Reading guide
A named object with its own history, not an anonymous image
Unlike most similes in this saṃyutta, which describe generic scenes, this discourse's drum has a specific name, the Plugger, and a named owner, the Dasārahas, giving the comparison the texture of remembered history rather than an invented illustration.
Disappearance through accumulated small repairs, not sudden loss
The drum isn't destroyed in a single dramatic event; it vanishes gradually, one plug replacing one crack at a time, until the cumulative effect of many small, individually reasonable repairs is total transformation — nothing of the original remains.
A precise description of what future mendicants will prefer instead
The discourse doesn't simply say future teachings will be worse; it specifies exactly what will replace the genuine teachings: poetry, kavikatā kāveyyā, with fancy words and phrases, composed by outsiders or disciples rather than spoken by the Buddha himself.
Emptiness named specifically as what's at risk
The discourses at risk of disappearing aren't described generically as important teachings; they're specified as suññatappaṭisaṁyuttā, dealing with emptiness, naming a specific and famously difficult category of teaching as particularly vulnerable to neglect.
A warning that became, in its own telling, self-fulfilling material
This discourse's image of authentic teaching giving way to ornamented substitutes has itself become one of the most frequently cited passages in later discussions about the decline of the Dhamma, an unusual case of a warning about neglect becoming a widely remembered and quoted teaching in its own right.
Key terms
The text
§1At Sāvatthī. “Once upon a time, mendicants, the Dasārahas had a <em>mridangam</em> drum called the Plugger. When the Plugger cracked, the Dasārahas patched it with another plug. Eventually, there came a time when the original wooden shell for the drumskin disappeared and all that was left of the <em>mridangam</em> Plugger was a mass of plugs. In the same way, in a future time there will be mendicants who won’t want to listen when discourses spoken by the Realized One—deep, profound, transcendent, dealing with emptiness—are being recited. They won’t actively listen or try to understand, nor will they think those teachings are worth learning and memorizing.
§2But when discourses composed by poets—poetry, with fancy words and phrases, composed by outsiders or spoken by disciples—are being recited they will want to listen. They’ll actively listen and try to understand, and they’ll think those teachings are worth learning and memorizing. And that is how the discourses spoken by the Realized One—deep, profound, transcendent, dealing with emptiness—will disappear. So you should train like this: ‘When discourses spoken by the Realized One—deep, profound, transcendent, dealing with emptiness—are being recited we will want to listen. We will actively listen and trying to understand, and we will think those teachings are worth learning and memorizing.’ That’s how you should train.”
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