This city is made of bones, plastered with flesh and blood, where old age, death, pride, and hypocrisy are stored.

Aṭṭhīnaṃ nagaraṃ kataṃ — this city is made of bones: the body as a city (nagara) whose structure is bony. The architectural image is precise: bones are the structure, flesh and blood are the plaster that gives it exterior appearance.

Maṃsalohitalepanam — plastered with flesh and blood: lepana is the plaster, the stucco that covers adobe or brick walls. The exterior beauty of the body is like the stucco covering a structure of bones and viscera.

Yattha jarā ca maccu ca māno makkho ca ohito — where old age, death, pride, and hypocrisy are stored: within this city-body dwell not only biological processes (aging and death) but also psychological ones (māna = pride, makkha = hypocrisy). The body is the seat of both physical deterioration and psychological deception.

The metaphor of the city has the function of making us see the body as something constructed, composite, not as a monolithic entity. Cities are built and crumble; this city-body follows the same law.