Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
A teacher's authority is grounded in three things — the powers actually possessed, the assemblies actually entered without fear, and the paths actually walked to their ends — and the Buddha is making each of these visible in detail as the proper foundation for the lion's roar.
The frame — Sunakkhatta's defection
Sunakkhatta the Licchavi has recently left the Buddha's teaching. In Vesālī, he is telling a crowd: "The ascetic Gotama has no superhuman distinction in knowledge and vision worthy of the noble ones. He teaches what he's worked out by logic, following a line of inquiry, expressing his own perspective. And his teaching leads those who practice it to the complete ending of suffering, the goal for which it's taught."
The Buddha's first response is a verbal sleight: Sunakkhatta is angry. His words are spoken out of anger. Thinking he criticizes the Realized One, in fact he just praises him. The "criticism" — that the teaching nonetheless leads to the complete ending of suffering — is itself a complete vindication. Whatever Sunakkhatta thinks the Buddha is, the teaching works.
What Sunakkhatta cannot infer
The Buddha then names four kinds of knowledge that Sunakkhatta, lacking confidence, will not infer about the Buddha from the teaching:
- The standard canonical recitation of the Buddha's qualities (Itipi so… — the same formula as in MN 7)
- Psychic powers (the eight kinds, identical to MN 6 §14)
- Clairaudience
- Mind-reading (the eight pairs, identical to MN 6 §16)
The structure is precise: Sunakkhatta's anger blinds him not to the teaching but to what the teacher has. The discourse then proceeds to make that inventory explicit.
The ten powers of a Tathāgata
The canonical inventory. The Buddha possesses these ten kinds of knowledge, and "with these he claims the bull's place, roars his lion's roar in the assemblies, and turns the divine wheel":
| # | Power |
|---|---|
| 1 | Understanding the possible as possible, the impossible as impossible |
| 2 | The result of deeds in past, future, and present, in terms of grounds and causes |
| 3 | Where all paths of practice lead |
| 4 | The world with its many and diverse elements |
| 5 | The diverse convictions of sentient beings |
| 6 | The faculties of other sentient beings, having encompassed them with the mind |
| 7 | Corruption, cleansing, and emergence regarding the absorptions, liberations, immersions, and attainments |
| 8 | Recollection of many kinds of past lives, with features and details |
| 9 | Clairvoyance — seeing beings reborn according to their deeds |
| 10 | The undefiled freedom of heart and freedom by wisdom — knowing the ending of defilements |
Items 8, 9, 10 are the three knowledges (tevijjā) that MN 4 named as the night of awakening. Items 1–7 are the additional faculties of a Buddha — knowledges about the structure of possibility, about karma, about paths, about the world, about minds, about meditative states.
The four self-assurances
The four vesārajja — the four "freedoms from fear" — name four claims no one can legitimately make against the Buddha. He has tested himself and found these grounds secure:
- "You claim to be fully awakened but don't understand these things" — no one can rightly say this to me
- "You claim to have ended all defilements but still have these defilements" — no one can rightly say this
- "The acts you say are obstructions are not really obstructions" — no one can rightly say this
- "The teaching doesn't lead those who practice it to the complete ending of suffering" — no one can rightly say this
Notice the asymmetry. The Buddha is not saying no one ever does say these things (Sunakkhatta just did). He is saying no one can legitimately say them — they cannot be defended on examination. Self-assurance is the absence of vulnerability to legitimate criticism, not the absence of all criticism.
The eight assemblies
The Buddha then names the eight kinds of assemblies into which he has gone and spoken without fear:
| Realm | Assemblies |
|---|---|
| Human | Aristocrats · brahmins · householders · ascetics |
| Divine | Gods of the four great kings · gods of the thirty-three · Māras · divinities |
The eight cover the spectrum of audiences a being in this cosmology can address. The Buddha says: in each of these, "I used to sit with them, converse, and engage in discussion. But I don't see any reason to feel afraid or insecure."
