Here one suffers, afterwards one suffers: one who does evil suffers in both worlds. ‘I have done evil,’ one suffers; and suffers more upon going to a lower state.

Where verse 15 spoke of lament (socati), this speaks of torment (tappati — to burn, to roast, to suffer with heat). The difference is one of intensity: not just reflective sadness but internal burning. Pāpaṃ me katan’ti — “I have done evil”: the conscience of the impure act gives no peace.

Duggatiṃ gato — having gone to a fallen state: in Buddhist cosmology literally, a realm of suffering. In immediate psychological terms: the mental state of one who lives with the consciousness of having betrayed one’s own values. There is no worse prison than self-condemnation without possibility of transformation.

The difference between this torment and healthy remorse is important. Genuine remorse recognizes the error, laments it, determines not to repeat it, and moves forward. The torment described here is the one that stays trapped in recognition without resolution. Tappati without pārisuddhi (purification) is a wheel that turns without advancing.

Spiritual practice offers the path of genuine repentance (āpatti-paṭidesanā) as a way to liberate the energy trapped in guilt and redirect it toward real change.