There is a city made of bones, plastered with flesh and blood,
where there are deposited old age, death, conceit and hypocrisy.

aṭṭhīnaṃ nagaraṃ   kataṃ maṃsa+lohita+lepanaṃ
|                   |             |         |           |           |
N.n.          N.n.      Adj.n.  N.n.     N.n.      N.n.
Gen.Pl.  Nom.Sg. Nom.Sg.   |______|      Nom.Sg.
|___________|_______|              |__________|
           |_____|                                    |
                 |______________________|
                                   |__________________________________

List of Abbreviations

yattha        jarā     ca     maccu   ca     māno     makkho  ca      ohito
|                   |         |          |         |          |              |          |          |
Rel.Adv.    N.f.    conj.   N.m.   conj.   N.m.       N.m.   conj.  Adj.m.
|             Nom.Sg.   |     Nom.Sg.  |     Nom.Sg. Nom.Sg.   |     Nom.Sg.
|                   |_____|          |_____|          |________|_____|           |
|                        |___________|____________|                            |
|                                                       |______________________|
|__________________________________________|

aṭṭhīnaṃ: aṭṭhi-, N.n.: bone. Gen.Pl. = aṭṭhīnaṃ.

nagaraṃ: nagara-, N.n.: city, town. Nom.Sg. = nagaraṃ.

kataṃ: kata-, Adj.: done. It is a p.p. of the verb kar- (to do). Nom.Sg.n. = kataṃ.

maṃsalohitalepanaṃ: maṃsalohitalepana-, Adj.: plastered with flesh and blood. It is a compound of:
    maṃsa-, N.n.: flesh, meat.
    lohita-, N.n.: blood.
    lepana-, N.n.: smearing, plastering.
Nom.Sg.n. = maṃsalohitalepanaṃ.

yattha, Rel.Adv.: where.

jarā: jarā-, N.f.: old age. Nom.Sg. = jarā.

List of Abbreviations

ca, conj.: and.

maccu: maccu-, N.m.: death. Nom.Sg. = maccu.

ca, conj.: and.

māno: māna-, N.m.: , N.m.: pride, conceit. Nom.Sg. = māno.

makkho: makkha-, N.m.: hypocrisy. Nom.Sg. = makkho.

ca, conj.: and.

ohito: ohita-, Adj.: deposited, put into, hidden. It is a p.p. of the verb dhā- (to put) with the prefix ava- (down, into; as often in Pali, ava- is shortened to o-). Nom.Sg.m. = ohito.

List of Abbreviations

    This verse consists of two related sentences. They are:
    1) aṭṭhīnaṃ nagaraṃ kataṃ maṃsalohitalepanaṃ (there is a city made of bones, plastered with flesh and blood). The subject is the noun nagaraṃ (city, nominative singular). It has two attributes, the noun aṭṭhīnaṃ (of bones, genitive plural) and the adjective compound maṃsalohitalepanaṃ (plastered with flesh and blood, nominative singular). The past participle kataṃ (made, nominative singular) serves as the verb in this sentence.
    2) yattha jarā ca maccu ca māno makkho ca ohito (where there are deposited old age, death, conceit and hypocrisy). There are four subjects in this sentence. They are: jarā (old age, nominative singular), maccu (death, nominative singular), māno (conceit, nominative singular) and makkho (hypocrisy, nominative singular). They are connected by multiple conjunctions ca (and). The past participle ohito (deposited, nominative singular) serves as the verb in this sentence. The relative adverb yattha (where) connects this sentence to the previous one.

    Rūpanandā was the Buddha's stepsister and the fiancee of his cousin. She was very beautiful, so she was also known as Janapada Kalyāni ("Beauty of the area"). Because all of her relatives became monks and nuns, she decided to go to the monastery herself. But she did so only because of attachment to her family; she was not really devoted to the idea.
    As she knew that the Buddha often talked about impermanency and non-attachment to the body, she did not dare to go to see him. She thought he would scold her for her beauty. But one day she finally decided to go and listen to one of the Buddha's discourses.
    The Buddha knew that Rūpanandā is very attached to her body and conscious of her beauty. So he created a vision of a female form (visible only to Rūpanandā) to sit near him on the stage, where he was delivering his speech and to fan him. The girl was very young and extremely beautiful. Rūpanandā saw her and realized that compared to this girl she herself looked like a monkey.
    While she was looking, the girl began to grow older. She became a young woman, then a grown up woman, middle aged, old - and finally she became a very old woman. Rūpanandā realized that the change of the body is a continuing process and she found out that this beautiful young girl changed into an old ugly woman. Then the woman on stage, no longer able to control her body, was lying there, dying and finally she died. Her body got swollen and worms were all over it.
    Rūpanandā thus finally realized that also her beauty is very impermanent - it is a subject to illness, old age and death. The Buddha further instructed her with this verse and at the end Rūpanandā attained Arahantship.

Sentence pronunciation

Word pronunciation:

aṭṭhīnaṃ
nagaraṃ
kataṃ
maṃsalohitalepanaṃ
maṃsa
lohita
lepanaṃ
yattha
jarā
ca
maccu
māno
makkho
ohito