The five destinations and their similes
The Buddha then surveys the five places sentient beings are reborn — and provides, for each, a precise simile in which he can see a person's destination from the way they are now walking:
| Destination | Simile |
|---|---|
| Hell | A pit of glowing coals deeper than a man's height, full of coals that neither flame nor smoke. A weary, thirsty traveler is walking toward it. |
| Animal realm | A sewer deeper than a man's height, full to the brim with feces. The traveler is walking toward it. |
| Ghost realm | A tree on rugged ground with thin foliage casting dappled shade. The traveler will sit under it and feel mostly painful feelings. |
| Humanity | A tree on smooth ground with abundant foliage casting dense shade. The traveler will feel mostly pleasant feelings. |
| The gods | A stilt longhouse with a peaked roof, plastered, draft-free, with a woolen-covered couch. The traveler will feel perfect happiness. |
| (extra) Arahantship | A lotus pond with clear, sweet, cool water, smooth banks, a dense forest grove nearby. The traveler plunges in, bathes, drinks, emerges, sits in the grove. |
The sixth simile — the lotus pond — is the discourse's quiet hint about where the path actually ends. The five destinations are within the cycle of rebirth. The lotus pond is outside it. The traveler in each simile is the practitioner approaching the result of their own current way of living.
The pre-awakening austerities (§§44–56) — what the Buddha tried and rejected
Now the discourse turns to autobiography. The Buddha says he himself practiced — before his awakening — every kind of extreme asceticism known to his time. The account is detailed and graphic. Read it as the testimony of someone reporting from the inside.
The four factors: he was a fervent mortifier, a rough-liver, one disgusted with sin, and one practicing extreme seclusion — and the ultimate version of each. He went naked. He refused food from any "tainted" source (pregnant women, breastfeeding women, any place where flies were buzzing, where a hound waited, where weapons were present). He ate one mouthful at a time from one house — sometimes only once a fortnight. He ate herbs, millet, wild rice, water lettuce, cow dung, his own urine and excrement. He wore robes of hemp, corpse-wrappings, tree bark, antelope hide, human hair, owls' wings. He tore out his beard and hair. He stood constantly. He squatted permanently. He slept on a bed of thorns. He performed ritual bathing three times daily.
The rough living (§46): dust and dirt built up on his body over many years until it began flaking off "like the trunk of a pale-moon ebony tree." He did not rub it off.
The disgust of sin (§47): he stepped so carefully that he was concerned about injuring drops of water.
The seclusion (§48): when he saw any human being — a cowherd, a lumberjack — he fled like a wild deer, "from forest to forest, from thicket to thicket, from valley to valley, from uplands to uplands."
The cow-dung diet (§49): he ate the dung of suckling calves; when his own urine and excrement remained, he ate that.
The extreme weather practice (§50): in the cold January nights when snow falls, he stayed in the open at night and in the forest by day. In the hot months, he reversed it. The verses he composed himself: "Scorched and frozen, alone in the awe-inspiring forest, nude, no fire to sit beside, the sage still pursues his quest."
The charnel ground bed (§51): he made his bed in a charnel ground, using human bones as a pillow. Village louts came and spat on him, pissed on him, threw mud on him, poked sticks in his ears. "But I don't recall ever having a bad thought about them."
The jujube fast (§52): the most graphic. Other ascetics taught that purity comes from food. They lived on jujubes only. The Buddha says: "I recall eating just a single jujube." The body that resulted: limbs like an eighty-year-old's, bottom like a camel's hoof, vertebrae sticking out like beads on a string, ribs as gaunt as broken rafters. The eyes had sunk so deep "like the gleam of water sunk deep down a well." The scalp shriveled like a green gourd dried in the sun. The skin of his belly touched his backbone, so that "when I tried to rub the skin of my belly I grabbed my backbone, and when I tried to rub my backbone I rubbed the skin of my belly." When he tried to defecate or urinate, he fell face down. When he tried to massage his limbs, the hair fell out at the roots.
The same extremity was practiced (§§53–55) on diets of mung beans only, sesame only, plain rice only. Each ended the same way.
The conclusion (§56): "But Sāriputta, I did not achieve any superhuman distinction in knowledge and vision worthy of the noble ones by that conduct, that practice, that grueling work. Why is that? Because I didn't achieve that noble wisdom that's noble and emancipating, and which delivers one who practices it to the complete ending of suffering."
This is the canon's most direct, most graphic, most authoritative statement that asceticism for its own sake does not produce awakening. The Buddha is not theorizing; he is reporting. He tried. He went further than anyone. It did not work.
