Reading guide
A third Pārāsariya, and a clan name rather than a given one
This site's own Thag 1.116 already introduces Pārāsariya (1st) with Sujato's comment tracing the name to the ancient sage Parāśara — a clan or gotra name rather than a personal one, explaining why it recurs across unrelated individuals. This poem is the second Pārāsariya in this collection; a third appears later in this very book, at Thag 16.10.
A question posed to no one, answered systematically
Unlike Thag 16.1's dramatic dialogue, this poem opens entirely in solitude: a question Pārāsariya poses to himself while meditating alone, then answers methodically across the poem's full length, working through each of the five physical sense faculties in strict sequence — sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch — each given its own verse or pair of verses on the danger of leaving it unguarded.
A razor's edge smeared with honey
The twelfth verse's image for attachment's cost is unusually vivid: ‘the sweetness of honey turns bitter, and the bonds to those we love cause pain, like a razor's edge smeared with honey’ — pleasure and injury delivered by the identical motion, not sequentially but simultaneously.
A body compared to a painted casket, not condemned outright
The eleventh verse doesn't simply repeat this collection's familiar body-repulsion catalogue; it adds a specific social observation: ‘this body is full of pus and blood, home to many carcasses; but cunning people decorate it like a lovely painted casket’. The critique targets not the body alone but the deliberate art of disguising it.
Knocking out a peg with a peg
The nineteenth verse's simile is technical and practical rather than visceral: ‘just as a strong person when building knocks out a peg with a peg, so the skillful person knocks out the faculties with the faculties’ — using disciplined sense engagement itself as the tool for overcoming undisciplined sense engagement, not simply suppressing the faculties outright.
A closing verse naming five wholesome qualities against five dangers
The twentieth verse answers the poem's opening five-faculty catalogue of danger with a matching five-item catalogue of remedy: faith, energy, immersion, mindfulness, and wisdom, ‘destroying the five with the five’ — the poem's structure itself enacting the balance it describes, danger and remedy each given equal weight and equal count.
Key terms
The text
§1This thought came to the ascetic, the monk Pārāsariya, as he was seated alone meditating in seclusion:
§2“Following what procedure, what observance, what conduct, may a person do what they need for themselves, without harming anyone else?
§3The faculties of human beings can lead to both welfare and harm. Unguarded they lead to harm; guarded they lead to welfare.
§4By protecting the faculties, taking care of the faculties, I can do what I need for myself without harming anyone else.
§5If your eye wanders among sights without check, not seeing the danger, you’re not freed from suffering.
§6If your ear wanders among sounds without check, not seeing the danger, you’re not freed from suffering.
§7If, not seeing the escape, you indulge in a smell, you’re not freed from suffering, being besotted by smells.
§8Recollecting the sour, the superbly sweet and the bitter, captivated by craving for taste, you don’t understand the heart.
§9Recollecting lovely and pleasurable touches, full of desire, you experience many kinds of suffering because of lust.
§10Unable to protect the mind from such thoughts, suffering follows them because of all five.
§11This body is full of pus and blood, it’s home to many carcasses; but cunning people decorate it like a lovely painted casket.
§12You don’t understand that the sweetness of honey turns bitter, and the bonds to those we love cause pain, like a razor’s edge smeared with honey.
§13Full of lust for the sight of a woman, for the voice and the smells of a woman, for a woman’s touch, you experience many kinds of suffering.
§14All of a woman’s streams flow from five to five. Whoever, being energetic, is able to curb these,
§15purposeful and firm in principle, is clever and clear-seeing. Though he might enjoy himself, his duty is connected with the teaching and its goal.
§16One who’s diligent and discerning, thinking, “This ought not be done”, would avoid a useless task that’s doomed to failure.
§17Whatever is meaningful, and whatever happiness is principled, let one undertake and follow that: this is the best happiness.
§18They want to get hold of what belongs to others by any means, fair or foul. They kill, injure, and torment, violently plundering what belongs to others.
§19Just as a strong person when building knocks out a peg with a peg, so the skillful person knocks out the faculties with the faculties.
§20Developing faith, energy, immersion, mindfulness, and wisdom; destroying the five with the five, the brahmin walks on untroubled.
§21Purposeful and firm in principle, having fulfilled in every respect the instructions spoken by the Buddha, that person prospers in happiness.”
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