[846]
These seven bodies (kāyā) are eternal — they cannot be cut, they cannot be disturbed:
fire, earth, water, and air, and these — pleasure and pain (sukha, dukkha) —
and life (jīva): these are the seven bodies, of which no cutter is found;
there is neither slayer nor cutter, nor is anyone of them slain at all.
Weapons merely pass through the interval between the bodies;
and he who takes off the head of another with a whetted sword
does not cut those bodies — whence, then, could there be a fruit of evil therein?
Wandering on through eighty-four great aeons (mahākappa), all are purified;
until that time has arrived, even one who is restrained is not purified.
Though they have practiced much that is good, they are not purified before it has come;
and though they have done much evil, they do not pass beyond that moment.
For us, purification comes gradually, through the eighty-four aeons;
we do not overstep destiny (niyati), as the ocean does not overstep its shore.
English translation from the Pali (Siam Raṭṭha edition) — under review, not for citation.