The six wrong views about purity
Closing this autobiographical section, the Buddha names six theories of purity that other ascetics held — and his own experience with each:
- Purity from food — already addressed at length
- Purity from transmigration — there is no realm he has not been to (except the pure abodes)
- Purity from rebirth — there is no rebirth he has not had
- Purity from abode — there is no abode he has not lived in
- Purity from sacrifice — there is no sacrifice he has not offered, when he was a king or wealthy brahmin
- Purity from serving the sacred flame — there is no fire he has not served, in past lives
The structure is precise. The Buddha is not arguing against these views theoretically; he is reporting that he has personally tested each one. The conclusion is empirical: none of them produced what the Buddha eventually achieved by a different path.
The age objection (§62)
Some ascetics had a doctrine that wisdom is fullest in youth and declines with age. The Buddha, now eighty, addresses this directly. "You should not see it like this." He says: imagine four disciples, each with a hundred-year lifespan and perfect memory, asking questions about the four foundations of mindfulness one after another. They would each ask for a hundred years. They would all die before the Buddha ran out of teachings. "Even if you have to carry me around on a stretcher, there will never be any deterioration in the Realized One's lucidity of wisdom."
The image — being carried on a stretcher in old age — is poignant. The Buddha knows his body is failing. He is not claiming bodily vigor; he is claiming that the mind's lucidity does not depend on the body's vigor.
The closing — "a being not liable to delusion"
"If there's anyone of whom it may be rightly said that a being not liable to delusion has arisen in the world for the welfare and happiness of the people, out of sympathy for the world, for the benefit, welfare, and happiness of gods and humans, it's of me that this should be said."
This is the discourse's quiet final claim — phrased not in the form of self-praise but in the conditional, almost wistful tone of "if anyone." Combined with everything that has come before, it is the lion's roar in its mature form.
The "Hair-raising" name
Venerable Nāgasamāla, fanning the Buddha throughout this entire discourse, says at the end: "It's incredible, sir, it's amazing! While I was listening to this exposition of the teaching my hair stood up!" The Buddha gives the discourse its alternative name: Lomahaṁsana-pariyāya, "The Hair-raising Discourse." Whether for the asceticism it describes or the lion's roar it makes — the canon leaves both readings open.
A modern parallel
The discourse's most generalizable claim is that real authority comes from real experience, not from logical inference. Sunakkhatta accused the Buddha of teaching from logic only. The Buddha's response is not a counter-argument; it is an inventory of what he has personally done, seen, tested, and rejected. Modern parallel: the difference between a teacher who has read everything about meditation and a teacher who has actually undertaken the practices, who has tried and failed at several methods, who has reasons born of experience for the methods they now teach. The Buddha is making the case that his lion's roar is grounded in the second kind of authority, not the first.
Three questions Western students often ask
"The austerities section is graphic. Why is it included?" Because the canonical position — that extreme asceticism does not lead to awakening — is structurally undermined if the Buddha is suspected of not having tried it. By cataloging the practices in detail, with vivid physical specifics, the Buddha forecloses the objection "you don't understand what we do." He is saying: I did all of this, more thoroughly than any of you, for years. Nothing came of it. The graphic specificity is the proof of the conclusion.
"The hell-pit and sewer similes feel harsh. Is the Buddha really saying I can see where someone's going from how they are now?" Yes — and the claim is empirical rather than judgmental. A person walking toward a pit of glowing coals will arrive at a pit of glowing coals; a person walking toward a sewer will arrive at a sewer. The similes are about trajectories, not about people. The trajectory is set by the present way of living. The Buddha's claim is that someone who has trained their perception this finely can read the destinations from the trajectories. The reader is invited to test this on themselves: what trajectory am I on now, and where would it arrive if I continued?
"What about Sunakkhatta? Does the Buddha say he goes to hell?" The discourse is severe on this point. Anyone who continues to deny the Buddha's qualifications without giving up that view "will be placed in hell as if delivered there." The line is repeated five times in the discourse. The Buddha is not condemning Sunakkhatta personally so much as naming the karmic structure of slandering the awakened — which the early Buddhist cosmology treated as one of the worst of all karmas. The repetition is rhetorical pressure: do not say this; the consequence is precise.
Key terms
The text
The frame — Sunakkhatta's slander
§1So I have heard. At one time the Buddha was staying outside the city of Vesālī in a woodland grove west of the town.
