Venerable Kumārakassapaperson

The Buddha expounds a layered parable—revealed to Venerable Kassapa by a deity—of digging into a termite mound that smokes by night and blazes by day, unearthing successive obstacles from sensual craving to ignorance as the way to uproot old defilements.

The skeptic Prince Pāyāsi denies rebirth and karmic results; Venerable Kassapa the Prince refutes him with similes—of the pregnant woman, the egg, and the mirror—until Pāyāsi accepts the teaching and establishes a charity for ascetics.