Reading guide
A third-person frame around a first-person complaint
The poem opens (verse 1) and closes (verse 29) in the third person, describing an unnamed ascetic seated alone in a flowering forest. Everything in between (verses 2–28) is that ascetic's own extended first-person reflection, presented as a single continuous thought rather than a dialogue.
How things used to be
Verses three through nine recall, admiringly, the discipline of the earliest monastics: robes worn only for covering and warmth, eating in moderation whether food was fine or coarse, little concern for medicine or requisites beyond what ended defilement, living in forests and caves, gentle and unpompous, their conduct ‘as smooth as a stream of oil’.
How things stand now
From verse ten, the tone shifts to sustained critique: monks quarreling over doctrine and clinging to wrong views (14), going forth yet still scheming for a mere spoonful of almsfood (15), sleeping on their backs after overeating and gossiping about matters the Teacher himself criticized (16), training in arts and crafts instead of settling the mind (17), and currying favor with householders through gifts of oil, tooth-picks, and fruit in hope of return (18–19).
A list of unflattering comparisons
Verse twenty compresses the critique into four sharp comparisons: monks behaving in medicine like doctors, in business like householders, in cosmetics like prostitutes, in authority like aristocrats — none of them describing the conduct of a renunciant.
Naming the same decline treated elsewhere on this site
This poem's underlying concern — that the true teaching itself ‘falls apart’ (verse 10) as discipline and understanding erode — is treated at greater length in this site's own SN 16.13, The Counterfeit of the True Teaching, where the Buddha explains to Kassapa exactly how the true teaching disappears: not all at once, but gradually, as counterfeit versions of it multiply among people who no longer respect the Saṅgha, the training, and meditation.
Closing on a note of continued possibility
The poem does not end in despair. Its final two verses (27–28) turn from complaint to instruction: a monk should walk through the village as carefully as someone walking barefoot on a thorny path, and — ‘remembering the meditators of old’ — ‘even in the latter days, it's still possible to realize freedom from death.’ The closing narrative verse then confirms: the ascetic himself, ‘the brahmin, the seer,’ became fully extinguished there in the sāl tree grove.
A closing tally for the whole book
An untranslated Pali colophon follows the poem itself, naming the speaker as the elder Pārāsariya and marking ‘Vīsatinipāto niṭṭhito’ — the Book of the Twenties is finished. A further untranslated summary verse (uddāna) lists all ten elders of this book by name — Adhimutta, Pārāsariya, Telakāni, Raṭṭhapāla, Māluṅkyaputta, Sela, Bhaddiya, Aṅgulimāla, and Anuruddha (named here by his epithet ‘one with the divine eye’), with Pārāsariya named a second time to close the book — and states the book's total verse count as ‘two hundred and forty-five’, an unusually specific figure for a book whose traditional name promises a round two hundred (ten poems of twenty verses each), reflecting how much longer than twenty verses most of these ten poems actually run.
Key terms
The text
§1This thought came to the ascetic in the forest full of flowers, as he was seated alone meditating in seclusion:
§2“The behavior of the mendicants these days seems different from when the protector of the world, the best of men, was still here.
§3Their robes were only for covering the private parts, and protection from the cold and wind. They ate in moderation, content with whatever they were offered.
§4Whether food was fine or coarse, a little or a lot, they ate only for sustenance, without greed or gluttony.
§5They weren’t so very eager for the requisites of life, such as tonics and other necessities, as they were for the ending of defilements.
§6In the wilderness, at a tree’s root, in caves and caverns, fostering seclusion, they lived with that as their final goal.
§7They were used to simple things, unburdensome, gentle, not pompous at heart, unsullied, not scurrilous, their thoughts were intent on the goal.
§8That’s why they inspired confidence, in their movements, eating, and practice; their deportment was as smooth as a stream of oil.
§9With the utter ending of all defilements, those senior monks have now been quenched. They were great meditators and great benefactors—there are few like them today.
§10With the ending of good principles and understanding, the victor’s teaching, full of all excellent qualities, falls apart.
§11This is the season for bad principles and defilements. Those who are ready for seclusion are all that’s left of the true Dhamma.
§12As they grow, the defilements possess most people; they play with fools, it seems to me, like monsters with the mad.
§13Overcome by defilements, they run here and there among the bases for defilement, as if they had declared war on themselves.
§14Having forsaken the true teaching, they argue with each other. Following wrong views they think, ‘This is better.’
§15They cut off their wealth, children, and wife to go forth. But then they do what they shouldn’t, for the sake of a measly spoon of almsfood.
§16They eat until their bellies are full, and then they lie to sleep on their backs. When they wake up, they keep on chatting, the kind of talk that the teacher criticized.
§17Valuing all the arts and crafts, they train themselves in them. Not being settled inside, they think, ‘This is the goal of the ascetic life.’
§18They provide clay, oil, and talcum powder, water, lodgings, and food for householders, expecting more in return.
§19And in addition, tooth-picks of white fig, flowers, food to eat, well-cooked almsfood, mangoes and myrobalans.
§20In medicine they are like doctors, in business like householders, in makeup like prostitutes, in sovereignty like aristocrats.
§21Cheats, frauds, false witnesses, sly: using multiple plans, they enjoy things of the flesh.
§22Pursuing shams, contrivances, and plans, by such means they accumulate a lot of wealth for the sake of their own livelihood.
§23They assemble the community for business rather than Dhamma. They teach the Dhamma to others for gain, not for the goal.
§24Those barred from the Saṅgha quarrel over the Saṅgha’s property. Lacking conscience, they do not care that they live on the earnings of others.
§25Some with shaven head and robe are not devoted to practice, but wish only to be honored, besotted with property and reverence.
§26When things have come to this, it’s not easy these days to realize what has not yet been realized, or to preserve what has been realized.
§27When shoeless on a thorny path, one would walk very mindfully; that’s how a sage should walk in the village.
§28Remembering the meditators of old, and recollecting their conduct, even in the latter days, it’s still possible to realize freedom from death.”
§29That is what the ascetic, whose faculties were fully developed, said in the sāl tree grove. The brahmin, the seer, became fully extinguished, putting an end to all future lives.
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