§2Now at that time Sunakkhatta the Licchavi had recently left this teaching and training. He was telling a crowd in Vesālī: "The ascetic Gotama has no superhuman distinction in knowledge and vision worthy of the noble ones. He teaches what he's worked out by logic, following a line of inquiry, expressing his own perspective. And his teaching leads those who practice it to the complete ending of suffering, the goal for which it's taught."
§3Then Venerable Sāriputta robed up in the morning and, taking his bowl and robe, entered Vesālī for alms. He heard what Sunakkhatta was saying. Then he wandered for alms in Vesālī. After the meal, on his return from almsround, he went to the Buddha, bowed, sat down to one side, and told him what had happened.
§4"Sāriputta, Sunakkhatta, that futile man, is angry. His words are spoken out of anger. Thinking he criticizes the Realized One, in fact he just praises him. For it is praise of the Realized One to say: 'His teaching leads those who practice it to the complete ending of suffering, the goal for which it's taught.'
What Sunakkhatta cannot infer
§5But there's no way Sunakkhatta will infer about me from the teaching: 'That Blessed One is perfected, a fully awakened Buddha, accomplished in knowledge and conduct, holy, knower of the world, supreme guide for those fit for training, teacher of gods and humans, awakened, blessed.'
§§6–8And there is no way Sunakkhatta will infer about the Buddha the eight kinds of psychic power (§6 — multiplying himself, going unobstructed through walls, walking on water, flying, etc.), clairaudience that hears both human and heavenly sounds (§7), or mind-reading of the eight pairs of mental states (§8 — with greed / without greed, with hate / without hate, and so on).
The ten powers of a Tathāgata
§9There are these ten powers of a Realized One that the Realized One possesses. With these he claims the bull's place, roars his lion's roar in the assemblies, and turns the divine wheel. What ten?
§10Firstly, the Realized One truly understands the possible as possible, and the impossible as impossible. Since he truly understands this, this is a power of the Realized One. Relying on this he claims the bull's place, roars his lion's roar in the assemblies, and turns the divine wheel.
§§11–16Furthermore, the Realized One truly understands: (§11) the result of deeds undertaken in past, future, and present in terms of grounds and causes; (§12) where all paths of practice lead; (§13) the world with its many and diverse elements; (§14) the diverse convictions of sentient beings; (§15) the faculties of other sentient beings and other individuals after encompassing them with his mind; (§16) corruption, cleansing, and emergence regarding the absorptions, liberations, immersions, and attainments. Each is named as a power on which he relies to claim the bull's place.
§17Furthermore, the Realized One recollects many kinds of past lives — one, two, three, four, five, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand rebirths; many eons of the world contracting, many eons of the world expanding, many eons of the world contracting and expanding. He remembers each life with its features and details — names, clans, food, pleasures, pains, the way each life ended, the rebirth that followed. Since he truly understands this, this is a power of the Realized One.
§18Furthermore, with clairvoyance that is purified and superhuman, the Realized One sees sentient beings passing away and being reborn — inferior and superior, beautiful and ugly, in a good place or a bad place. He understands how sentient beings pass on according to their deeds. Since he truly understands this, this is a power of the Realized One.
§19Furthermore, the Realized One has realized the undefiled freedom of heart and freedom by wisdom in this very life, and lives having realized it with his own insight due to the ending of defilements. Since he truly understands this, this is a power of the Realized One. Relying on this he claims the bull's place, roars his lion's roar in the assemblies, and turns the divine wheel.
§20A Realized One possesses these ten powers of a Realized One. With these he claims the bull's place, roars his lion's roar in the assemblies, and turns the divine wheel.
§21When I know and see in this way, suppose someone were to say this: 'The ascetic Gotama has no superhuman distinction in knowledge and vision worthy of the noble ones. He teaches what he's worked out by logic, following a line of inquiry, expressing his own perspective.' Unless they give up that speech and that thought, and let go of that view, they will be placed in hell as if delivered there.
The four self-assurances
§22Sāriputta, a Realized One has four kinds of self-assurance. With these he claims the bull's place, roars his lion's roar in the assemblies, and turns the divine wheel. What four?
§23I see no reason for anyone — whether ascetic, brahmin, god, Māra, or the Divinity, or anyone else in the world — to legitimately scold me, saying: 'You claim to be a fully awakened Buddha, but you don't understand these things.' Since I see no such reason, I live secure, fearless, and self-assured.
