Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
Keep the rule about who deserves an offering and change who satisfies it.
The difference from AN 3.58
The two discourses share a body and differ at the head. Tikaṇṇa was praising a qualification; Jānussoṇi is directing money.
His list is specific and covers the range of brahmanical religious expenditure: yañña, a sacrifice; saddha, an offering of food for ancestors; thālipāka, a dish of milk-rice for an auspicious ceremony; and simply deyyadhamma, a gift to give. Three of the four are ritual and the fourth is the ordinary word AN 3.41 used.
So the question in front of the Buddha is not doctrinal but economic: to whom should the religious budget of a household go? That makes his answer more interesting rather than less, because he does not dispute the category. He accepts that offerings should go to three-knowledge men and then takes over the definition of the term.
Why he does not simply say “give to us”
It is worth pausing here, especially having read AN 3.57 two discourses earlier, where the Buddha flatly denied ever having said that gifts should go only to him and his disciples.
The consistency is exact. Here he is handed a perfect opening — a wealthy brahmin asking who deserves offerings — and he answers with a description of a condition, not a group. Anyone who has the three knowledges qualifies; nothing in the answer names the Saṅgha, and nothing excludes anyone who meets the description.
That pattern is worth showing a class, because the two discourses are four pages apart in the same chapter and were presumably arranged that way. A rumor is denied; then the situation in which the rumor would have been true arrives, and the denial holds.
The abbreviated formulas
The three knowledges are given here in the collection’s shortened form. The four absorptions collapse to quite secluded from sensual pleasures … enters and remains in the fourth absorption. The recollection of past lives becomes they recollect many kinds of past lives, with features and details, without the long enumeration. The divine eye keeps its opening and drops the account of how deeds lead to one destination or the other.
Only the third knowledge is given at full length, with the four truths, the four propositions about defilements, and the closing declaration that rebirth is ended.
That is not an accident of transmission. The abbreviations in this collection are generally applied to what the reciter already knows, and the material kept at full length is the material being emphasized. AN 3.58 gave everything; AN 3.59 gives the skeleton and one complete limb, and the complete limb is the ending of defilements.
For a reader working through the collection in order, this is also a first lesson in how to read an abbreviated discourse: the ellipsis is an instruction to supply the formula from the previous page, not an indication that something has been lost.
What a sacrifice is being redirected to
Jānussoṇi’s question assumed a transaction: an offering goes to a qualified recipient and produces a result. Nothing in the answer disputes the transaction, which is worth noticing in a tradition often described as having rejected sacrifice.
What it disputes is the qualification. The brahmin criterion was descent and memorization; the replacement is three first-hand knowledges, the last of which is the end of the defilements. A recipient qualifies by what has happened to them.
The verses put it in the form that recurs throughout this chapter: because of these three knowledges a brahmin is a master of the three knowledges. That’s who I call a three-knowledge master, and not the other who repeats what they are told.
The word brāhmaṇa is not being abandoned in these verses; it is being kept and requalified. That is a consistent policy in the canon — the Dhammapada’s final chapter does the same thing at length for the whole vocabulary of brahminhood — and it is a more interesting strategy than rejection would have been.
Using it
Read AN 3.58 and AN 3.59 as a pair, and use this one to make the point about consistency: a religious teacher was asked who should get the donations and answered with a job description rather than an address.
For a class that has already met AN 3.53 and AN 3.55, the Brāhmaṇavagga’s method should by now be visible. A brahmin arrives holding a term — a teaching apparent here and now, extinguishment, three knowledges, a worthy recipient — and leaves with the same term meaning something he can check rather than something he inherited.
