Reading guide
A second consecutive report without the king present
Like SN 3.9, this discourse is occasioned by mendicants' report rather than direct royal dialogue, this vagga's final two discourses both turning from conversation with Pasenadi to unprompted commentary on what his kingdom's governance has produced.
Ropes, manacles, chains, and their prisoners
The setting note is brief but specific, naming three distinct kinds of physical restraint — ropes, manacles, chains — applied to ‘a large group of people’ under the king's authority, establishing the literal shackle the verse will immediately redefine against.
A shackle judged weak, against expectation
The verse's opening move inverts what its audience would expect: physical restraint made of iron, wood, or knots — exactly what the setting has just described — is declared ‘not strong’ by ‘the attentive’, immediately undercutting the discourse's own opening image.
Jeweled earrings and family as the true bond
What the verse names instead as the strong shackle is domestic and personal: obsession with fine possessions and concern for one's partners and children, ‘hard to escape’ precisely because it does not feel like a restraint from the inside, unlike visible chains.
The vagga's own name, drawn from its closing discourse
This discourse gives the Bandhanavagga (‘the Chapter on Shackles’) its name, following the same pattern already seen in the Devaputtasaṃyutta, where the second and third vaggas were likewise named for their closing discourses rather than their opening ones.
Key terms
The text
§1Now at that time a large group of people had been put in shackles by King Pasenadi of Kosala—some in ropes, some in manacles, some in chains.
§2Then several mendicants robed up in the morning and, taking their bowls and robes, entered Sāvatthī for alms. Then, after the meal, when they returned from almsround, they went up to the Buddha, bowed, sat down to one side, and told him what was happening.
§3Then, understanding this matter, on that occasion the Buddha recited these verses:
§4“The attentive say that shackle is not strong that’s made of iron, wood, or knots. But obsession with jeweled earrings, concern for your partners and children: this, say the attentive, is a strong shackle dragging the indulgent down, hard to escape. Having cut this one too they go forth, unconcerned, having given up sensual pleasures.”
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