Akataññutāsutta — Parisāvagga — the twenty-second chapter of the Fours
Setting
None stated; the Parisāvagga gives no location for this discourse, and it is addressed to the mendicants directly
Speakers
The Buddha alone, addressing the mendicants
Form
The same tetrad as AN 4.212, with its fourth item changed from wrong view to ingratitude
Length
~1 minute to read
Northern parallel
This reading guide does not assert a specific matching sutra number for this discourse
Difficulty
★☆☆☆☆ — identical in form to its neighbor, and best read as a pair with it
Why this discourse
Read on its own, this discourse repeats what AN 4.212 just said. Read as a pair with it, it demonstrates something about how the chapter is built: the same three-item core, bad conduct by body, speech, and mind, can take a different fourth item and become a different discourse. Here the fourth item is not a view but a disposition — gratitude, or its absence — and the change is worth noticing for what it says about where this list places thankfulness.
Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
Bad conduct in body, speech, and mind, plus ingratitude, delivers a person to hell as if placed there; good conduct plus gratitude delivers them to heaven the same way.
One slot changed
This discourse is AN 4.212 with a single substitution: where that discourse closed its tetrad with micchādiṭṭhi, wrong view, this one closes it with akataññutā akataveditā, being ungrateful and thankless. Everything else — the opening formula, the three modes of conduct, the closing restatement — is unchanged, word for word.
This is worth reading as a deliberate demonstration rather than an accident of compilation. The collection has shown this same technique with richer content, notably the ten deeds and tenfold path recombined six ways across the previous chapter; here it shows the technique at its simplest, changing exactly one item.
Two words for one failing
Akataññutā, not knowing what has been done for one, and akataveditā, not acknowledging what has been done, are near-synonyms paired for emphasis, the way Pāli often doubles a term rather than qualifying it. Both share the root kata, ‘done’ — the failing named is specifically a failure to recognize a completed benefit, not ingratitude as a general temperament.
Why gratitude belongs beside conduct and view
Placing thankfulness in the same tetrad slot that wrong view occupied in the previous discourse puts it in striking company. The list treats ingratitude as being of the same order of seriousness as the conduct failures it stands beside — not a minor social lapse but a fault severe enough to complete a hell-bound person’s description.
Elsewhere in the canon gratitude is praised as rare and difficult, the mark of a person who has correctly understood what they owe to others. This discourse’s placement of its absence alongside bodily, verbal, and mental misconduct is consistent with that: a failure of recognition, not merely of feeling.
What the pairing with AN 4.212 shows
Read together, AN 4.212 and AN 4.213 are the clearest possible demonstration, within this chapter, of the fixed-frame-with-one-variable technique the collection uses throughout the Fours. Three items held constant, one item swapped, and two discourses result. The chapter will keep doing versions of this through most of what follows, though not always this economically.
Key terms
akataññutā / kataññutā — “ingratitude” and its opposite, “gratitude” — from kata, ‘done’: failing, or managing, to recognize what has been done for one.
akataveditā / kataveditā — “thanklessness” and “thankfulness” — paired with the term above for emphasis, the same root doubled.
yathābhataṁ nikkhitto — “placed as if delivered there” — the formula introduced at AN 4.212, repeated here unchanged.
kāyaduccarita, vacīduccarita, manoduccarita — bad conduct by body, speech, and mind — the three items held constant between this discourse and its neighbor.
micchādiṭṭhi — “wrong view” — the item this discourse’s fourth slot replaces, occupying the same position at AN 4.212.
The text
The discourse in full: hell for the four, heaven for their opposites. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).
Placed in hell
§1“Mendicants, someone with four qualities is placed in hell as if delivered there. What four? Bad conduct by way of body, speech, and mind, and being ungrateful and thankless. Someone with these four qualities is placed in hell as if delivered there.
Placed in heaven
§2Someone with four qualities is placed in heaven as if delivered there. What four? Good conduct by way of body, speech, and mind, and being grateful and thankful. Someone with these four qualities is placed in heaven as if delivered there.”
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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
What single change distinguishes this discourse from AN 4.212?
Correct: B. Everything else, word for word, is unchanged.
Question 2 of 10
What three items are held constant between AN 4.212 and AN 4.213?
Correct: B. The shared core of the tetrad in both discourses.
Question 3 of 10
What does akataññutā specifically mean, according to the guide?
Correct: B. From kata, ‘done’ — a failure of recognition, not just of feeling.
Question 4 of 10
Why are akataññutā and akataveditā paired in the text?
Correct: B. Both from kata, ‘done’.
Question 5 of 10
What does the guide say this discourse’s placement of ingratitude implies about its seriousness?
Correct: B. Severe enough to complete a hell-bound person’s description.
Question 6 of 10
What technique do AN 4.212 and AN 4.213 demonstrate together, according to the guide?
Correct: B. The same technique used with richer content across the previous chapter, shown here at its simplest.
Question 7 of 10
What formula opens both this discourse and AN 4.212?
Correct: B. Introduced at AN 4.212 and repeated here unchanged.
Question 8 of 10
What is the opposite of akataññutā named in this discourse’s heaven half?
Correct: B. Gratitude and thankfulness, paired as the heaven-bound counterparts.
Question 9 of 10
How does the canon elsewhere generally regard gratitude, per the guide?
Correct: B. Consistent with this discourse’s serious placement of its absence.
Question 10 of 10
What does the guide suggest the chapter will keep doing after this pair of discourses?
Correct: B. The technique demonstrated most simply here recurs through much of what follows.