Key terms
The text
Who should receive an offering
§1Then the brahmin Jānussoṇi went up to the Buddha, and exchanged greetings with him. Seated to one side he said to the Buddha: “Worthy Gotama, whoever has a sacrifice, an offering of food for ancestors, a dish of milk-rice prepared for an auspicious ceremony, or a gift to give, should give it to the brahmins who have mastered the three Vedic knowledges.” “But brahmin, how do the brahmins describe a brahmin who is proficient in the three Vedic knowledges?” “Worthy Gotama, it’s when a brahmin is well born on both his mother’s and father’s side, of pure descent, with irrefutable and impeccable genealogy back to the seventh paternal generation. He recites and remembers the hymns, and has mastered the three Vedas, together with their vocabularies and ritual performance, their phonology and word classification, and the testaments as fifth. He knows them word-by-word, and their grammar. He is well versed in cosmology and the marks of a great man. That’s how the brahmins describe a brahmin who is proficient in the three Vedic knowledges.”
§2“Brahmin, a master of three knowledges according to the brahmins is quite different from a master of the three knowledges in the training of the Noble One.” “But worthy Gotama, how is one a master of the three knowledges in the training of the Noble One? Worthy Gotama, please teach me this.” “Well then, brahmin, listen and apply your mind well, I will speak.” “Yes, worthy sir,” Jānussoṇi replied. The Buddha said this:
Three knowledges, abbreviated
§3“Brahmin, it’s when a mendicant, quite secluded from sensual pleasures … enters and remains in the fourth absorption.
§4When their mind has become immersed in samādhi like this—purified, bright, flawless, rid of corruptions, pliable, workable, steady, and imperturbable—they extend it toward recollection of past lives. They recollect many kinds of past lives, with features and details. This is the first knowledge that they attain. Ignorance is banished and knowledge has arisen; darkness is banished and light has arisen, as happens for a meditator who is diligent, keen, and resolute.
§5When their mind has become immersed in samādhi like this—purified, bright, flawless, rid of corruptions, pliable, workable, steady, and imperturbable—they extend it toward knowledge of the death and rebirth of sentient beings. With clairvoyance that is purified and surpasses the human, they understand how sentient beings pass on according to their deeds. This is the second knowledge that they attain. Ignorance is banished and knowledge has arisen; darkness is banished and light has arisen, as happens for a meditator who is diligent, keen, and resolute.
§6When their mind has become immersed in samādhi like this—purified, bright, flawless, rid of corruptions, pliable, workable, steady, and imperturbable—they extend it toward knowledge of the ending of defilements. They truly understand: ‘This is suffering’ … ‘This is the origin of suffering’ … ‘This is the cessation of suffering’ … ‘This is the practice that leads to the cessation of suffering’. They truly understand: ‘These are defilements’ … ‘This is the origin of defilements’ … ‘This is the cessation of defilements’ … ‘This is the practice that leads to the cessation of defilements’. Knowing and seeing like this, their mind is freed from the defilements of sensuality, desire to be reborn, and ignorance. When they’re freed, they know they’re freed. They understand: ‘Rebirth is ended, the spiritual journey has been completed, what had to be done has been done, there is nothing further for this place.’ This is the third knowledge that they attain. Ignorance is banished and knowledge has arisen; darkness is banished and light has arisen, as happens for a meditator who is diligent, keen, and resolute.
In verse
§7–9One who is perfect in precepts and observances, resolute and serene, whose mind is mastered, unified, serene; who knows their past lives, sees heaven and places of loss, and has attained the end of rebirth, such a sage has perfect insight. Because of these three knowledges a brahmin is a master of the three knowledges. That’s who I call a three-knowledge master, and not the other who repeats what they are told.
Not worth a sixteenth part
§10–11This, brahmin, is a master of the three knowledges in the training of the Noble One.” “Worthy Gotama, the master of three knowledges according to the brahmins is quite different from a master of the three knowledges in the training of the Noble One. And, worthy Gotama, a master of three knowledges according to the brahmins is not worth a sixteenth part of a master of the three knowledges in the training of the Noble One. Excellent, worthy Gotama! Excellent! … From this day forth, may the worthy Gotama remember me as a lay follower who has gone for refuge for life.”
Self-check quiz
Ten questions. Click an answer to see immediate feedback. No score is recorded — this is for your own checking.