Munika — Book of the Ones · Chapter Three (Kuruṅgavagga) · Poem 10 of 10 (closing the chapter)
Setting
One ox addressing another, comparing their situation to a nearby pig's
Speaker
An ox, warning his brother against envy
Form
One four-line stanza
Length
Under 1 minute to read
Northern parallel
This reading guide does not assert a specific matching text for this poem in other Buddhist literatures.
Difficulty
★☆☆☆☆ — one short verse with a dark twist beneath its surface
Why this text
This poem closes the Kuruṅgavagga with a sharp reversal: what looks like an enviable, easy life — rich food, no hard labor — turns out, once its real cause is understood, to be nothing worth envying at all.
Reading guide
Contentment urged, with a hidden reason behind it
The verse gives one ox's advice to another: ‘envy not what is Munika's, for he eats the food of the terminally ill. Don't worry, just eat your chaff, this is a mark of long life.’ On its surface, this reads as simple advice toward contentment — but the verse's own reasoning already hints that something is not quite as it first appears.
A dark reason for the pig's rich diet, per the commentarial story
Per Sujato's comment, a hard-working ox is jealous of the rice scoffed by the pig Munika, but his brother tells him not to worry, since the pig is being fattened for a feast. The pig's rich food is not a reward or good fortune at all — it is preparation for slaughter. The ox's own plain chaff, by contrast, is genuinely ‘a mark of long life’: unremarkable, but safe.
Closing the Kuruṅgavagga
This poem closes the Kuruṅgavagga, the third of eight chapters this site's selection draws from within the Ekakanipāta. The source text's own untranslated summary verse (uddāna) immediately follows, naming all ten poems of this chapter in sequence — not presented here as quoted text, since it carries no separate translation, but noted for completeness, as at the close of the previous two chapters.
Key terms
mā munikassa pihayi — “envy not what is Munika's” — the verse's opening warning against envy.
āturannāni bhuñjati — “he eats the food of the terminally ill” — the verse's own hint that the pig's rich diet has a hidden, unwelcome cause.
dīghāyulakkhaṇaṁ — “a mark of long life” — the verse's own reframing of the plain chaff the ox actually eats.
Munika — the pig's own name, giving this poem its traditional title — secretly being fattened for slaughter, not enjoying genuine good fortune.
Munikajātaka — the traditional title of this tale, closing the Kuruṅgavagga.
The text
The text in full: a single verse. The chapter's own untranslated closing summary verse (uddāna), which follows immediately in the source text, is not quoted here since it carries no English translation, but its content — the ten poem titles of this chapter in sequence — matches this reading guide's own further reading list below. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).
§1Envy not what is Munika’s, for he eats the food of the terminally ill. Don’t worry, just eat your chaff, this is a mark of long life.
· · ·
Self-check quiz
Ten questions. Click an answer to see immediate feedback. No score is recorded — this is for your own checking.
Question 1 of 10
What advice does the speaking ox give?
Correct: B. Advice toward contentment, though the reasoning behind it holds a twist.
Question 2 of 10
What does the verse reveal about why the pig eats rich food?
Correct: C. Setting up the darker reveal confirmed by the commentarial story.
Question 3 of 10
What does the commentarial story reveal is the real reason for the pig's rich diet?
Correct: D. Reframing what looked like an enviable situation as something genuinely undesirable.
Question 4 of 10
How does the verse reframe the ox's own plain diet of chaff?
Correct: A. The ox's own hard, unglamorous labor is actually the safer position.
Question 5 of 10
What chapter does this poem close?
Correct: B. The source text's own untranslated summary verse (uddāna) follows immediately after.
Question 6 of 10
Is the chapter's closing summary verse (uddāna) presented as quoted text in this reading guide?
Correct: C. Consistent with the same practice at the close of the previous two chapters.
Question 7 of 10
What is this poem's traditional title?
Correct: D. The thirtieth poem overall, and the tenth and final poem of the Kuruṅgavagga.
Question 8 of 10
What sharp reversal does this poem's closing structure demonstrate?
Correct: A. The poem's core irony, delivered in just four lines.
Question 9 of 10
Where does this poem sit in the collection's own chapter structure?
Correct: B. Its closing position is directly confirmed by the chapter's own summary verse following immediately after.
Question 10 of 10
How many chapters of the Ekakanipāta does this site's selection now cover, after this poem?
Correct: C. Thirty poems complete, out of this site's 82-poem selection.
