A householder (gahapati) of Atthakanagara. One day, having finished some business which took him to Pātaliputta, he visited the Kukkutārāma to call upon Ananda. Learning that Ananda was at Beluvagāma near Vesāli, he visited him there and held a discussion with him, which is recorded in the Atthakanāgara Sutta. Later, assembling the monks from Pātaliputta and Vesāli, he entertained them and presented each with two lengths of cloth, while to Ananda he gave a suit of three robes and built for him a cell costing five hundred pieces (M.i.349ff; A.v.342ff).
Buddhaghosa says (MA.ii.571; AA.ii.866) that Dasama was so called because in the order of precedence with regard to aristocracy of birth and wealth, he occupied the tenth rank.