Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
Each of the four assemblies is given two named people to measure itself by; and praising or blaming without examination breaks the one who does it.
Four assemblies, four pairs (AN 2.130–133)
Monks: Sāriputta and Moggallāna. Nuns: Khemā and Uppalavaṇṇā. Laymen: the householder Citta and Hatthaka of Āḷavī. Laywomen: Khujjuttarā and Veḷukaṇṭakī, Nanda’s mother.
Every one of these names except the last appeared in the foremost chapters of the Ones, and readers of those pages will recognize them: the two chief disciples; the nun foremost in great wisdom and the nun foremost in psychic power; the layman foremost at teaching the Dhamma and the layman foremost at gathering a community; and the enslaved attendant named foremost in learning.
What is new is the word pamāṇa — standard, measure. The Ones catalogued who was foremost in what. This chapter says what to do with that: aspire. And it says so four times, once per assembly, with the same formula and the same weight.
That symmetry deserves to be stated plainly. Nuns are given their own standards, not told to measure themselves by the monks. Laywomen are given theirs. Each of the four assemblies is addressed as a body with its own exemplars, and nothing suggests that one set of standards is a lesser version of another. Set beside AN 1.278–286 in the Ones, which denies women five cosmological offices, this is the same collection making a very different move — and both are in it.
Who Khujjuttarā and Veḷukaṇṭakī were
It is worth pausing on the laywomen’s pair, because of who is in it. Khujjuttarā was, in the tradition’s account, an enslaved attendant of a queen; she heard the Buddha teach while buying flowers and repeated what she heard to the women of a palace who could not leave it, and the Itivuttaka is by tradition attributed to her transmission. Veḷukaṇṭakī, Nanda’s mother, appears elsewhere in the collection as a laywoman of notable meditative attainment.
So the standard held up to every faithful laywoman in the dispensation is a woman who was legally property and a woman who meditated. Neither is a donor. Given how heavily the foremost-laymen chapter weighted material support, the composition of this pair is worth noticing.
Praise and blame without examining (AN 2.134–135)
Two discourses with a striking image. The foolish, incompetent, untrue person who, without examining or scrutinizing, praises those deserving of criticism and criticizes those deserving of praise — such a person keeps themselves broken and damaged. The astute person, examining first, does the reverse and keeps themselves intact and unscathed.
The direction of the harm is the point. One would expect a discourse about misplaced praise to be about the damage done to the person wrongly praised or wrongly blamed. This one is not. The injury named falls on the speaker: they excavate and damage themselves, and they brim with much wickedness. Misjudging others is presented as a self-inflicted wound.
AN 2.135 gives the same structure for faith: arousing faith in what is dubious and failing to arouse it in what is inspiring, without examining first. That pairing extends the principle from evaluating people to endorsing things, and it is the more uncomfortable of the two for anyone with an audience. Recommending something you have not checked is named here, in the same words, as breaking yourself.
Acting rightly toward two individuals (AN 2.136–137)
The same broken-and-damaged formula is then applied to conduct toward two specific pairs. The first pair is mother and father, which connects this chapter directly to AN 2.33 on repaying parents. The second is the Realized One and a disciple of the Realized One.
Placing the two pairs side by side, in identical language, does something quiet and deliberate: the debt to parents and the debt to teachers are treated as the same kind of obligation, with the same consequence for getting it wrong. The Chinese tradition would later make that pairing explicit and central, as the Brahmā Net Sūtra’s precept preface does when it names parents, teachers, and the Three Jewels in one breath.
Three bare pairs (AN 2.138–140)
The chapter closes with three unelaborated pairs, in the Dhammavagga manner. Cleaning one’s own mind, and not grasping at anything in the world. Anger and acrimony. Dispelling anger and dispelling acrimony.
The first of these is worth a note. Cleaning your own mind, and not grasping at anything in the world is about as compact a statement of the whole path as the collection produces: one internal operation and one external restraint, with nothing else attached.
Key terms
The text
A standard for each assembly (AN 2.130–133)
§130“A faithful monk would rightly aspire: ‘May I be like Sāriputta and Moggallāna!’ These are a standard and a measure for my monk disciples, that is, Sāriputta and Moggallāna.”
