Reading guide
A riddle asked in four lines
Māgha's verse asks the same underlying question twice, in parallel: what is slain for ease of sleep, and what is slain for freedom from sorrow, before asking directly what the one thing is whose killing the Buddha approves.
One answer, not many
Unlike discourses elsewhere in this collection that name several candidate answers before settling on one, the Buddha answers Māgha's riddle immediately and singly: anger, named in the first line of his reply and never displaced by an alternative.
A poisonous root, a sweet tip
The Buddha's verse describes anger with a botanical image: ‘poisonous root’ and ‘sweet tip’, capturing how anger's onset can feel gratifying even while its source and consequence are harmful.
An unusual epithet: Smiter of the Constrictor
The Buddha addresses Māgha as ‘Smiter of the Constrictor’ (vatrabhū), an epithet elsewhere applied to Sakka, ruler of the gods — a detail this reading guide notes without asserting a specific identification between Māgha and any other named figure in this collection.
Killing praised, not condemned
The verse's final couplet states plainly that the noble ones praise this killing, since its result is freedom from sorrow — a rare case in this collection of ‘killing’ used approvingly, turned entirely toward an internal target.
Key terms
The text
§1At Sāvatthī. Then, late at night, the glorious godling Māgha, lighting up the entire Jeta’s Grove, went up to the Buddha, bowed, stood to one side, and addressed the Buddha in verse:
§2“When what is slain do you sleep at ease? When what is slain is there no sorrow? What is the one thing whose killing you approve?”
§3“When anger’s slain you sleep at ease. When anger’s slain there is no sorrow. Anger has a poisonous root, and a sweet tip, O Smiter of the Constrictor. The noble ones praise its killing, for when it’s slain there is no sorrow.”
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