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Buddhism

Ud 5:9 · Jeering (Sadhāyamāna Sutta)

Thai temple painting: Prince Vessantara gives away the white elephant
Vessantara Jātaka, Chapter 2 (Himavanta Forest) · Thai, Rattanakosin, c. 1850–1870 · Walters Art Museum

I have heard that on one occasion the Blessed One was wandering among the Kosalans with a large community of monks. And on that occasion, a large number of youths passed by as if jeering1 not far from the Blessed One. The Blessed One saw the large number of youths passing by as if jeering not far away.

Then, on realizing the significance of that, the Blessed One on that occasion exclaimed:

False pundits, totally muddled,

speaking in the range of mere words,

babbling as much as they like:

led on by what,

they don’t know.

Note

1. Reading sadhāyamāna-rūpā with the Burmese edition. The Thai edition reads, saddāyamāna-rūpā–“as if making an uproar”–which doesn’t make much sense. The Sri Lankan edition reads, saddhāyamāna-rūpā–“as if showing faith”–which makes even less sense.


Translated by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu. © 2014 / rev. 2017 Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu — released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 licence, for free distribution only. Source: dhammatalks.org (Metta Forest Monastery).

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