§131“A faithful nun would rightly aspire: ‘May I be like the nuns Khemā and Uppalavaṇṇā!’ These are a standard and a measure for my nun disciples, that is, the nuns Khemā and Uppalavaṇṇā.”
§132“A faithful layman would rightly aspire: ‘May I be like the householder Citta and Hatthaka of Āḷavī!’ These are a standard and a measure for my male lay followers, that is, the householder Citta and Hatthaka of Āḷavī.”
§133“A faithful laywoman would rightly aspire: ‘May I be like the laywomen Khujjuttarā and Veḷukaṇṭakī, Nanda’s mother!’ These are a standard and a measure for my female lay disciples, that is, the laywomen Khujjuttarā and Veḷukaṇṭakī, Nanda’s mother.”
Praise, blame, and faith without examining (AN 2.134–135)
§134“When a foolish, incompetent untrue person has two qualities they keep themselves broken and damaged. They deserve to be blamed and criticized by sensible people, and they brim with much wickedness. What two? Without examining or scrutinizing, they praise those deserving of criticism and they criticize those deserving of praise. When a foolish, incompetent untrue person possesses these two qualities they keep themselves broken and damaged. They deserve to be blamed and criticized by sensible people, and they create much wickedness. When an astute, competent true person has two qualities they keep themselves intact and unscathed. They don’t deserve to be blamed and criticized by sensible people, and they brim with much merit. What two? After examining and scrutinizing, they criticize those deserving of criticism and they praise those deserving of praise. When an astute, competent true person possesses these two qualities they keep themselves healthy and whole. They don’t deserve to be blamed and criticized by sensible people, and they create much merit.”
§135“When a foolish, incompetent untrue person has two qualities they keep themselves broken and damaged. They deserve to be blamed and criticized by sensible people, and they brim with much wickedness. What two? Without examining or scrutinizing, they arouse faith in things that are dubious, and they don’t arouse faith in things that are inspiring. When a foolish, incompetent untrue person possesses these two qualities they keep themselves broken and damaged. They deserve to be blamed and criticized by sensible people, and they create much wickedness. When an astute, competent true person has two qualities they keep themselves intact and unscathed. They don’t deserve to be blamed and criticized by sensible people, and they brim with much merit. What two? After examining or scrutinizing, they don’t arouse faith in things that are dubious, and they do arouse faith in things that are inspiring. When an astute, competent true person possesses these two qualities they keep themselves healthy and whole. They don’t deserve to be blamed and criticized by sensible people, and they create much merit.”
Two pairs to act rightly toward (AN 2.136–137)
§136“When a foolish, incompetent untrue person acts wrongly toward two individuals they keep themselves broken and damaged. They deserve to be blamed and criticized by sensible people, and they brim with much wickedness. What two? Mother and father. When a foolish, incompetent untrue person acts wrongly toward these two individuals they keep themselves broken and damaged. They deserve to be blamed and criticized by sensible people, and they brim with much wickedness. When an astute, competent true person acts rightly toward two individuals they keep themselves intact and unscathed. They don’t deserve to be blamed and criticized by sensible people, and they brim with much merit. What two? Mother and father. When an astute, competent true person acts rightly toward these two individuals they keep themselves intact and unscathed. They don’t deserve to be blamed and criticized by sensible people, and they brim with much merit.”
§137“When a foolish, incompetent untrue person acts wrongly toward two individuals they keep themselves broken and damaged. They deserve to be blamed and criticized by sensible people, and they brim with much wickedness. What two? The Realized One and a disciple of the Realized One. When a foolish, incompetent untrue person acts wrongly toward these people they keep themselves broken and damaged. They deserve to be blamed and criticized by sensible people, and they brim with much wickedness. When an astute, competent true person acts rightly toward two individuals they keep themselves intact and unscathed. They don’t deserve to be blamed and criticized by sensible people, and they brim with much merit. What two? The Realized One and a disciple of the Realized One. When an astute, competent true person acts rightly toward these two individuals they keep themselves intact and unscathed. They don’t deserve to be blamed and criticized by sensible people, and they brim with much merit.”
Three bare pairs (AN 2.138–140)
§138“There are these two things. What two? Cleaning your own mind, and not grasping at anything in the world. These are the two things.”
§139“There are these two things. What two? Anger and acrimony. These are the two things.”
§140“There are these two things. What two? Dispelling anger and dispelling acrimony. These are the two things.”
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