Therigatha
Chapter X — Eleven Verses

X.1.[pāḷi][than][pts][idx] Kisa-Gotami, The Woman with the Dead Child

{excerpt: vv. 213-217, 220, 222-223}
[Hellmuth Hecker/Sister Khema, trans. From Buddhist Women at the Time of The Buddha (WH 292/293), by Hellmuth Hecker, translated from the German by Sister Khema, (Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1982). Copyright ©1982 Buddhist Publication Society. Used with permission under the provisions of publication on Access to Insight.]

 

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The Sage has emphasized and praised
Noble friendship for the world.
If one stays with a Noble Friend,
even a fool will become a wise person.
Stay with them of good heart
for the wisdom of those who stay with them grows.
And while one is staying with them,
from every kind of dukkha one is freed.
Dukkha one should know well,
and how dukkha arises and ceases,
and the Eightfold Path,
and the Four Noble Truths.

"Woman's state is painful,"
declares the Trainer of tamable men.
"A wife with others is painful
and once having borne a child,
some even cut their throats;
others of delicate constitution
poison take, then pain again;
and then there's the baby obstructing the birth,
killing the mother too."

...

Miserable woman, your kin all dead
and limitless dukkha you've known.
So many tears have you shed
in these many thousands of births.

...

Wholly developed by me is
the Eightfold Noble Path going to Deathlessness,
Nibbāna realized,
I looked into the Mirror of the Dhamma.
With dart removed am I,
the burden laid down, done what was to be done,
The elder nun KisaGotami,
freed in mind and heart, has chanted this.