Reading guide
A taunt built on an outdated assumption
Māra's mockery assumes Kisāgotamī's presence alone in the forest signals ongoing distress — grieving children, searching for male company — a reading that would have been accurate about her at an earlier point in her life, but is no longer true of the woman he is actually addressing.
A biography this discourse assumes but doesn't narrate
This discourse itself gives almost no direct account of Kisāgotamī's earlier loss; her name and situation carry weight from a broader biographical tradition well known elsewhere, and this brief exchange reads differently for someone who already knows that history than for someone encountering her only here.
A correction stated as completed fact, not process
Kisāgotamī's reply doesn't describe grief being managed or worked through; it states outright, in the past tense, that she has ‘got over the death of children’ and is ‘finished with men’ — resolution presented as accomplished, not ongoing.
Fear addressed directly and dismissed
‘I'm not afraid of you, sir’ answers Māra's implicit goal — provoking fear, terror, goosebumps, as stated in this saṃyutta's recurring formula — as directly and plainly as the grief accusation itself, leaving neither of Māra's assumptions intact.
Defeating death's army: a military image for inner victory
The verse's closing image — having ‘defeated the army of death’ — scales far beyond personal grief resolution to a claim of total liberation, the same martial vocabulary this collection uses elsewhere for Māra's own forces, now claimed as already overcome.
Key terms
The text
§1At Sāvatthī. Then the nun Kisāgotamī 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 for the day’s meditation, plunged deep into it, and sat at the root of a tree to meditate. Then Māra the Wicked, wanting to make the nun Kisāgotamī feel fear, terror, and goosebumps, wanting to make her fall away from immersion, went up to her and addressed her in verse:
§2“Why do you sit alone and cry as if your children have died? You’ve come to the woods all alone—are you looking for a man?”
§3Then the nun Kisāgotamī 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 immersion!” Then Kisāgotamī, knowing that this was Māra the Wicked, replied to him in verse:
§4“I’ve got over the death of children, and I’m finished with men. I don’t grieve or lament, and I’m not afraid of you, sir! Relishing is banished in every respect, and the mass of darkness is shattered. I’ve defeated the army of death, and live without defilements.”
§5Then Māra the Wicked, thinking, “The nun Kisāgotamī knows me!” miserable and sad, vanished right there.
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