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# Theragatha

## Chapter II -- Pairs of Verses

### (Selected suttas)

Translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
For free distribution only.

II.13 -- Heraññakani {vv. 145-146}

> Days & nights
> fly past.
> Life
> comes to an end.
> The span of mortals
> runs out,
> like the water of a piddling stream.
> But the fool doing evil deeds
> doesn't realize that later
> it's bitter for him:
> evil for him
> the result.

II.16 -- Mahakala {vv. 151-152}

> This swarthy woman
> [preparing a corpse for cremation]
> -- crow-like, enormous --
> breaking a thigh & then the other
> thigh,
> breaking an arm & then the other
> arm,
> cracking open the head,
> like a pot of curds,
> she sits with them heaped up beside her.

> Whoever, unknowing,
> makes acquisitions
> -- the fool --
> returns over & over
> to suffering & stress.
> So, discerning,
> don't make acquisitions.
> May I never lie
> with my head cracked open
> again.

II.24 -- Valliya {vv. 167-168}

> What needs to be done
> with firm persistence,
> what needs to be done
> by someone who hopes for Awakening,
> that I will do.
> I will not fail.
> See: persistence & striving!

> You show me the path:
> the straight,
> the plunge into Deathlessness.
> I, through sagacity,
> will reach it, know it,
> as the stream of the Ganges,
> the sea.

II.26 -- Punnamasa {vv. 171-172}

> Shedding five hindrances
> so as to reach the unexcelled rest
> from the yoke,
> taking the Dhamma as mirror
> for knowing & seeing myself,
> I reflected on this body --
> the whole thing,
> inside & out,
> my own & others'.
> How vain & empty it looked!

II.27 -- Nandaka {vv. 173-174}

> Just as a fine thoroughbred steed
> stumbling, regains its stance,
> feeling all the more urgency,
> & draws its burden
> undaunted.

> In the same way, remember me:
> consummate in vision,
> a disciple of the Rightly
> Self-awakened One,
> the Awakened One's thoroughbred child,
> his son.

II.30 -- Kanhadinna {vv. 179-180}

> Men of integrity
> have been attended to,
> the Dhamma repeatedly
> listened to.
> Having listened,
> I followed the straight way,
> the plunge into Deathlessness.

> Passion for becoming,
> having been killed by me,
> no further such passion
> is found in me.
> It neither was
> nor will be
> nor is found in me
> even now.

II.37 -- Sona Potiriyaputta {vv. 193-194}

> It's not for sleeping,
> the night garlanded
> with zodiac stars.
> The night, for one who knows,
> is for staying awake.

> If I were to fall from my elephant's shoulder,
> and a tusker trampled me,
> death in battle would be better for me,
> than that I, defeated,
> survive.

Revised: Fri 12 April 2002