Linked Discourses 10.1

1. With Indaka

With Indaka

So I have heard.

At one time the Buddha was staying near Rājagaha on Mount Indra’s Peak, the haunt of the native spirit Indaka.

Then the native spirit Indaka went up to the Buddha, and addressed him in verse:

“The Buddhas say that form is not the soul.

Then how does this one obtain this body?

From where do his bones and organs come?

How does this one coalesce in the womb?”

“First there’s the zygote;

then there’s the blastocyst;

from there arises the gastrula;

which produces the embryonic mass.

From that the limb buds appear,

the head hair, body hair, and nails.

And whatever the mother eats—

the food and drink that she consumes—

nourishes them there,

the person in the mother’s womb.”