali Text Society dictionary glosses the compound “highly honoured”). But the Pāli word for a Buddhist monk is bhikkhu. For how Buddhism and Hinduism relate more widely, see Buddhism vs Hinduism.

How to use sadhu respectfully

None of the sources here reserves sādhu for Buddhists or makes it a duty for guests. They do show where it belongs:

• At the end of a Dhamma talk, when the room answers together.
• After the precepts, as the response to the leader’s verse on virtue.
• After a monk’s blessing, as in the Dhammayut guide’s “Sādhu bhante” at the close of a forgiveness ceremony.
• When someone shares a good deed, as rejoicing, in the sense the Thai and Burmese dictionaries record.

If you are a guest and unsure, the rule from our temple etiquette guide applies: watch what the people around you do and join them, or simply ask. The Amaravati book adds the gesture: chanting and formal requests are “done with the hands in añjali”, made “by placing the palms together directly in front of the chest” (see why Buddhists bow).

It is a small word for a good habit: noticing what is good, and saying so.