法句譬喻經 1.p10

1.p10

On one occasion when Buddha was residing at Śrāvastī, in the Garden of Anāthapindada, a certain Brahmachārin, who had lost an only daughter, about fourteen or fifteen years of age, very beautiful and much beloved, being nearly deprived of reason through grief, having heard tidings of the wisdom of the holy one (Buddha), came to him where he was, and laid bare the cause of his unhappiness, on which the teacher took up his discourse, and said—"There are four things in the world, Brahmachārin! which cannot permanently last, and what are the four? Thinking we have obtained something: that will last, it must needs be we find that it will not continue. Being rich, it must needs be poverty will come. Being united and agreed, there will be division and separation. Being strong and hale, yet there will come death" And then the Honoured of the world added these lines—