Why Begin with the Uraga Sutta of the Sutta Nipata?
For the first session on understanding scripture, I want to read the Uraga chapter, the opening chapter of the Sutta Nipata, and its first discourse, the Uraga Sutta. Anyone who has studied Buddhism may have heard phrases such as “as a snake casts off its old skin,” “leave behind both this world and the next,” or “leave both the near shore and the far shore.” Yet these familiar expressions are precisely why it is easy to miss what the discourse is saying. I will explain it so that someone new to Buddhism can follow, but those who have studied for years must also question the translations and interpretations they have taken for granted.
There are reasons for choosing the Sutta Nipata first. It is regarded in both academic and Buddhist circles as one of the oldest Buddhist scriptures. In particular, the discourses in Chapter Four, the Atthakavagga, and Chapter Five, the Parayanavagga, are frequently quoted in other texts, carry early commentaries, and preserve linguistic forms considered older than those of other Pali texts. When one document quotes another, the quoted text was probably already in existence. The presence of explanatory commentary also means that the discourse was important and already unfamiliar and difficult to later generations.
I regard the Uraga Sutta as a later, compressed version of the Atthakavagga. Its opening verses condense the problems of anger, greed, craving, and conceit that the Atthakavagga develops at greater length. Here we find the prototypes of what are commonly called the three poisons—greed, anger, and delusion—together with the structure of conceit. But if we read these brief lines backward through the later doctrine of the three poisons, all that remains is a moral command: “Abandon anger and greed, and then you can leave this world and the next.” I begin with this discourse because that misunderstanding reveals a problem in how Buddhist scriptures are read as a whole.
The Uraga Sutta does not merely command us to discard greed, anger, delusion, and conceit. It asks us to observe the causes from which they arise and to leave those causes behind.
One Translation Was Repeated Until a Misunderstanding Hardened
Several Korean translations of the Sutta Nipata have been published. Venerable Beopjeong released his translation in 1974. Rather than translating the Pali directly, he rendered into Korean Nakamura Hajime’s 1958 Japanese translation. Nakamura’s work, in turn, relied on an English translation published by Max Müller and Fausböll in 1881. A translation by Venerable Unhak followed, and Seok Jihyeon produced another version using both the English edition and Nakamura’s revised Japanese text. More recently, Jeon Jaeseong and Venerable Gakmuk have worked directly from Pali scriptures.
I am not saying that all these translators were incompetent or malicious. The problem is that once the first translator, unable to make sense of a compressed verse, adds explanatory words, the next translator accepts those additions as part of the meaning. Actions such as “entering the pond and cutting the lotus,” “a torrent destroying a reed bridge,” and “casting off the skin” are supplied to make the lines easier to understand even though the Pali does not state those actions. Japanese inherits the structure of English, and Korean inherits Japanese or English. In this way, cause and effect, once reversed, harden into an interpretation that later generations consider obvious.
A dictionary of words is not enough to translate verse compressed into poetry. One needs a criterion for what runs through Buddhism: observing reality, understanding the relationship between cause and effect, and escaping an effect by changing its cause. Without this criterion, a translator forces the earlier verses to conform to the form of later ones. A rendering that says anger and greed must first be removed before one can leave the two shores tells us nothing about how anger and greed are actually removed.
A mistranslated sentence becomes the premise of the next translation. Without critical reading, we may believe that words supplied by translators and reversed causal relationships are the Buddha’s own teaching.
The First Verse: Not a Command to Eliminate Anger but an Observation of Its Medicine
Venerable Beopjeong’s version can be summarized this way: “As one controls snake venom spreading through the body with medicine, a practitioner who subdues rising anger abandons both this world and the next, as a snake casts off its old skin.” Seok Jihyeon uses “this shore and the other shore,” but the causal structure is the same. The sentence makes it appear that a person first conquers anger and, as a result, leaves two worlds or two shores. It therefore omits the most important question: how does one let anger go?
Following the Pali sentence and the structure of the discourse as a whole, I translate the first verse as follows.
