Much though he recites the sacred texts, but acts not accordingly, that heedless man is like a cowherd who only counts the cows of others — he does not partake of the blessings of the holy life.

The image is precise. A cowherd in the village marketplace, counting cattle that are not his own. The Buddha is drawing the line between the recitation of doctrine and the consequence of doctrine in a life. The verse anticipates by twenty-five centuries the modern condition in which textual mastery becomes its own substitute for practice. Reciting much, acting little. The teaching: the cows must be one's own.