Reading guide
A full formal opening, unusual for this collection
This discourse begins with “evaṁ me sutaṁ,” “so I have heard,” the complete traditional formula marking a discourse's opening — a fuller introduction than the simple “at Sāvatthī” most discourses elsewhere in this collection use, appropriate to a saṃyutta's very first page.
Anamatagga, this saṃyutta's own namesake word
“Anamataggoyaṁ, bhikkhave, saṁsāro,” “this transmigration has no known beginning,” opens and closes the discourse's central claim, giving the whole saṃyutta its name before a single parable is told.
A measure exact enough to feel real
Rather than simply saying past lives are “countless,” the parable specifies four-inch pieces of every plant in Jambudīpa, the known continent — a concrete unit of measurement applied to something the discourse then declares still insufficient.
Mothers and grandmothers, not a random category
The specific relationship named — every wood piece labeled as a past mother, in an unbroken maternal line — makes the claim personal rather than abstract; every hearer has necessarily had mothers reaching back this same incalculable distance.
A parable meant to produce a specific response
The discourse doesn't end with the image itself; it closes by naming the intended effect directly — this is “quite enough” to become disillusioned, dispassionate, and freed regarding all conditioned things, the template closing line this whole saṃyutta will repeat.
Key terms
The text
§1So I have heard. At one time the Buddha was staying near Sāvatthī in Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika’s monastery. There the Buddha addressed the mendicants, “Mendicants!” “Venerable sir,” they replied. The Buddha said this: “Mendicants, this transmigration has no known beginning. No first point is found of sentient beings roaming and transmigrating, shrouded by ignorance and fettered by craving. Suppose a person was to strip all the grass, sticks, branches, and leaves in the Black Plum Tree Land, gather them together into one pile, and chop them each into four inch pieces. They’d lay them down, saying: ‘This is my mother, this is my grandmother.’ The grass, sticks, branches, and leaves of the Black Plum Tree Land would run out before that person’s mothers and grandmothers. Why is that? This transmigration has no known beginning. No first point is found of sentient beings roaming and transmigrating, shrouded by ignorance and fettered by craving. For such a long time you have undergone suffering, agony, and disaster, swelling the cemeteries. This is quite enough for you to become disillusioned, dispassionate, and freed regarding all conditions.”
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