Akusalapeyyāla — the seventeenth chapter of the Twos
Setting
None stated; the chapter continues from AN 2.1, whose setting at Sāvatthī is understood to hold
Speakers
The Buddha alone, addressing the mendicants
Form
Fifty discourses transmitted as one sentence — the same five pairs as the previous chapter, run through ten further predicates
Length
under a minute to read
Northern parallel
As with the previous chapter, the underlying list is standard across the Chinese Āgamas; this reading guide does not assert a specific matching sutra number
Difficulty
★★☆☆☆ — nothing to understand, and something to notice
Why this discourse
This is the most compressed chapter in the Aṅguttara Nikāya. Fifty discourses are transmitted as a single sentence: the same five pairs of faults as the previous chapter, run through ten further predicates — unskillful and skillful, blameworthy and blameless, having suffering or happiness as outcome, resulting in suffering or happiness, hurtful and not hurtful. There is nothing in it that the collection has not said. Its value is entirely as a demonstration, and what it demonstrates is worth one page: how a text of this kind actually stores what it knows.
Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
The same five pairs, ten more predicates, and no room left for anything but the skeleton.
Fifty discourses in one sentence
The written text is a single run of ellipses. The ten predicates are listed, then the question what two?, then the five pairs listed, and then one complete closing sentence using the last predicate and the last pair. Everything between is left to the reciter.
That is the abbreviation convention at its limit. A reciter who knows the five pairs and the ten predicates can generate all fifty discourses from this one line; a reader who does not is holding a page that means almost nothing. The text assumes the first kind of person, which tells you what it was for.
It also explains a discrepancy readers meet in this collection. The Ones ended with a colophon claiming a thousand discourses where modern editions count six hundred and twenty-seven. Chapters like this one are why: whether AN 2.230–279 is one item or fifty depends entirely on whether the abbreviation is counted expanded or folded, and different traditions counted differently.
The ten predicates
Unskillful and skillful. Blameworthy and blameless. Having suffering as outcome and having happiness as outcome. Resulting in suffering and resulting in happiness. Hurtful and not hurtful.
Read as a list these are worth a moment, because they are not five ways of saying the same thing. Unskillful is about the quality of an action as an action. Blameworthy is about how it stands to judgment. Having suffering as outcome concerns where it tends. Resulting in suffering concerns what it actually produces. And hurtful concerns the damage done.
The Aṅguttara habitually stacks near-synonymous predicates like this, and it is doing what the Ones did with their twelve verbs for mindfulness of the body: covering every sense in which a claim might be made, because the language has no single word for “in every respect.”
Why print it at all
A reasonable reader will ask why a page exists for a chapter with no content. The answer this series gives is the same one it gave for the barest chapters of the Ones: because omitting it would misrepresent the collection.
Anyone who reads only the vivid parts of the Aṅguttara comes away believing it is a book of discourses with some lists in it. It is closer to the reverse. Chapters like this one are what the collection mostly consists of once the famous pages are set aside, and meeting one is part of understanding what the Numbered Discourses are.
There is also a small honest pleasure in it. A page whose whole content is the sentence “these two things are unskillful … are not hurtful” is a reminder that the tradition did not curate itself for readability, and that what survived survived because someone thought it was worth carrying, not because it was worth reading.
Key terms
peyyāla — the abbreviation convention, here at its most extreme: fifty discourses in one written sentence.
akusala / kusala — “unskillful” and “skillful” — the first of the ten predicates, and the chapter’s name.
sāvajja / anavajja — “blameworthy” and “blameless” — how an action stands to judgment, as distinct from what it produces.
dukkhavipāka — “resulting in suffering” — what an action actually produces, as distinct from where it tends.
sabyābajjha / abyābajjha — “hurtful” and “not hurtful” — the last of the ten predicates, concerning damage done.
The text
The whole chapter as the canon transmits it: fifty discourses in a single abbreviated sentence, with the ten predicates and the five pairs listed and everything between left to the reciter. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).
Fifty discourses, one sentence (AN 2.230–279)
§230–279“These two things are unskillful … are skillful … are blameworthy … are blameless … have suffering as outcome … have happiness as outcome … result in suffering … result in happiness … are hurtful … are not hurtful. What two? Freedom from anger and acrimony … freedom from disdain and contempt … freedom from jealousy and stinginess … freedom from deceit and deviousness … conscience and prudence. These are the two things that are not hurtful.”
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Self-check quiz
Ten questions. Click an answer to see immediate feedback. No score is recorded — this is for your own checking.
Question 1 of 10
How is this chapter transmitted?
Correct: B. The abbreviation convention at its limit.
Question 2 of 10
What kind of reader does the text assume?
Correct: B. A reader who does not is holding a page that means almost nothing — which tells you what the text was for.
Question 3 of 10
What discrepancy does this chapter explain?
Correct: B. Different traditions counted differently.
Question 4 of 10
Are the ten predicates five ways of saying the same thing?
Correct: B. Worth a moment even in a chapter with no content.
Question 5 of 10
Why does the Aṅguttara stack near-synonymous predicates?
Correct: B. The same thing the Ones did with twelve verbs for mindfulness of the body.
Question 6 of 10
Which five pairs is the chapter about?
Correct: A. Nothing in the chapter that the collection has not already said.
Question 7 of 10
Why does this series print a chapter with no content?
Correct: B. Anyone who reads only the vivid parts comes away believing it is a book of discourses with some lists in it. It is closer to the reverse.
Question 8 of 10
What does the guide say the chapter is a reminder of?
Correct: B. A small honest pleasure in a page whose whole content is one sentence.
Question 9 of 10
How long is this chapter to read?
Correct: A. The most compressed chapter in the Aṅguttara Nikāya.
Question 10 of 10
What is the first of the ten predicates, and the chapter’s name?
Correct: A. Pāli chapters take their names from their opening item, as usual.
