Reading guide
A shift from illusion to actual physical force
Every intimidation attempt in this vagga's first ten discourses relied on manifestation — a form Māra took on, whether elephant, serpent, or abstract color; here he instead performs a real physical act on the actual environment, crushing boulders rather than appearing as one.
A named, specific location
Vulture's Peak Mountain (Gijjhakūṭa) is named directly, a location historically significant across the wider canon as a frequent site of the Buddha's teaching, grounding this confrontation in a specific and recognizable place rather than a generic wilderness setting.
A reply scaled to match the provocation exactly
The verse's logic is proportional: Māra crushes boulders, and the Buddha's reply doesn't merely dismiss this specific act but extends the hypothetical to its maximum — even shaking the entire mountain, not just some rocks near it, would still leave the awakened unmoved.
Unshaken as a physical and psychological claim at once
‘Unshaken’ carries a double meaning here that this brief verse doesn't need to spell out: physically unmoved by the literal shaking of a mountain, and psychologically unmoved by the fear such shaking might otherwise provoke, both claims collapsed into one word.
The shortest confrontation to open a vagga in this saṃyutta
Compared to SN 4.1's fuller exchange opening the previous vagga, this discourse's brevity — a single provocation, a single four-line reply — suggests this second vagga may favor more compressed confrontations than its predecessor, a pattern worth watching across the discourses that follow.
Key terms
The text
§1At one time the Buddha was staying near Rājagaha, on the Vulture’s Peak Mountain. Now at that time the Buddha was meditating in the open during the dark of night, while a gentle rain drizzled down. Then Māra the Wicked, wanting to make the Buddha feel fear, terror, and goosebumps, approached him, and crushed some large boulders close by him.
§2Then the Buddha, knowing that this was Māra the Wicked, addressed him in verse:
§3“Even if you shake this entire Vulture’s Peak, the rightly released, the awakened, are unshaken.”
§4Then Māra the Wicked, thinking, “The Buddha knows me! The Holy One knows me!” miserable and sad, vanished right there.
Self-check quiz
Ten questions. Click an answer to see immediate feedback. No score is recorded — this is for your own checking.