Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
Anuruddha reports a pattern he sees with his clairvoyance, and the Buddha names three qualities — stinginess, jealousy, and sexual desire, one per watch of the day — as its explanation.
Who is asking
Anuruddha is named foremost among the Buddha’s disciples in clairvoyance, dibbacakkhu, in the foremost-disciple chapter already on this site. The observation he reports is therefore presented as coming from someone the tradition regards as its most reliable authority on exactly this kind of seeing — which raises the stakes of the answer rather than lowering them.
Naming the asymmetry directly
This discourse addresses only mātugāma, women, as a category, in a way the collection does not mirror with an equivalent discourse naming three vices unique to men. That asymmetry is real and this guide is not going to soften it. Ancient South Asian society organized gender roles very differently from a modern reader’s own, and a discourse addressed specifically to women reflects that social world rather than stating a claim that stands outside it.
A day divided into three
Stinginess in the morning, jealousy at midday, sexual desire in the evening — the structure borrows the shape of a day to organize three qualities that have no actual necessary connection to particular hours. Reading it as a literal clock is a mistake; reading it as a mnemonic device, three named faults given a memorable order, fits the text’s own plainness better.
What the discourse is, and is not, doing
It reports an observation and explains it. It does not argue that women are constitutionally worse than men, and it does not claim these three qualities are exclusive to women — stinginess, jealousy, and desire appear elsewhere in the canon as universal obstacles named without any gender at all. What makes this particular discourse worth sitting with is that here, uniquely, they are gendered, and a class discussing it should be told that plainly rather than have the discourse quietly skipped.
The wider picture, in the same collection
AN 1.258–267, already on this site, names specific laywomen foremost in wisdom, in verified confidence, in learning, and in generosity — Khujjuttarā foremost among those learned in the teaching, Visākhā foremost in generosity, and others. A single short discourse should not be mistaken for the canon’s final word on women when the same nipāta, elsewhere, records exactly the opposite kind of attention.
Key terms
The text
Anuruddha's question
§1Then Venerable Anuruddha went up to the Buddha, bowed, sat down to one side, and said to him: “Sometimes, sir, with my clairvoyance that’s purified and superhuman, I see that ladies—when their body breaks up, after death—are mostly reborn in a place of loss, a bad place, the underworld, hell. How many qualities do ladies have so that they’re reborn in a place of loss, a bad place, the underworld, hell?”
The Buddha's answer
§2“When ladies have three qualities, when their body breaks up, after death, they are reborn in a place of loss, a bad place, the underworld, hell. What three? A lady lives at home with a heart full of the stain of stinginess in the morning, jealousy at midday, and sexual desire in the evening. When ladies possess these three qualities, when their body breaks up, after death, they are reborn in a place of loss, a bad place, the underworld, hell.”
Self-check quiz
Ten questions. Click an answer to see immediate feedback. No score is recorded — this is for your own checking.