Reading guide
A new setting, confirming the earlier series has ended
Confirmed by direct reading, this discourse opens at Kosambī's own Ghosita Monastery — a location unrelated to the Eastern Monastery of SN 48.45-48 — confirming by its own text that the four-part escalating series at that occasion has genuinely concluded, rather than continuing further.
A third distinct combination of faculties
Confirmed by direct reading, this discourse names mindfulness, immersion, and wisdom as the three faculties behind Piṇḍolabhāradvāja's own declaration — a combination distinct from every pairing already met in this vagga: not SN 48.45's own wisdom alone, not SN 48.46's own wisdom-and-immersion pair, but mindfulness joined with immersion and wisdom, omitting both faith and energy.
A culmination echoing the vagga's own name
Confirmed by direct reading, this discourse's own closing exchange — what do these three faculties culminate in? “Ending” (khaya). Ending of what? “Of rebirth, old age, and death” (jātijarāmaraṇa) — directly names the same concern this vagga's own title, Jarāvagga (“Old Age”), announces, tying this discourse's own doctrinal content to the vagga's own thematic thread.
Key terms
The text
§1 — the setting and Piṇḍolabhāradvāja's own declarationSo I have heard. At one time the Buddha was staying near Kosambī, in Ghosita’s Monastery. Now at that time Venerable Bhāradvāja the Alms-Gatherer had declared enlightenment: “I understand: ‘Rebirth is ended, the spiritual journey has been completed, what had to be done has been done, there is nothing further for this place.’” Then several mendicants went up to the Buddha, bowed, sat down to one side, and told him what had happened. Then they said,
§2 — the mendicants' own question“What reason does Bhāradvāja the Alms-Gatherer see for doing this?”
§3 — the Buddha's own explanation, culminating in the ending of rebirth, old age, and death“It’s because Bhāradvāja the Alms-Gatherer has developed and cultivated three faculties that he declares enlightenment: ‘I understand: “Rebirth is ended, the spiritual journey has been completed, what had to be done has been done, there is nothing further for this place.”’ What three? The faculties of mindfulness, immersion, and wisdom. It’s because Bhāradvāja the Alms-Gatherer has developed and cultivated these three faculties that he declares enlightenment. What’s the culmination of these three faculties? They culminate in ending. In the ending of what? Of rebirth, old age, and death. It’s because he sees that they culminate in the ending of rebirth, old age, and death that Bhāradvāja the Alms-Gatherer declares enlightenment: ‘I understand: “Rebirth is ended, the spiritual journey has been completed, what had to be done has been done, there is nothing further for this place.”’”
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