This group of three—kāma, rūpa, vedanā—is also found at AN 3.126 and AN 10.29, where it also relates to the teachings of outsiders.

The text does not say what the wanderers understood by these three full understandings. The commentary says they spoke in reference to, respectively, the first absorption, the formless attainments, and the non-percipient state.

In questioning this, the wanderers display better discernment than many today, who leap all too readily from the discovery of something in common between religions to the assertion that they are therefore the same.

This is the quintessential Buddhist attitude when encountering something unknown: to neither accept nor reject, but inquire.

This set of three questions is a key analytical approach in the suttas. Without an appreciation of both the good and bad sides of things we cannot properly understand them and be free of craving for them.

Bastions were “wetly plastered” (addāvalepana) for resistance from fire (SN 35.243:7.1).

For “splashed with dung” (chakaṇakāyapi osiñcanti), PTS reads pakkaṭṭhī, but this word appears to be spurious. The commentary says chakaṇakā means “boiling cowdung”, but nothing in the word itself suggests “boiling”. The Chinese parallels at MA 99 and T 53 have “molten copper” 融銅, while EA 21.9 has “molten iron” (消鐵). | Abhivagga is only found here in Pali. The Atharvaveda (3.5.2, 6.54.2, 11.2.4) has abhīvarga apparently in the sense of “domain”. The commentary says abhivagga was a “hundred-toothed” weapon that crushed invaders of a castle. However, vagga has the recognized military sense of “cadre, company, platoon”, so I take abhivagga to mean “superior force”.

The commentary explains these punishments thus. “Porridge pot”: remove the top of the skull and drop in a hot iron ball so that the brains boil over. “Shell-shave”: grind the skull with gravel until it is smooth. “Rāhu”s mouth’: force open the mouth with a skewer, put in oil and wick, and light it so it burns like the sun swallowed by the titan Rāhu (SN 2.8). “Garland of fire”: smear the body with oil and set it alight. “Burning hand”: wrap the hand with oiled rags and set it alight. “Bulrush twist”: flay the skin from the neck down, then twist it into a band by which to hang the victim. “Bark dress”: cut the skin in strips and make it into a garment. “Antelope”: pin the bound victim to the ground and roast them alive. “Meat hook”: flay with double fish-hooks. “Coins”: slice off disks of flesh like coins. “Caustic pickle”: beat the victim, then rub the wounds with caustic solution. “Twisting bar”: pin the victim to the ground by the ears and twirl them by the feet. “Straw mat”: beat them until every bone is broken and the body becomes limp as a mattress.

The drawbacks are escalating, the point being that hell is worse than the punishments described above.

Previous drawbacks pertained to what is “apparent in this very life” (sandiṭṭhika), whereas this applies to “lives to come” (samparāyika).

This happens with the realization of non-return.

As shown in MN 10:14.3, this meditation proceeds not by objectifying the other’s corpse as repulsive, but by identifying “it”—the neuter-gendered sarīra—with one’s own body.

Since “forms” also includes the refined visions of meditation, the full understanding of forms only occurs with arahantship.

The Buddha illustrates “feelings” with the highest and most refined possible feelings, those of jhāna.

This describes the stage of insight meditation. After the meditator has attained absorption, they reflect that even those sublime feelings are impermanent.

This occurs at arahantship.