10.5 The Story about Visākhā and Others Observing the Observance Days
Visākhādīnaṁ Uposathikānaṁ Uposathakammavatthu

“Like a cowherd with stick,” [29.300] {3.59} this Dhamma teaching was given by the Teacher while he was in residence at Pubbārāma with reference to the manner in which Observance Day was kept by Visākhā and her female lay disciples.

At Sāvatthī, we are told, on a certain great Observance Day, five hundred women undertook to observe the Observance Day and went to the monastery. Visākhā approached the oldest women of the company and asked: “Women, for what purpose have you assumed the undertaken to observe the Observance Day?” They replied: “Because we seek a heavenly reward.” When she put the question to the women who had reached middle life, they replied: “To obtain release from the power of our husbands.” When she asked the young women, they replied: “That we may conceive a child as soon as possible.” Finally she asked the maidens, who replied: “That we may obtain husbands while we are still young.”

When Visākhā had heard the replies of all, she then went to the Teacher, taking the women with her, and told him each of the replies in order. The Teacher listened to the replies and then said: “Visākhā, in the case of living beings here in the world, birth, old age, sickness, and death are like cowherds with staves in their hands. Birth sends them to old age, and old age to sickness, and sickness to death; they cut life short as though they cut with an axe. But despite this, there are none that desire absence of rebirth; rebirth is all they desire.” So saying, he joined the connection, and teaching the Dhamma, pronounced the following verse:

135. Yathā daṇḍena gopālo gāvo pāceti gocaraṁ,
evaṁ jarā ca maccu ca āyuṁ pācenti pāṇinaṁ.

Like a cowherd with stick
drives cattle to pasture,
so do old age and death
drive life out of beings.

At the end of the teaching many reached the fruition of Stream-entry and so on.