The bare opening question alone, matching this vagga's now-established minimal treatment
Length
Under a minute to read
Northern parallel
A rough counterpart may exist in the Chinese Saṃyukta-āgama (T99), though this reading guide does not assert a specific matching sutra number
Difficulty
★☆☆☆☆ — trivially brief here, though the underlying question is famous and philosophically loaded
Why this discourse
Opens the final grouping of the ten classic undetermined questions — whether a realized one (tathāgata) exists after death, arguably the single most famous item on the traditional list, discussed at length elsewhere in the Canon (notably the Aggivacchagottasutta, MN 72, where the Buddha compares the question to asking which direction an extinguished fire has gone). Here it receives the same minimal treatment this vagga has given every undetermined question since SN 24.11.
Reading guide
The first of four, not a pair
"A realized one still exists after death" — unlike the three prior groupings, this final item forms a foursome rather than a simple pair: exists, doesn't exist, both, and neither, each receiving its own discourse (SN 24.15–18).
The canon's most discussed unanswered question
This exact question receives extended treatment elsewhere in the Canon, most famously at MN 72 (Aggivacchagottasutta), where the wanderer Vacchagotta presses the Buddha on all four options and receives none of them, the Buddha instead comparing a liberated person's fate to an extinguished fire: asking which direction it has gone is already the wrong kind of question, since a fire's identity depended on the fuel it clung to, and it no longer clings to any.
Diṭṭhisaṃyutta's own treatment differs from MN 72's: rather than explaining why the question misfires, it simply traces the impulse to ask it back to grasping the aggregates, the same diagnostic given to every other view in this vagga.
Same minimal source text as its three predecessors
As with SN 24.11–14, bilara-data preserves only this discourse's opening claim, the aggregate catechism and conclusion left entirely to the pattern established at SN 24.9.
Why tathāgata here means any realized being, not only the historical Buddha
In this diagnostic context, tathāgata functions as a general category (any being who has reached the same realization) rather than referring exclusively to the historical Buddha — the question concerns what happens to liberation itself after death, not a biographical claim about one particular teacher.
Key terms
hoti tathāgato paraṁ maraṇā — a realized one still exists after death — the first of four options examined across SN 24.15–18
tathāgata — a realized one — here a general category for anyone who has reached full realization, not exclusively the historical Buddha
Aggivacchagottasutta — MN 72 — the discourse elsewhere in the Canon giving this same question its most famous extended treatment, via the extinguished-fire simile
peyyāla — an elision mark — compressing this discourse to its bare opening line, matching SN 24.11–14
upādāya... abhinivissa — grasping... and insisting on — the formula this discourse's compression trusts the reader to supply
The text
The complete discourse as bilara-data preserves it: the opening question alone. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).
§1At Sāvatthī. “Mendicants, when what exists, because of grasping what and insisting on what, does the view arise: ‘A realized one still exists after death’?” …
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Self-check quiz
Ten questions. Click an answer to see immediate feedback. No score is recorded — this is for your own checking.
Question 1 of 10
What claim does this discourse examine?
Correct: A. The first of the final foursome of undetermined questions.
Question 2 of 10
How does this final grouping differ structurally from the three pairs before it?
Correct: A. SN 24.15 through SN 24.18, four discourses for one question.
Question 3 of 10
Where else in the Canon does this same question receive extended, famous treatment?
Correct: A. Where Vacchagotta presses all four options and the Buddha declines each.
Question 4 of 10
What does the extinguished-fire simile suggest about this question?
Correct: A. A liberated person's fate is compared to an extinguished flame.
Question 5 of 10
How does Diṭṭhisaṃyutta's treatment of this question differ from MN 72's?
Correct: A. The same diagnostic given to every other view in this vagga.
Question 6 of 10
What does tathāgata mean in this diagnostic context?
Correct: A. The question concerns what happens to liberation itself, not one teacher's biography.
Question 7 of 10
How much does bilara-data preserve for this discourse beyond the opening question?
Correct: A. The same compression level established across this vagga's earlier undetermined-question discourses.
Question 8 of 10
Where is this discourse set?
Correct: A. Matching the setting of most of this book's discourses.
Question 9 of 10
What discourse follows this one?
Correct: A. The second of the closing foursome.
Question 10 of 10
Which discourse's fuller treatment does this compression still rely on?
Correct: A. This vagga's own fullest treatment of the undetermined-questions template.