One who seeks to put down rising anger,
seeing that there is medicine for spreading snake venom,
let the bhikkhu leave the low and what lies beyond,
as a snake has shed this old skin.
Snake venom and medicine are not decorative words meaning “control anger with medicine.” They are an observation that even venom spreading through the body has a medicine suited to it. If there is an effect, there is a cause that produced it, and there may be a remedy that changes the cause. If we want to put down rising anger, we should not merely suppress it or repeat, “I must not be angry.” We must find the cause of the anger. The next line—leave the low and what lies beyond—identifies that cause.
The image of snakeskin is also not a snake still struggling to shed its skin. The snake has already left the old skin behind and gone. Looking at the skin on the ground, we see that the snake has escaped it. Liberation is the same. We live inside a mistaken standard and become angry according to it; then we recognize it as an old skin and leave it.
Orapāraṃ Does Not Mean This World and the Next
The key term in this verse is orapāraṃ. Conventional translations render it as the near and far shores, this shore and the other shore, or this world and the next. Pāra points to what is beyond, on the other side, or transcendent. The same root appears in pāramitā and Prajñāpāramitā. The image of this side and the other side of a river produced the Chinese terms for near and far shores; once a river of death is imagined, the translation extends into this life and an afterlife.
But the moment it is translated as “this world and the next,” people assume that a next world actually exists. “This shore and the far shore” suggests a transcendent realm that must be reached by escaping the present one. The discourse points in the opposite direction. Ora indicates the low or what is here, while pāra indicates what surpasses it, the thing imagined as transcendent. To leave orapāraṃ therefore means neither becoming bound to the low and worldly nor becoming bound to the fantasy that something eternal and perfect exists beyond it.
The Buddha himself once sought what lay beyond. He learned that there might be a true self beyond body, aging, illness, and death—an atman and a path to perfect wisdom and omniscience. He practiced yoga, concentration, starvation, and austerity in search of that transcendent something. Yet no matter how he searched, he could not find it. Being trapped by small worldly pleasures is a problem, but despising the world and seeking a pure, eternal substance outside the body is also an empty thought. Buddhism does not cross from one extreme to the other; it leaves both extremes.
Leaving orapāraṃ is not abandoning this world in order to travel to the next. It is leaving both extremes: worldly desire and transcendent desire, attachment to what is called low and attachment to what is imagined as high.
Anger Arises When My Standard Collides with Reality
Why does leaving the low and what lies beyond stop anger? Anger usually arises when a standard I hold does not match reality. If I absolutize the standard “I must live virtuously,” I become angry when I see someone live badly. If I hold “My child must obey me” or “My child must enter a good university,” I become angry when the child chooses otherwise. In the opposite situation, I may lack money for tuition while my child insists on preparing for admission for a third or fourth year, and anger arises from another direction.
We may explode directly at someone weaker or someone we think we can control. In an equal relationship, we argue over right and wrong. If I cling to the belief that the word of God, the word of the Buddha, my religion, my people, or my class is absolutely right, anyone outside that standard appears to be evil, a heretic, a witch, or a slave. Judgment, murder, and discrimination can all grow from such distinctions. The problem is not merely that reality never conforms completely to my standard, but that I cling to a standard I created as if it were truth itself.
This does not mean that we should never judge right and wrong. It means that we should examine how our judgment was formed and whether it is truly right. If “It absolutely must be this way” is the root of anger, we must observe and leave that standard rather than forcibly suppressing anger. This is the cause-and-effect relationship in the first verse’s statement that snake venom has medicine.
Anger does not disappear because we command ourselves not to be angry. It stops when we see and leave the standard—“It must be this way”—that produces the anger.
The Second Verse: See the Lotus Root Hidden Beneath the Flower
A conventional translation of the second verse reads, “As one enters a pond and cuts a lotus, a person who has completely cut off sensual desire leaves this shore and the other shore.” But the original does not describe entering the pond or cutting the flower. It merely presents the lotus together with the root submerged beneath the pond. Because the relationship was not understood, translators supplied the action “cut the flower.” Once again, the sentence is reversed so that a person must eliminate greed before leaving the two shores.
