Reading guide
A saṃyutta organized around one person, not one doctrine
Unlike Dhātusaṃyutta or Anamataggasaṃyutta, each built around a single recurring term or refrain, this saṃyutta is organized around a single named individual — Mahākassapa functions here the way a technical term functioned in the collections before it.
The same fourfold requisite formula, four times over
Robes, almsfood, lodging, and medicine each receive an identical treatment — contentment praised, improper solicitation avoided, absence not worried over, use free of attachment — the standard fourfold description of a well-disciplined mendicant's relationship to material support.
Seeing drawback and understanding escape, echoed from elsewhere
Ādīnavadassāvī nissaraṇapañño, “seeing the drawback, understanding the escape,” uses the same assāda-ādīnava-nissaraṇa analytical vocabulary this collection's earlier books applied to elements and aggregates, now applied to something as ordinary as a robe.
A description that becomes an instruction without a seam
The transition from describing Kassapa to instructing the mendicants happens with almost no rhetorical marker — “Kassapa is content…” becomes “you should train: we will be content…” as though the description already was the instruction.
A closing formula this whole saṃyutta will repeat
“Kassapena vā hi vo…ovadissāmi,” “I will exhort you with Kassapa's example,” recurs at the close of several discourses in this collection, marking Kassapa as a standing reference point the Buddha returns to repeatedly.
Key terms
The text
§1At Sāvatthī. “Mendicants, Kassapa is content with any kind of robe, and praises such contentment. He doesn’t employ improper solicitation for the sake of a robe. He doesn’t worry if he doesn’t get a robe. And if he does get a robe, he uses it untied, uninfatuated, unattached, seeing the drawback, and understanding the escape.
§2Kassapa is content with any kind of almsfood …
§3Kassapa is content with any kind of lodging …
§4Kassapa is content with any kind of medicines and supplies for the sick …
§5So you should train like this: ‘We will be content with any kind of robe, and praise such contentment. We won’t employ improper solicitation for the sake of a robe. We won’t worry if we don’t get a robe. And if we do get a robe, we’ll use it untied, uninfatuated, unattached, seeing the drawback, and understanding the escape.’ (All should be told in full the same way.)
§6‘We will be content with any kind of almsfood …’ ‘We will be content with any kind of lodging …’ ‘We will be content with any kind of medicines and supplies for the sick …’ That’s how you should train. I will exhort you with the example of Kassapa or someone like him. You should practice accordingly.”
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