Maraṇasati Sutta

The Maraṇasati Sutta refers to two short discourses in the Aṅguttara Nikāya (AN 6.19 and AN 6.20) addressed by the Buddha to monks dwelling at the Pubbārāma monastery near Sāvatthī. Both discourses concern the practice of maraṇa-sati — the recollection of death — and the proper register in which such recollection should be sustained. The two suttas address the same theme through slightly different narrative framings; the second (AN 6.20) elaborates the first.

The text was preserved orally for several centuries within the Theravāda transmission before being committed to writing in Sri Lanka in approximately the 1st century BCE, alongside the rest of the Pāli Canon. The architecture engages a brief excerpt addressing the structural framing of maraṇa-sati's cultivation.

Notes

"Sutta" (Sanskrit sūtra) is the canonical genre of discourse-records attributed to the Buddha within the Theravāda tradition. The genre is internally various; some suttas are extended teachings, others are brief exchanges. The Maraṇasati suttas are among the briefer.