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Aṅguttara Nikāya · Discourse 10.88

An Abuser

Akkosakasutta — Theravagga — the ninth chapter of the Tens

Setting
None stated in the source
Speakers
The Buddha alone, addressing the mendicants
Form
A single flat list of ten guaranteed consequences
Length
under 1 minute to read
Difficulty
★★☆☆☆ — brief but severe in content

Why this discourse

In a discourse just two sentences long around its central list, the Buddha states without qualification that abusing one's spiritual companions and denouncing the noble ones leads, without a doubt, to one of ten specific disasters — setting up the very warning the next discourse's narrative will play out in full.

Reading guide

The teaching in one sentence

Any mendicant who abuses and insults their spiritual companions, denouncing the noble ones, will without doubt fall into one of ten disasters: failing to achieve the unachieved, losing what was achieved, failing to refine good qualities, overestimating them, spiritual dissatisfaction, a corrupt offense, severe illness, madness, confusion at death, or rebirth in hell.

An escalating list, ending in the worst outcome

The ten disasters are not randomly ordered: they move from failures of practice (not achieving, losing what was achieved) through personal breakdown (illness, madness) to the single most severe consequence named anywhere in this project — rebirth in hell — closing on the worst possible outcome rather than a milder one.

Without doubt, not merely likely

The discourse's opening phrase — “without a doubt” — states these consequences as certain rather than probable, the same unqualified register met in AN 10.82's “quite impossible,” applied here to a guaranteed negative outcome rather than a guaranteed positive one.

A warning that sets up the next discourse

Read together with AN 10.89 immediately following it, this discourse functions almost as a thesis statement for what comes next: this bare, general warning about abusing companions and denouncing the noble ones is about to be dramatized in vivid, specific narrative detail.

Key terms

akkosati paribhāsati — “abuses and insults” — the act this discourse's title names and condemns.
ariyūpavādako — “denouncing the noble ones” — the specific, aggravating target of the abuse, distinct from ordinary insult.
aṭṭhānametaṁ anavakāso — “without a doubt” — literally “there is no such possibility [of avoiding it]” — the same register of certainty met in AN 10.82's “quite impossible.”
apāyaṁ duggatiṁ vinipātaṁ nirayaṁ upapajjati — “reborn in a place of loss, a bad place, the underworld, hell” — the tenth and final disaster, closing the list on its most severe outcome.
ummādaṁ vā pāpuṇāti cittakkhepaṁ — “go mad and lose their mind” — one of the middle disasters, immediately preceding confusion at death.

The text

The discourse in full: the ten guaranteed disasters. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).

Ten disasters, without a doubt

§1“Mendicants, any mendicant who abuses and insults their spiritual companions, denouncing the noble ones, will, without a doubt, fall into one or other of these ten disasters. What ten? They don’t achieve the unachieved. What they have achieved falls away. They don’t refine their good qualities. They overestimate their good qualities, or lead the spiritual life dissatisfied, or commit a corrupt offense, or contract a severe illness, or go mad and lose their mind. They feel lost when they die. And when their body breaks up, after death, they are reborn in a place of loss, a bad place, the underworld, hell. Any mendicant who abuses and insults their spiritual companions, denouncing the noble ones, will, without a doubt, fall into one or other of these ten disasters.”

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Self-check quiz

5 questions. Click an answer to see immediate feedback. No score is recorded — this is for your own checking.

Question 1 of 5
What act does this discourse condemn?
Correct: B. The specific, named offense this discourse's title and consequences concern.
Question 2 of 5
How are the ten disasters ordered, according to the guide?
Correct: B. A deliberate progression ending on the worst possible consequence.
Question 3 of 5
How certain does the discourse describe these consequences as being?
Correct: B. Guaranteed consequence, not probabilistic warning.
Question 4 of 5
According to the guide, how does this discourse function in relation to AN 10.89?
Correct: B. A bare general warning immediately followed by its narrative enactment.
Question 5 of 5
Where is this discourse set?
Correct: D. No location is given for this brief discourse.
Answered 0 of 5 · Correct 0

Further reading

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