I translate the second verse as follows.
One who seeks to eradicate greed without remainder,
seeing that beneath this lotus in the pond its root lies submerged,
let the bhikkhu leave the low and what lies beyond,
as a snake has shed this old skin.
The lotus flower is the visible effect, while the root beneath the water is the hidden cause. No matter how often the flower is cut, it blossoms again if the root remains alive. Greed is not eradicated by suppressing its visible expressions. If the standard that makes an object “good” and says “I must possess it” remains, desire rises again in another form. To eradicate it without remainder, we must look not at the flower but at the root. That root is the distinction that divides the low from what lies beyond and clings to one side as good.
Why a Gold Toy and the Eiffel Tower Look So Desirable
My son wanted a toy identical in shape to one he already owned, except that the new one was painted gold. The moment a standard arises that gold is more special and desirable, craving follows. His grandmother eventually bought it as a Christmas gift, but after playing with it for a few days, he left both the old and new toys in a corner. Before obtaining it, he wanted it desperately; after obtaining it, he moved on to another object.
One may see a photograph taken before the Eiffel Tower in Paris and think, “Going there is truly wonderful.” I am not saying that travel itself is bad. The apartment building I see every day may look like an extraordinary human structure to someone else, while the Eiffel Tower may be ordinary scenery to a Parisian. But once I establish a standard that says, “That is better, and I must go there,” the desire to possess or travel arises. The standard is not fixed, and after the object is obtained, it changes again.
Leaving greed does not mean becoming a person who feels nothing when seeing something pleasant. It means observing how my standard of “good” produces desire and how quickly that desire moves elsewhere after satisfaction. As long as I hold the distinction created the moment gold paint looked special, the root of desire remains alive. This is what it means to see the lotus root under the pond rather than merely cutting the flower.
The root of greed does not lie only in the object. My standard that says “That is good” makes the object special, and desire blooms again as long as I cling to that standard.
The Third Verse: Craving Seeks Something Transcendent
The rāga of the second verse is close to desiring what appears sensually pleasant. It resembles how Zhu Bajie in Journey to the West personifies greed by chasing food and women. The taṇhā of the third verse places more weight on seeking and thirsting. Here it is connected not only to worldly objects but also to the search for something eternal and pure beyond them.
The Buddha himself sought a way beyond aging, illness, and death and toward perfect wisdom. Brahmins and renunciants of his time also sought deathlessness, omniscience, soul, supernatural powers, and something beyond the body. Concentration may be important, but if the premise of what one seeks is mistaken, concentration and austerity only strengthen an empty image. As long as one treats the body as low and believes in a pure substance beyond it, one remains attached to what lies beyond.
The third verse reads:
One who seeks to eradicate craving without remainder,
seeing that when a current swiftly flows away it dries up,
let the bhikkhu leave the low and what lies beyond,
as a snake has shed this old skin.
When water rapidly flows away, the place it occupied dries. The craving for something transcendent also has no substance that can be grasped. If we ignore the flowing phenomenon, fabricate an eternal image, and try to reach it, we ourselves dry up. Craving stops only when we leave both the mind that indulges in what is called low and the mind that despises it while craving something perfect beyond it.
The craving Buddhism asks us to abandon includes not only worldly desire but also transcendent desire for soul, immortality, omniscience, and perfect awakening.
The Fourth Verse: Pride and Inferiority Arise from the Same Standard
The fourth verse concerns māna, conceit. Conceit contains not only pride and the feeling that I am above others. It also includes inferiority, the feeling that I am lower and insignificant. These emotions look opposite, yet both arise from a single standard: “This is the highest,” “First place is best,” or “This religion, people, and class are superior.” If I occupy the higher position in that hierarchy, I become proud; if I imagine myself below, I feel inferior.
My translation is:
One who seeks to discard conceit without remainder,
seeing that a reed bridge is exceedingly weak before a great torrent,
let the bhikkhu leave the low and what lies beyond,
as a snake has shed this old skin.