§§24–26I see no reason for anyone to legitimately scold me, saying: (§24) "You claim to have ended all defilements, but you still have these defilements"; (§25) "The acts that you say are obstructions are not really obstructions for the one who performs them"; (§26) "The teaching doesn't lead those who practice it to the complete ending of suffering, the goal for which it is taught." Since I see no such reason, I live secure, fearless, and self-assured.
§27A Realized One possesses these four kinds of self-assurance. With these he claims the bull's place, roars his lion's roar in the assemblies, and turns the divine wheel.
§28When I know and see in this way, suppose someone were to say this: 'The ascetic Gotama has no superhuman distinction…' Unless they give up that speech and that thought, and let go of that view, they will be placed in hell as if delivered there.
The eight assemblies
§29Sāriputta, there are these eight assemblies. What eight? The assemblies of aristocrats, brahmins, householders, and ascetics. An assembly of the gods of the four great kings. An assembly of the gods of the thirty-three. An assembly of Māras. An assembly of divinities. These are the eight assemblies. Possessing these four kinds of self-assurance, the Realized One approaches and enters right into these eight assemblies. I recall having approached an assembly of hundreds of aristocrats. There I used to sit with them, converse, and engage in discussion. But I don't see any reason to feel afraid or insecure.
§§30–31The same for the other seven assemblies. Each: "There I used to sit with them, converse, and engage in discussion. But I don't see any reason to feel afraid or insecure." And the closing repetition: anyone who continues to deny this will be placed in hell as if delivered there.
The four kinds of reproduction
§§32–34Sāriputta, there are these four kinds of reproduction. What four? Reproduction for creatures born from an egg, from a womb, from moisture, or spontaneously. Eggs: beings born by breaking out of an eggshell. Wombs: beings born by breaking out of the amniotic sac. Moisture: beings born in a rotten fish, in a rotten carcass, in rotten dough, in a cesspool. Spontaneous: gods, hell-beings, certain humans, and certain beings in the lower realms. (§34: again, anyone denying this will be placed in hell.)
The five destinations — and their similes
§35There are these five destinations. What five? Hell, the animal realm, the ghost realm, humanity, and the gods.
§36I understand each destination, and the path and practice that leads to it. And I understand how someone practicing that way is reborn there.
§37When I've comprehended the mind of a certain individual, I understand: 'This individual is practicing in such a way and is riding upon such a path that when their body breaks up, after death, they will be reborn in hell.' Some time later I see that they have indeed been reborn there. Suppose there was a pit of glowing coals deeper than a man's height, full of glowing coals that neither flamed nor smoked. Then along comes a person struggling in the oppressive heat, weary, thirsty, and parched. And they have set out on a path that meets with that same pit of coals. If a person with clear eyes saw them, they'd say: 'This person is proceeding in such a way and is riding upon such a path that they will arrive at that very pit of coals.'
§§38–41The same structure for the other four destinations, with their similes:
· §38 Animal realm — a sewer deeper than a man's height, full to the brim with feces. The traveler will fall in.
· §39 Ghost realm — a tree on rugged ground with thin foliage casting dappled shade. The traveler will sit under it and experience mostly painful feelings.
· §40 Humanity — a tree on smooth ground with abundant foliage casting dense shade. The traveler will experience mostly pleasant feelings.
· §41 The gods — a stilt longhouse with a peaked roof, plastered inside and out, draft-free, with a couch spread with woolen covers, fine deer hide, a canopy, red pillows at both ends. The traveler will experience feelings of perfect happiness.
§42When I've comprehended the mind of a certain individual, I understand: 'This individual is practicing in such a way and is riding upon such a path that they will realize the undefiled freedom of heart and freedom by wisdom in this very life, and live having realized it with their own insight due to the ending of defilements.' Suppose there was a lotus pond with clear, sweet, cool water, clean, with smooth banks, delightful. Nearby was a dense forest grove. Then along comes a person struggling in the oppressive heat, weary, thirsty, and parched. And they have set out on a path that meets with that same lotus pond. They would plunge into the pond, bathe and drink. When all their stress, weariness, and heat exhaustion had faded away, they would emerge and sit or lie down in that woodland thicket, where they experienced feelings of perfect happiness. In the same way, when I've comprehended the mind of an individual, I understand that they will realize the undefiled freedom in this very life. These are the five destinations.
