Saṃyutta Nikāya
I. Sagātha Vagga
9. Vana-Saṃyutta
The Book of the Kindred Sayings
I. Kindred Sayings with Verses
9. The Forest Suttas
Sutta 6
Anuruddha Suttaṃ
Anuruddha
Translated by Mrs. Rhys Davids
Assisted by Sūriyagoḍa Sumangala Thera
Copyright The Pali Text Society. Public Domain.
[6.1][than] THUS HAVE I HEARD: —
The venerable Anuruddha was once staying among the Kosalese
in a certain forest-tract.
And a certain goddess of the heaven of the Thirty-and-three, named Jālinī,[1]
consort in a former birth to Anuruddha,
came to visit him,
and addressed him in the verses: -
"There set thy heart's desire where erst for thee
Was life, with the celestial Thirty-three,
Whose is the attainment of all sense-desires,
Where thou wast beauteous with thy retinue
Of heavenly maids surrounding thee their lord?"
"Ill-fated are such maids celestial,
In their own sphere of life established.[3]
Ill-plighted, too, the beings are whose lot
Brings them possession of these heavenly maids."
[Jālinī[4]: —]
"They know no bliss who see not Nandana,
Abode of men and gods, renowned Thrice-Ten!"
[Anuruddha: —]
"Dost thou not know, 0 fool, how saints have said:
'Impermanent are all conditioned things.
Their nature 't is to rise and pass away;
When they have risen, then again they cease;
Happy the mastery of them and the peace/
Now is there no new dwelling-place for me
In realms celestial, 0 Jālinī
The endless line of birth is snapt in twain.
Now can I never more become again."
[1] Cf Pss. of the Brethren, 329. She is, in our Comy., said to have been his 'chief consort.' Anuruddha was first cousin to the Buddha.
[2] The sense seems to require this distribution, but the Comy. is not explicit, and there is no iti to the preceding lines. However this is twice omitted in this Chapter (§§ 12, 14).
[3] Sakkāyasmiṃ patiṭṭhitā. Kāya (body) may be used for nikāya, group, society. One gathers that these celestial nymphs were destined to be reborn in the infernal regions. So B. both here and in I,5, § 6. They were 'fixed' herein for eight moral defects of character, he writes.
[4] She now gives the verse occurring in I, 2, § 1, Anuruddha responding with the corresponding retort, and adding the last four lines, which are given in his Gāthā, Pss. of the Brethren, ver. 908. I give a rendering different only in form.