Conventional translations add, “As a torrent destroys a reed bridge, one who has eliminated pride leaves the two shores.” The sentence itself, however, asks us to observe the reed bridge, the great torrent, and its weakness. A reed bridge sways when the current changes. The status I believe to be supreme also shakes as soon as conditions change. A student who ranked first in a small school may become average or last in a school filled with top students. First place is merely an order, but when it is equated with human worth, pride turns into inferiority as circumstances change.
If we establish a large house, elite school, high class, superior people, or supreme religion as the best, we treat those below the standard as insignificant. When we stand above, we discriminate against others; when we stand below, we torment ourselves. Believing that a standard that moves with circumstances like a reed bridge in a torrent is a solid reality is the cause of conceit. We should not merely force ourselves to abandon conceit; we should leave the standard that absolutizes high and low.
Pride and inferiority are not opposites. On the same standard of what is “highest,” my position above becomes pride and my position below becomes inferiority.
The Fifth Verse and the Futile Search for the Core of Existence
The Uraga Sutta has been transmitted as seventeen verses, but I regard the first four as earlier and the fifth onward as another layer of composition. The first four share exactly the same structure: a person who seeks to abandon something observes cause and effect in nature and therefore leaves the low and what lies beyond. From the fifth verse, the structure changes. As the sequence continues, cause and effect become reversed so that someone who has already attained a condition is then said to leave the two shores. A later writer may have expanded the discourse without understanding the compressed structure of the opening.
This does not mean that the fifth verse is without value. It can be translated as follows.
One who cannot find the core of existence,
seeing one who seeks a flower in a fig tree,
let the bhikkhu leave the low and what lies beyond,
as a snake has shed this old skin.
People ask, “What am I?” and assume that there must be an unchanging core inside. They seek the essence of existence as if searching for the heartwood of a tree and imagine that discovering it will unite them with Brahman or grant perfect wisdom. Yet it cannot be found, just as one seeks a visible flower on a fig tree. The person searching for the core of existence has already assumed that something transcendent exists. Once we see that it cannot be found, we should leave both attachment to the low body and attachment to an eternal substance beyond it.
Scripture Must Be Reread through Cause and Effect, Not Believed
I am not trying to attack Venerable Beopjeong or Seok Jihyeon as individuals. If the earliest English translators did not see that a single discourse contains verses from different periods and structures, or that the first four compress the greed, anger, delusion, and conceit of the Atthakavagga, they would naturally try to force the whole text into one form. In that process they supplied actions absent from the original and reversed the cause-and-effect relationship of the earlier verses to match the later ones. Translators working from that version would almost inevitably follow the same path.
I studied Pali and examined the source text directly to investigate this problem. That does not mean that I am an expert who reads and pronounces every Pali sentence perfectly. It means that because a single translation and interpretation can be repeated for generations, I must also question whether my understanding is right and compare it with the source and the whole logic. Those listening to me should likewise ask, “Is Yun Deokman’s translation really right, or is it another mass of conjecture?” That doubt is the beginning of reading Buddhist scripture clearly.
Scriptures mix material that accords with the Buddha’s method and material that does not, older and later layers, accurate translations and mistaken supplements. To believe every sentence simply because it is scriptural is not to study Buddhism; it is to believe transmission and translation. We must ask what is cause and what is effect, whether observation of reality confirms the statement, and whether the understanding actually helps us escape mistaken thought.
The liberation indicated by the opening verses of the Uraga Sutta is not transcendence that abandons this world. It is seeing the standards that produce anger, greed, craving, and conceit, and breaking free from the thought that divides and clings to the low and what lies beyond. Like a snake that leaves its old skin behind, we must leave mistaken thought. That is what scriptural study must accomplish in actual life. In the next session, through the Kalama Sutta, I will examine further why we must question scripture, authority, and tradition and observe for ourselves.
Buddhism is not believing the letters of scripture. It is observing cause and effect, questioning both translation and one’s own thoughts, and actually escaping the old skin of delusion.
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