§43When I know and see in this way, suppose someone were to say this: 'The ascetic Gotama has no superhuman distinction…' Unless they give up that speech and that thought, and let go of that view, they will be placed in hell as if delivered there.
The pre-awakening austerities — the four-factored path
§44Sāriputta, I recall having practiced a spiritual path consisting of four factors. I used to be a fervent mortifier, the ultimate fervent mortifier. I used to live rough, the ultimate rough-liver. I used to live in disgust of sin, the ultimate one living in disgust of sin. I used to be secluded, in ultimate seclusion.
§45And this is what my fervent mortification was like. I went naked, ignoring conventions. I licked my hands, and didn't come or stop when asked. I didn't consent to food brought to me, or food prepared specially for me, or an invitation for a meal. I didn't receive anything from a pot or bowl; or from someone who keeps sheep, or who has a weapon or a shovel in their home; or where a couple is eating; or where there is a woman who is pregnant, breastfeeding, or who lives with a man; or where food for distribution is advertised; or where there's a hound waiting or flies buzzing. I accepted no fish or meat or beer or wine, and drank no fermented gruel. I went to just one house for alms, taking just one mouthful, or two houses and two mouthfuls, up to seven houses and seven mouthfuls. I fed on one saucer a day, two saucers a day, up to seven saucers a day. I ate once a day, once every second day, up to once a week, and so on, even up to once a fortnight. I lived committed to the practice of eating food at set intervals. I ate herbs, millet, wild rice, poor rice, water lettuce, rice bran, scum from boiling rice, sesame flour, grass, or cow dung. I survived on forest roots and fruits, or eating fallen fruit. I wore robes of sunn hemp, mixed hemp, corpse-wrapping cloth, rags, lodh tree bark, antelope hide (whole or in strips), kusa grass, bark, wood-chips, human hair, horse-tail hair, or owls' wings. I tore out hair and beard, committed to this practice. I constantly stood, turning down seats. I squatted, committed to the endeavor of squatting. I lay on a mat of thorns, making a mat of thorns my bed. I was devoted to ritual bathing three times a day, including at dusk. And so I lived committed to practicing these various ways of mortifying and tormenting the body. Such was my practice of fervent mortification.
§46And this is what my rough living was like. The dust and dirt built up on my body over many years until it started flaking off. It's like the trunk of a pale-moon ebony tree, which builds up bark over many years until it starts flaking off. But it didn't occur to me: 'Oh, this dust and dirt must be rubbed off by my hand or another's.' That didn't occur to me. Such was my rough living.
§47And this is what my living in disgust of sin was like. I'd step forward or back ever so mindfully, so I was full of pity regarding even a drop of water, thinking: 'May I not injure any little creatures on unclear ground.' Such was my living in disgust of sin.
§48And this is what my seclusion was like. I would plunge deep into a wilderness region and stay there. When I saw a cowherd or a shepherd, or someone gathering grass or sticks, or a lumberjack, I'd flee from forest to forest, from thicket to thicket, from valley to valley, from uplands to uplands. Why is that? So that I wouldn't see them, nor they me. I fled like a wild deer seeing a human being. Such was my practice of seclusion.
§49I would go on all fours into the cow-pens after the cattle had left and eat the dung of the young suckling calves. As long as my own urine and excrement lasted, I would even eat that. Such was my eating of most unnatural things.
§50I would plunge deep into an awe-inspiring forest grove and stay there. It was so awe-inspiring that normally it would make your hair stand on end if you weren't free of greed. And on days such as the cold spell when the snow falls in the January winter, I stayed in the open by night and in the forest by day. But in the last month of summer I'd stay in the open by day and in the forest by night. And then these verses, which were neither supernaturally inspired, nor learned before in the past, occurred to me: "Scorched and frozen, alone in the awe-inspiring forest. Nude, no fire to sit beside, the sage still pursues his quest."
§51I would make my bed in a charnel ground, with the bones of the dead for a pillow. Then village louts would come up to me. They'd spit and piss on me, throw mud on me, even poke sticks in my ears. But I don't recall ever having a bad thought about them. Such was my abiding in equanimity.
