Aṇguttara-Nikāya
III. Tika Nipāta
IV. Deva-Dūta Vagga
The Book of the Gradual Sayings
or
More-Numbered Suttas
III. The Book of the Threes
IV. Messengers of the Devas
Sutta 39
Sukhumāla Suttaṃ (b)
Pride[1]
Translated from the Pali by
F.L. Woodward, M.A.
Copyright The Pali Text Society
Commercial Rights Reserved
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On a certain occasion the Exalted One addressed the monks, saying:
"Monks."
"Yes, Lord," replied those monks to the Exalted One.
The Exalted One said this:
"Monks, there are these three forms of pride.
What three?
The pride of youth,
the pride of health,
the pride of life.
§
The uneducated manyfolk,
drunk with the pride of youth,
practises immorality in deed,
practises immorality in word
practises immorality in thought.
So practising immorality in deed,
practising immorality in word
practising immorality in thought,
[130] when body breaks up after death,
such an one is reborn in the Waste,
the Way of Woe,
the Downfall,
in Purgatory.
■
The uneducated manyfolk,
drunk with the pride of health,
practises immorality in deed,
practises immorality in word
practises immorality in thought.
So practising immorality in deed,
practising immorality in word
practising immorality in thought,
when body breaks up after death,
such an one is reborn in the Waste,
the Way of Woe,
the Downfall,
in Purgatory.
■
The uneducated manyfolk,
drunk with the pride of life,
practises immorality in deed,
practises immorality in word
practises immorality in thought.
So practising immorality in deed,
practising immorality in word
practising immorality in thought,
when body breaks up after death,
such an one is reborn in the Waste,
the Way of Woe,
the Downfall,
in Purgatory.
§
Monks, intoxicated with the pride of youth a monk gives up the training and falls back to the low life.[2]
Monks, intoxicated with the pride of health a monk gives up the training and falls back to the low life.
Monks, intoxicated with the pride of life a monk gives up the training and falls back to the low life."
Though subject to disease and eld and death,
The manyfolk loathes others who are thus.
Were I to loathe the beings who are thus
'Twould be unseemly, living as I do.[3]
So living, knowing freedom from rebirth,[4]
I conquered pride of youth and health and life,
For in release I saw security.[5]
Then to this very me came energy,
For I had seen Nibbāna thoroughly.
'Tis not for me to follow sense-desires.
I'll not turn back. I will become the man
Who fares on to the God-life as his goal.
[1] Comy. takes this para, as part of the previous one [sutta]. At Vibh. 345 there are twenty-seven such states of mental intoxication, but the number is usually these three, as at D. ii, 220.
[2] The household life.
[3] These gāthās occur at A. iii, 75.
[4] Dhammaṃ nirupadhiṃ = nibbānaṃ. Comy.
[5] Text nekkhammaṃ daṭṭhu khemato. Comy. reads nekkhamme ... khemataṃ =nibbāne khema-bhavaṃ disvā.
