Reading guide
A named place, after two vaggas without one
This project's own reading: SN 56.1-20 gave no setting at all, or only “At Sāvatthī” without further detail; this discourse instead names Koṭigāma specifically, in the land of the Vajjis — the same region this project recognizes from elsewhere in the canon as significant in the Buddha's own final journey.
Not knowing named as the cause of wandering
This project's own reading: the claim here is causal, not merely descriptive — not understanding the four truths is named as the specific reason for the long wandering through saṃsāra, a formula this project recognizes as a recurring stock statement elsewhere in the wider canon, without claiming a specific verified cross-reference here.
Key terms
The text
§1At one time the Buddha was staying in the land of the Vajjis at the village of Koṭi. There the Buddha addressed the mendicants: “Mendicants, due to not understanding and not penetrating four noble truths, both you and I have wandered and transmigrated for such a very long time.
§2What four? The noble truths of suffering, the origin of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the practice that leads to the cessation of suffering. These noble truths of suffering, origin, cessation, and the path have been understood and comprehended. Craving for continued existence has been cut off; the leash to existence is ended; now there’ll be no more future lives.”
§3That is what the Buddha said. Then the Holy One, the Teacher, went on to say:
Verse“Because of not truly seeing the four noble truths, we have transmigrated for a long time from one rebirth to the next. But now that these truths have been seen, the leash to existence is eradicated. The root of suffering is cut off, now there’ll be no more future lives.”
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