Reading guide
A familiar test, reframed around outcome rather than title
Where SN 12.13, SN 12.14, and SN 12.29 all conclude by granting or withholding the title of true ascetic or brahmin, this discourse instead states directly whether transcending each link is even possible.
Impossibility stated as a plain fact, not a judgment
The language here isn't evaluative in the way a title verdict is; it states as a simple fact that it's impossible for someone lacking understanding to abide having transcended old age and death, or any other link.
Possibility given equally direct, factual treatment
The positive case receives the same treatment in reverse: for those who understand each link fully, transcending it is stated as genuinely possible, with the same flat, factual phrasing.
A closing chapter, its full shape now visible
This discourse closes Dasabalavagga, and the source's own closing summary verse lists all ten discourse titles in sequence — the two Ten Powers discourses, Vital Conditions, the contact-reduction trio, Dependency, A Mendicant, and the two Ascetics-and-Brahmins pairs closing the chapter.
A fitting final note for a chapter grounding authority in understanding
Dasabalavagga opened by grounding the Buddha's own authority in mastery of this same material; closing on a statement of what genuine understanding actually makes possible brings the chapter's own concern with grounded, demonstrable knowledge full circle.
Key terms
The text
§1“Mendicants, there are ascetics and brahmins who don’t understand old age and death, their origin, their cessation, and the practice that leads to their cessation. It’s impossible that they will abide having transcended old age and death. They don’t understand rebirth … continued existence … grasping … craving … feeling … contact … the six sense fields … name and form … consciousness … They don’t understand choices, their origin, their cessation, and the practice that leads to their cessation. It’s impossible that they will abide having transcended choices.
§2There are ascetics and brahmins who do understand old age and death, their origin, their cessation, and the practice that leads to their cessation. It’s possible that they will abide having transcended old age and death. They understand rebirth … continued existence … grasping … craving … feeling … contact … the six sense fields … name and form … consciousness … They understand choices, their origin, their cessation, and the practice that leads to their cessation. It’s possible that they will abide having transcended choices.”
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