[622] "Headman, for ninety-one aeons back from now that I recollect, I do not know of any family that has ever been harmed by the giving of cooked almsfood. Rather, whatever families are affluent, of great wealth, of great possessions, with abundant gold and silver, abundant means and requisites of wealth, abundant riches and grain — all of them have arisen through giving, arisen through truthfulness, and arisen through self-restraint.
"There are, headman, eight causes, eight conditions, for the ruin of families: families come to ruin on account of kings; or families come to ruin on account of thieves; or families come to ruin on account of fire; or families come to ruin on account of water; or what has been stored up disappears from its place; or undertakings badly managed fail; or there arises in the family a squanderer — a 'burning coal of the family' — who scatters, dissipates, and destroys those riches; and impermanence itself is the eighth. These, headman, are the eight causes, eight conditions, for the ruin of families.
"While these eight causes, these eight conditions, exist, headman, whoever should say of me: 'The Blessed One is practicing for the annihilation of families, the Blessed One is practicing for the misfortune of families, the Blessed One is practicing for the ruin of families' — that person, not having abandoned that speech, not having abandoned that thought (citta), not having relinquished that view, is deposited in hell just as if he were carried and placed there."
When this was said, Asibandhakaputta the headman said to the Blessed One: "Excellent, venerable sir! Excellent, venerable sir! … May the Blessed One remember me as a lay follower (upāsaka) who from this day forward has gone for refuge for as long as life lasts."
The ninth [sutta].
English translation from the Pali (Siam Raṭṭha edition) — under review, not for citation.