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Kappa

Thag 10.5 · Kappattheragāthā

A quiet mango grove opens toward soft light beyond the trees.

Filled with different kinds of dirt, a great producer of dung, like a stagnant cesspool, a big boil, a bad wound,

full of pus and blood, sunk in a toilet-pit, trickling with fluids, this rotting body always oozes.

Bound by sixty tendons, coated with a fleshy coating, clothed in a jacket of skin, this rotting body is worthless.

Held together by a skeleton of bones, and bound by sinews; it assumes postures due to a complex of many things.

We set out in the certainty of death, in the presence of the King of Death; and having discarded the body right here, a person goes where he likes.

Shrouded by ignorance, tied by the four ties, this body is sinking in the flood, caught in the net of the underlying tendencies.

Yoked to the five hindrances, afflicted by thought, stuck to the root of craving, hidden by delusion:

that is how the body goes on, propelled by the mechanism of deeds. But existence ends in perishing; separated, the body perishes.

Those blind, ordinary people who think of this body as theirs, swell the horrors of the charnel ground, taking hold of future lives.

The undefiled who shun this body like a serpent smeared with dung, having expelled the root of rebirth, will be fully quenched.

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About this edition

Translation by Bhikkhu Sujato and Jessica Walton · SuttaCentral · CC0

This translation is an expression of an ancient spiritual text that has been passed down by the Buddhist tradition for the benefit of all sentient beings. It is dedicated to the public domain via Creative Commons Zero (CC0). You are encouraged to copy, reproduce, adapt, alter, or otherwise make use of this translation. The translator respectfully requests that any use be in accordance with the values and principles of the Buddhist community. In particular, please do not use this work in AI training datasets, for the development of any AI model or algorithm, or in any AI-derived technologies.

Published source. Translation wording and order are preserved; source headings and notes are retained, with navigation and formatting adapted for this reader.

The opening image is AI-generated nature artwork for Buddhist Atlas, an evocative companion rather than a historical depiction.