Read, reflect, pray
Sutta Nipāta 2-6: Dhammacariyasutta or Kapilasutta
Viggo Fausböll, 1881 · Historical English translation
1. A just life, a religious life, this they call the best gem, if any one has gone forth from house-life to a houseless life. (273)
2. But if he be harsh-spoken, and like a beast delighting in injuring (others), then the life of such a one is very wicked, and he increases his own pollution. (274)
3. A Bhikkhu who delights in quarrelling and is shrouded in folly, does not understand the Dhamma that is preached and taught by Buddha. (275)
4. Injuring his own cultivated mind, and led by ignorance, he does not understand that sin is the way leading to hell. (276)
5. Having gone to calamity, from womb to womb, from darkness to darkness, such a Bhikkhu verily, after passing away, goes to pain. (277)
6. As when there is a pit of excrement (that has become) full during a number of years,—he who should be such a one full of sin is difficult to purify. (278)
7. Whom you know to be such a one, O Bhikkhus, (a man) dependent on a house, having sinful desires, sinful thoughts, and being with sinful deeds and objects, (279)
8. Him do avoid, being all in concord; blow him away as sweepings, put him away as rubbish. (280)
9. Then remove as chaff those that are no Samaṇas, (but only) think themselves, blowing away those that have sinful desires and those with sinful deeds and objects. (281)
10. Be pure and live together with the pure, being thoughtful; then agreeing (and) wise you will put an end to pain. (282)
Dhammacariyasutta is ended.
Translation, numbering and rights
Viggo Fausböll, 1881. Public-domain 1881 translation, from the free non-commercial EPUB distributed by Reading Faithfully (edition 1.0, February 2012), transcribed by Christopher M. Weimer for the Internet Sacred Text Archive. This reader is free and non-commercial. Pali diacritics follow the EPUB. Translator introductions and footnotes are omitted; discourse prose, verses and the concluding passages are retained.
This 1881 edition uses consecutive verse numbers ending at 1148. It differs from the Japanese edition and must not be aligned by verse number alone. The final reading includes the concluding praises and Piṅgiya’s dialogue. The source’s printed numbering is retained, including gaps. A repeated “1041” in the source is retained; the expected “1047” is not silently substituted. No verse text is supplied by guesswork.
This historical English translation uses older vocabulary. It is independent of the Japanese translation linked from this site. The Japanese edition’s translator and license are credited there.