1At Sāvatthī. Standing to one side, the young deva Rohitassa said to the Blessed One:

"Is it possible, venerable sir, by travelling to know or to see or to reach the end of the world, where one is not born, does not age, does not die, does not pass away, and is not reborn?"

"As to that end of the world, friend, where one is not born, does not age, does not die, does not pass away, and is not reborn—I say that it cannot be known, seen, or reached by travelling." [n.180] Spk: Rohitassa posed his question about the end of the world with reference to the stellar world-sphere (cakkavaḷa-loka), but the Blessed One answered with reference to the world of formations (saṅkhāra-loka).

2"It is wonderful, venerable sir! It is amazing, venerable sir! How well this was stated by the Blessed One: ‘As to that end of the world, friend, … I say that it cannot be known, seen, or reached by travelling.’

3"Once in the past, venerable sir, I was a seer named Rohitassa, son of Bhoja, possessed of spiritual power, able to travel through the sky. sn.i.62 My speed was such, venerable sir, that I could move just as swiftly as a firm-bowed archer—trained, skilful, practised, experienced—could easily shoot past the shadow of a palmyra tree with a light arrow. [n.181] This stock description of the archer is also at SN20.6 (II 265,27–266,2). Spk: Daḷhadhammo = daḷhadhanu; possessed of a bow of the maximum size (uttamappamaṇena dhanuna samannagato). A plural daḷhadhammino occurs below at v. 708b. At EV I, n. to 1210, Norman proposes that this form must have been borrowed from a dialect where -nv- > -mm- instead of -nn-. MW lists two Skt words meaning "with firm bows," dṛḍhadhanvan and dṛḍhadhanvin. We might assume it is the former that appears in Pali as daḷhadhamma, the latter as daḷhadhammin; see too n. 488. A similar development affected the homonym dhanvan (= desert); see n. 264. My stride was such, venerable sir, that it seemed to reach from the eastern ocean to the western ocean. Then, venerable sir, the wish arose in me: ‘I will reach the end of the world by travelling.’ Possessing such speed and such a stride, and having a life span of a hundred years, living for a hundred years, I travelled for a hundred years, without pausing except to eat, drink, take meals and snacks, to defecate and urinate, to sleep and dispel fatigue; yet I died along the way without having reached the end of the world.

4"It is wonderful, venerable sir! It is amazing, venerable sir! How well this was stated by the Blessed One: ‘As to that end of the world, friend, where one is not born, does not age, does not die, does not pass away, and is not reborn—I say that it cannot be known, seen, or reached by travelling.’"

5"However, friend, I say that without having reached the end of the world there is no making an end to suffering. It is, friend, in just this fathom-high carcass endowed with perception and mind that I make known the world, the origin of the world, the cessation of the world, and the way leading to the cessation of the world. [n.182] Spk glosses loka with dukkhasacca and each of the other terms by way of the other three noble truths. Thus the Buddha shows: "I do not make known these four truths in external things like grass and wood, but right here in this body composed of the four great elements."
This pithy utterance of the Buddha, which may well be the most profound proposition in the history of human thought, is elucidated at SN35.116 by the Venerable Ānanda, who explains that in the Noble One's Discipline "the world" is "that in the world by which one is a perceiver and conceiver of the world," i.e., the six sense bases. From Ānanda's explanation we can draw out the following implications: The world with which the Buddha’s teaching is principally concerned is "the world of experience," and even the objective world is of interest only to the extent that it serves as the necessary external condition for experience. The world is identified with the six sense bases because the latter are the necessary internal condition for experience and thus for the presence of a world. As long as the six sense bases persist, a world will always be spread out before us as the objective range of perception and cognition. Thus one cannot reach the end of the world by travelling, for wherever one goes one inevitably brings along the six sense bases, which necessarily disclose a world extended on all sides. Nevertheless, by reversing the direction of the search it is possible to reach the end of the world. For if the world ultimately stems from the six sense bases, then by bringing an end to the sense bases it is possible to arrive at the end of the world.
Now the six sense bases are themselves conditioned, having arisen from a chain of conditions rooted in one's own ignorance and craving (see SN12.44 = SN35.107). Thus by removing ignorance and craving the re-arising of the six sense bases can be prevented, and therewith the manifestation of the world is terminated. This end of the world cannot be reached by travelling, but it can be arrived at by cultivating the Noble Eightfold Path. Perfect development of the path brings about the eradication of ignorance and craving, and with their removal the underlying ground is removed for the renewed emergence of the six senses, and therewith for the reappearance of a world. For a long philosophical commentary on this sutta by ñāṇananda, see SN-Anth 2:70–85.

1Sāvatthinidānaṁ. Ekamantaṁ ṭhito kho rohitasso devaputto bhagavantaṁ etadavoca:

"yattha nu kho, bhante, na jāyati na jīyati na mīyati na cavati na upapajjati, sakkā nu kho so, bhante, gamanena lokassa anto ñātuṁ vā daṭṭhuṁ vā pāpuṇituṁ vā"ti?

"Yattha kho, āvuso, na jāyati na jīyati na mīyati na cavati na upapajjati, nāhaṁ taṁ gamanena lokassa antaṁ ñāteyyaṁ daṭṭheyyaṁ patteyyanti vadāmī"ti.

2"Acchariyaṁ, bhante, abbhutaṁ, bhante. Yāvasubhāsitamidaṁ, bhante, bhagavatā: ‘yattha kho, āvuso, na jāyati na jīyati na mīyati na cavati na upapajjati, nāhaṁ taṁ gamanena lokassa antaṁ ñāteyyaṁ daṭṭheyyaṁ patteyyanti vadāmī’ti.

3Bhūtapubbāhaṁ, bhante, rohitasso nāma isi ahosiṁ bhojaputto iddhimā vehāsaṅgamo. Tassa mayhaṁ, bhante, evarūpo javo ahosi; seyyathāpi nāma daḷhadhammā dhanuggaho susikkhito katahattho katayoggo katūpāsano lahukena asanena appakasireneva tiriyaṁ tālacchāyaṁ atipāteyya. Tassa mayhaṁ, bhante, evarūpo padavītihāro ahosi; seyyathāpi nāma puratthimā samuddā pacchimo samuddo. Tassa mayhaṁ, bhante, evarūpaṁ icchāgataṁ uppajji: ‘Ahaṁ gamanena lokassa antaṁ pāpuṇissāmī’ti. So khvāhaṁ, bhante, evarūpena javena samannāgato evarūpena ca padavītihārena, aññatreva asitapītakhāyitasāyitā aññatra uccārapassāvakammā aññatra niddākilamathapaṭivinodanā vassasatāyuko vassasatajīvī vassasataṁ gantvā appatvāva lokassa antaṁ antarāva kālaṅkato.

4Acchariyaṁ, bhante, abbhutaṁ, bhante. Yāvasubhāsitamidaṁ, bhante, bhagavatā: ‘yattha kho, āvuso, na jāyati na jīyati na mīyati na cavati na upapajjati, nāhaṁ taṁ gamanena lokassa antaṁ ñāteyyaṁ daṭṭheyyaṁ patteyyanti vadāmī’"ti.

5"Na kho panāhaṁ, āvuso, appatvā lokassa antaṁ dukkhassa antakiriyaṁ vadāmi. Api ca khvāhaṁ, āvuso, imasmiṁyeva byāmamatte kaḷevare sasaññimhi samanake lokañca paññapemi lokasamudayañca lokanirodhañca lokanirodhagāminiñca paṭipadānti.