Pāli Dictionary

Mahāsaccaka Sutta

Sutta

A discourse in which the debater Saccaka questions the Buddha about training body and mind, prompting the Buddha to recount his own pre-Enlightenment quest — his extreme austerities, his eventual realization that a starved body cannot yield true bliss, the desertion of his five ascetic companions in disgust, and his final breakthrough to full liberation.

Saccaka visits the Buddha at the Kūṭāgārasālā and questions him on the disciplining of the body and the mind. The Buddha describes to him the training he underwent from the time of leaving the world to that of his Enlightenment, stopping at no exertion, avoiding no austerities until, in the end, wisdom came to him, and he realised that bliss could not be experienced with an emaciated body. The group of five ascetics (pañcavaggiya), who had been with him until then, left him in disgust. However, he persevered, and, in the end, destroyed the corruptions (āsava). Saccaka, addressed in the sutta as Aggivessana, expresses great admiration for the Buddha and acknowledges his superiority over other teachers. M.i.237-51; see Thomas: op.cit., 58.

MN 36

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