Reading guide
Twenty-five years, no relief at all
The opening verse states a specific duration — not ‘a long time’ but twenty-five years — and a specific, blunt claim: not a moment's peace, ‘accharāsaṅghātamattampi’, literally not even as long as a finger-snap. The second verse names the cause directly: kāmarāga, desire for sensual pleasures, still active despite decades of formal practice.
A name possibly earned by this very episode
‘Sappadāsa’ can be read as ‘slave of the snake’ or ‘given to a snake’ — traditional accounts (outside this poem's own text) associate the name with an infancy episode involving a snake. This reading guide notes the name's literal meaning without asserting which biographical account, if any, is historically reliable.
A razor, a cot, and a vein
The third and fourth verses narrate the crisis with unusual concreteness for this collection: ‘shall I commit suicide? What's the point of living?’, then ‘I picked up a razor, I sat on a cot: the razor was ready to slice my vein.’ This poem does not soften or abstract the moment it describes, a directness matched by very few other poems in the Theragāthā.
Breakthrough at the point of the blade
The fifth verse turns entirely on a single moment: ‘then the realization came upon me — the danger became clear, and I was firmly disillusioned.’ No transition is narrated between crisis and insight; the poem presents the breakthrough as arising directly from the confrontation with his own intended death, not in spite of it.
The standard closing formula, newly weighted
The poem ends with this collection's familiar closing line, ‘tisso vijjā anuppattā, kataṅ buddhassa sāsanaṅ’, ‘I've attained the three knowledges, and fulfilled the Buddha's instructions’ — a formula recurring across this collection, but landing with unusual weight here, arriving directly after an account of a suicide attempt interrupted at its final instant.
Key terms
The text
§1In the twenty-five years since I went forth, I have not found peace of mind, even as long as a finger-snap.
§2Since I couldn’t get my mind unified, I was racked by desire for pleasures of the senses. Wailing, with outstretched arms, I left my dwelling.
§3Shall I … or shall I commit suicide? What’s the point of living? For how on earth can one such as me die after resigning the training?
§4Then I picked up a razor, I sat on a cot: the razor was ready to slice my vein.
§5Then the realization came upon me—the danger became clear, and I was firmly disillusioned.
§6Then my mind was freed—behold the clear rightness of the teaching! I’ve attained the three knowledges, and fulfilled the Buddha’s instructions.
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