Saṃyutta Nikāya
II. Nidāna Vagga
15. Anamat'agga-Saṃyuttaṃ
I. Paṭhama Vagga
The Book of the Kindred Sayings
II. The Book Called the Nidāna-Vagga
Containing Kindred sayings on Cause
and Other Subjects
15. Kindred Sayings on the Incalculable Beginning
1. [Untitled]
Sutta 10
Eka-Puggala Suttaṃ
A Person
Translated by Mrs. Rhys Davids
Assisted by F. L. Woodward
Originally Published by
The Pali Text Society
Public Domain
The Exalted One was at Rājagaha
on Vulture's Peak.
And there the Exalted One addressed the brethren, saying:
"Brethren!"
"Master!" responded those brethren.
The Exalted One said:
"Incalculable is the beginning, brethren,
of this faring on.
The earliest point is not revealed
of the running on, the faring on,
of beings cloaked in ignorance,
tied to craving.
The bones of one single person, brethren,
running on, faring [125] on for an aeon
would be a cairn,
a pile,
a heap
as great as Mount Vepulla,
were there a collector of those bones
and the collection were not destroyed.
How is this?
Incalculable is the beginning, brethren, of this faring on.
The earliest point is not revealed
of the faring on, running on,
of beings cloaked in ignorance,
tied to craving.
Thus many a day, brethren,
have ye been suffering ill,
have ye been suffering pain,
have ye been suffering disaster,
have the charnel-fields been growing.
Thus far enough is there, brethren,
for you to be repelled
by all the things of this world,
enough to lose all passion for them,
enough to be delivered therefrom."
This spake the Exalted One.
The Wellfarer saying this, the Master said this further:
The pile of bones of [all the bodies of] one man
Who has alone one aeon lived,
Were heaped a mountain high - so said the mighty seer -
Yea, reckoned high as Vipula
To north of Vulture's Peak, crag-fort of Magadha.[1]
When he with perfect insight sees
The Ariyan Truths: - what suffering is and how it comes
And how it may be overpassed,
The Ariyan Eightfold Path, the way all ill to abate -
Seven times at most reborn, a man
Yet running on, through breaking every fetter down,
Endmaker doth become of ill.
[1] Cf. Pss. of the Sisters, pp. 66, 172; Pss. of the Brethren, ver. 545. Above, vol. i, p. 92; cf. Buddhist India, p. 37. The parable and verses occur in Iti-Vuttaka, § 24. 'To north': Comy.: Gijjhakāṭassa uttara-passe ṭhito. Vipula is here spelt Vepulla.
