Reading guide
A saṃyutta of nuns meeting Māra alone
The Bhikkhunīsaṃyutta's ten discourses share a defining feature this opening example establishes immediately: each nun encounters Māra entirely on her own, resolves the confrontation herself, and only afterward, if at all, does the matter reach anyone else — independence, not mediation through the Buddha, is this collection's own starting premise.
A named process of recognition, shown rather than assumed
Unlike the Mārasaṃyutta's more compressed pattern, this discourse narrates Āḷavikā's own reasoning in full: first wondering whether a human or non-human is speaking, then concluding it must be Māra attempting to frighten her from seclusion — her recognition is a visible process of thought, not an instantaneous given.
A claim of no escape, met with personal testimony
Māra's claim — ‘there's no escape in the world’ — is answered not with doctrine cited secondhand but with direct personal experience: ‘I've personally experienced it with wisdom’, grounding her rebuttal in what she herself has verified rather than what she has been told.
Sensual pleasure recast through a violent image
Āḷavikā's closing image is unusually severe: sensual pleasures compared to swords and spears, the aggregates themselves the chopping block they cut against — a harsher metaphor than mere disinterest, framing sensuality as actively dangerous rather than simply unappealing.
A stock refrain, already adapted for a new speaker
Māra's closing thought here reads ‘the nun Āḷavikā knows me’, following the modification already seen at SN 4.22 for the mendicant Samiddhi — confirming this saṃyutta continues, rather than resets, the recognition formula extended to ordinary disciples there.
Key terms
The text
§1So I have heard. At one time the Buddha was staying near Sāvatthī in Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika’s monastery. Then the nun Āḷavikā robed up in the morning and, taking her bowl and robe, entered Sāvatthī for alms. She wandered for alms in Sāvatthī. After the meal, on her return from almsround, she went to the Dark Forest seeking seclusion. Then Māra the Wicked, wanting to make the nun Āḷavikā feel fear, terror, and goosebumps, wanting to make her fall away from seclusion, went up to her and addressed her in verse:
§2“There’s no escape in the world, so what will seclusion do for you? Enjoy erotic delights; don’t regret it later.”
§3Then the nun Āḷavikā thought, “Who’s speaking this verse, a human or a non-human?” Then she thought, “This is Māra the Wicked, wanting to make me feel fear, terror, and goosebumps, wanting to make me fall away from seclusion!” Then Āḷavikā, knowing that this was Māra the Wicked, replied to him in verse:
§4“There is an escape in the world, and I’ve personally experienced it with wisdom. O Wicked One, kinsman of the negligent, you don’t know that state. Sensual pleasures are like swords and spears; the aggregates are their chopping block. What you call erotic delight is now no delight for me.”
§5Then Māra the Wicked, thinking, “The nun Āḷavikā knows me!” miserable and sad, vanished right there.
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