A householder (gahapati) of Aṭṭhakanāgara. One day, having finished some business which took him to Pāṭaliputta, he visited the Kukkuṭārāma to call upon Ānanda. Learning that Ānanda was at Beḷuvagāma near Vesāli, he visited him there and held a discussion with him, which is recorded in the Aṭṭhakanāgara Sutta. Later, assembling the monks from Pāṭaliputta and Vesāli, he entertained them and presented each with two lengths of cloth, while to Ānanda he gave a set of three robes and built for him a cell costing five hundred pieces (M.i.349 ff; A.v.342 ff).

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.