§52There are some ascetics and brahmins who have this doctrine and view: 'Purity comes from food.' They say: 'Let's live on jujubes.' So they eat jujubes and jujube powder, and drink jujube juice. And they enjoy many jujube concoctions. I recall eating just a single jujube. You might think that at that time the jujubes must have been very big. But you should not see it like this. The jujubes then were at most the same size as today. Eating so very little, my body became severely emaciated. Due to eating so little, my major and minor limbs became like the joints of an eighty-year-old or a dying man, my bottom became like a camel's hoof, my vertebrae stuck out like beads on a string, and my ribs were as gaunt as the broken-down rafters on an old barn. Due to eating so little, the gleam of my eyes sank deep in their sockets, like the gleam of water sunk deep down a well. Due to eating so little, my scalp shriveled and withered like a green bitter-gourd in the wind and sun. Due to eating so little, the skin of my belly stuck to my backbone, so that when I tried to rub the skin of my belly I grabbed my backbone, and when I tried to rub my backbone I rubbed the skin of my belly. Due to eating so little, when I tried to urinate or defecate I fell face down right there. Due to eating so little, when I tried to relieve my body by rubbing my limbs with my hands, the hair, rotted at its roots, fell out.
§§53–55The same with diets of mung beans only, sesame only, and ordinary rice only. Each ended the same way, with the same emaciation.
§56But Sāriputta, I did not achieve any superhuman distinction in knowledge and vision worthy of the noble ones by that conduct, that practice, that grueling work. Why is that? Because I didn't achieve that noble wisdom that's noble and emancipating, and which delivers one who practices it to the complete ending of suffering.
The six wrong views about purity
§57There are some ascetics and brahmins who have this doctrine and view: 'Purity comes from transmigration.' But it's not easy to find a realm that I haven't previously transmigrated to in all this long time, except for the gods of the pure abodes. For if I had transmigrated to the gods of the pure abodes I would not have returned to this realm again.
§§58–61Other ascetics teach that purity comes from rebirth (§58), from abode of rebirth (§59), from sacrifice (§60), or from serving the sacred flame (§61). In each case the Buddha responds: "It's not easy to find a [rebirth / abode / sacrifice / fire] that I haven't previously had / lived in / offered / served in all this long time." He has tested every position.
The age objection
§62There are some ascetics and brahmins who have this doctrine and view: 'So long as this gentleman is youthful, young, with pristine black hair, blessed with youth, in the prime of life he will be endowed with perfect lucidity of wisdom. But when he's old, elderly, and senior, advanced in years, and has reached the final stage of life — eighty, ninety, or a hundred years old — he will lose his lucidity of wisdom.' But you should not see it like this. For now I am old, elderly, and senior, I'm advanced in years, and have reached the final stage of life. I am eighty years old. Suppose I had four disciples with a lifespan of a hundred years. And they each were perfect in memory, range, retention, and perfect lucidity of wisdom. Imagine how easily a well-trained expert archer with a strong bow would shoot a light arrow across the shadow of a palm tree. That's how extraordinary they were in memory, range, retention, and perfect lucidity of wisdom. They'd bring up questions about the four kinds of mindfulness meditation again and again, and I would answer each question. They'd remember the answers and not ask the same question twice. And they'd pause only to eat and drink, go to the toilet, and sleep to dispel weariness. But the Realized One would not run out of Dhamma teachings, words and phrases of the teachings, or spontaneous answers. And at the end of a hundred years my four disciples would pass away. Even if you have to carry me around on a stretcher, there will never be any deterioration in the Realized One's lucidity of wisdom.
The closing claim, and the discourse's name
§63And if there's anyone of whom it may be rightly said that a being not liable to delusion has arisen in the world for the welfare and happiness of the people, out of sympathy for the world, for the benefit, welfare, and happiness of gods and humans, it's of me that this should be said."
§64Now at that time Venerable Nāgasamāla was standing behind the Buddha fanning him. Then he said to the Buddha: "It's incredible, sir, it's amazing! While I was listening to this exposition of the teaching my hair stood up! What is the name of this exposition of the teaching?" "Well then, Nāgasamāla, you may remember this exposition of the teaching as 'The Hair-raising Discourse'."
That is what the Buddha said. Satisfied, Venerable Nāgasamāla approved what the Buddha said.
Self-check quiz
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