Reading guide
Five drawbacks of a literal charnel ground
Filthy, stinking, frightening, a gathering place for savage spirits, and a weeping place for many people — the genuine, unpleasant qualities of a place where the dead were left, in the ancient Indian context this discourse draws on.
Applied to a person — by their conduct, not their identity
‘In the same way’, the discourse says, an individual (puggala, a gender-neutral term) with filthy conduct by body, speech, and mind shares these same five qualities — but crucially, the basis of the comparison is explicitly named as their own conduct, something chosen and changeable, not an inherited or unchangeable trait.
Each quality explained through its actual social mechanism
Unlike AN 5.229's bare assertion, this discourse walks through exactly how each quality manifests: filthy conduct produces a bad reputation (‘stinking’); good-hearted companions avoid such a person from a distance (‘frightening’); they end up living only among others of similarly poor character (‘gathering place for savage spirits’); and companions who witness this openly lament having to live alongside them (‘weeping place’).
A meaningful contrast with AN 5.229-230
Read against this project's earlier treatment of AN 5.229–230, this discourse's structure is genuinely different in one crucial respect: it applies its unflattering comparison to a person's own actions, available to anyone regardless of who they are, rather than asserting the comparison as true of an entire class of people by nature.
Still worth reading carefully
This discourse remains a harsh comparison, and this guide doesn't soften that; but the difference between ‘these are the consequences of choices anyone could make’ and ‘this is what a whole group of people inherently is’ is a real and significant one, worth naming explicitly rather than passing over.
Key terms
The text
Five drawbacks of a charnel ground
§1“Mendicants, there are these five drawbacks to a charnel ground. What five? It’s filthy, stinking, frightening, a gathering place for savage monsters, and a weeping place for many people. These are the five drawbacks of a charnel ground.
The same five, applied to a person's conduct
§2In the same way there are five drawbacks of an individual like a charnel ground. What five? To start with, an individual has filthy conduct by way of body, speech, and mind. This is how they’re filthy, I say. That individual is just as filthy as a charnel ground. Because of their filthy conduct, they get a bad reputation. This is how they’re stinky, I say. That individual is just as stinky as a charnel ground. Because of their filthy conduct, good-hearted spiritual companions avoid them from afar. That’s how they’re frightening, I say. That individual is just as frightening as a charnel ground. Because of their filthy conduct, they live together with individuals of a similar character. This is how they gather with savage monsters, I say. That individual is just as much a gathering place of savage monsters as a charnel ground. Because of their filthy conduct, when good-hearted spiritual companions see them they complain: ‘Oh, it’s so painful for us to have to live together with such as these.’ This is how there’s weeping, I say. This person is just as much a weeping place for many people as a charnel ground. These are the five drawbacks of an individual like a charnel ground.”
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