Adhimutta — The Book of the Ones · Chapter Twelve · Poem 4 of 10
Setting
No narrative setting; a direct, challenging rebuke
Speaker
An unnamed voice addressing 'you' critically
Form
One four-line verse, closing on a rhetorical question
Length
under 1 minute to read
Northern parallel
This reading guide does not assert a specific matching text for this poem in other Buddhist literatures.
Difficulty
★★☆☆☆ — plain vocabulary, a pointed challenge
Why this text
Unlike most verses in this collection, this one makes no claim of attainment. It challenges ‘you’ directly: your body is heavy, life is running out, and you're greedy for physical pleasure — so how could you possibly find happiness as an ascetic?
Reading guide
A challenge, not a claim
The verse's whole force is a pointed contradiction: someone claiming the identity of samaṇa (‘ascetic, renunciant’) while remaining sarīrasukhagiddha (‘greedy for physical pleasure’). Kuto samaṇasādhutā, ‘how can you find happiness as an ascetic?’, closes the verse as a genuine question, not a rhetorical flourish with an obvious answer already supplied.
Whose voice, addressed to whom?
This reading guide does not resolve who is speaking or who is being challenged. It could be another person's rebuke to Adhimutta, perhaps recalled from before his own transformation, or Adhimutta's own retrospective self-address to a former version of himself. This verse's structure — second-person challenge, no narrative frame, no stated speaker — matches a pattern already seen in this collection's more unresolved verses, such as Thag 1.109 (Saṅgharakkhita).
A name whose meaning may sit awkwardly with the verse's target
Adhimutta means ‘resolved, devoted, inclined’. If this verse addresses Adhimutta's own past — the greedy, complacent state it describes — his name would describe the transformation that followed, not the person the verse is challenging. This reading guide notes the possibility without asserting it, given the same underlying ambiguity already flagged about who the verse addresses.
Key terms
kāyaduṭṭhullagaru — “body heavy and coarse” — duṭṭhulla (‘coarse, gross’) plus garu (‘heavy’).
hiyyamāna — “diminishing, running out” — a present participle describing life ebbing away.
sarīrasukhagiddha — “greedy for physical pleasure” — sarīra (‘body’) plus sukha (‘pleasure’) plus giddha (‘greedy’).
samaṇasādhutā — “goodness, excellence as an ascetic” — samaṇa (‘ascetic’) plus sādhutā (‘goodness, excellence’).
Adhimutta — “resolved, devoted, inclined” — a name that may describe a later transformation rather than the state this verse describes.
The text
The text in full: one verse, with no separate attribution line in this chapter. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).
§1Your body is uncomfortably heavy, and life is running out; greedy for physical pleasure, how can you find happiness as an ascetic?
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Self-check quiz
Ten questions. Click an answer to see immediate feedback. No score is recorded — this is for your own checking.
Question 1 of 10
What does this verse say about the body it addresses?
Correct: A. Kāyaduṭṭhullagaruno, the verse's opening description.
Question 2 of 10
What contradiction does the verse point out?
Correct: A. The core contradiction the verse's closing question rests on.
Question 3 of 10
Does this verse make a claim of attainment, the way most verses in this collection do?
Correct: C. A rebuke, not a testimony.
Question 4 of 10
Does this reading guide resolve whether the verse is Adhimutta's self-address or someone else's rebuke to him?
Correct: C. A genuine ambiguity, similar to Thag 1.109 (Saṅgharakkhita).
Question 5 of 10
What earlier poem does this reading guide compare to this verse's unresolved, second-person structure?
Correct: B. Both share a challenging, second-person tone with no narrative frame.
Question 6 of 10
What does the name Adhimutta mean?
Correct: A. A name that may describe a later transformation rather than the verse's own target.
Question 7 of 10
What does 'sarīrasukhagiddha' mean?
Correct: D. The contradiction the verse points at.
Question 8 of 10
What does 'hiyyamāna' describe?
Correct: D. A present participle describing life ebbing away.
Question 9 of 10
What does 'samaṇasādhutā' mean?
Correct: D. What the verse questions whether the addressee can find.
Question 10 of 10
Where does this poem fall in Chapter Twelve?
Correct: B. Immediately after Vanavaccha (2nd)'s verse.
