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11. What laughter is there, what rejoicing, while [the world] is ever ablaze?
Enveloped in darkness, will you not seek a lamp?
Behold this adorned¹ image, a heaped-up body of sores,
ailing, the object of many thoughts, in which there is no lasting stability.
Worn out is this form (rūpa), a nest of disease, perishable;
this putrid mass breaks apart, for life has death as its end.
These bones, cast away like gourds² in autumn,
dove-grey — what delight is there in seeing them?
A city has been built of bones, plastered over with flesh and blood,
wherein are deposited aging (jarā) and death (maccu), conceit (māna) and detraction (makkha).
Verily the ornate chariots of kings wear out,
and the body too comes to aging;
but the Dhamma of the good does not come to aging —
thus indeed the good declare to the good.
This man of little learning ages like an ox:
his flesh increases, but his wisdom does not increase.
Through the round of many births (saṃsāra) I ran without finding,
seeking the builder of the house: birth (jāti) again and again is suffering (dukkha).
Builder of the house, you are seen! You shall not build a house again:
all your rafters are broken, the ridgepole is dismantled;
the mind (citta) has reached the divestment of formations; it has attained the destruction of cravings (taṇhā).
Not having lived the holy life (brahmacariya), not having gained wealth in youth,
they brood like aged herons in a pond where the fish are gone.
Not having lived the holy life, not having gained wealth in youth,
they lie like arrows spent from a bow, bemoaning the things of old.
The Chapter on Old Age (Jarāvagga), the eleventh.
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In the Verses of the Dhammapada, the twelfth chapter: the Chapter on the Self (Attavagga).
# ¹ Po.: cittīkataṃ. ² M.: alābūneva.
English translation from the Pali (Siam Raṭṭha edition) — under review, not for citation.