Dutiyavohārapathasutta — 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
One elided line, mirroring AN 4.217 in the opposite direction
Length
under a minute to read
Northern parallel
This reading guide does not assert a specific matching sutra number for this discourse
Difficulty
★☆☆☆☆ — the mirror half of a pair, best read straight after its predecessor
Why this discourse
Where AN 4.217 named the fault of claiming experience one never had, this discourse names its mirror: denying experience one genuinely did have. Together the two discourses exhaust the four ways a report of the seen, heard, sensed, and known can diverge from what actually happened — false claims and false denials, covering the whole ground between silence and honesty.
Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
Denying that one has seen, heard, sensed, or known something one actually has delivers a person to hell as if placed there; truthfully affirming what one has experienced delivers them to heaven.
The mirror completed
Diṭṭhe adiṭṭhavādī, sute asutavādī, mute amutavādī, viññāte aviññātavādī — denying having seen what one has seen, denying having heard what one has heard, and so for sensed and known. This is AN 4.217’s four claims run in reverse: there, false affirmation of the unexperienced; here, false denial of the experienced.
Between the two discourses, all four logical combinations of experience and claim have now been named: truly experienced and truly claimed, or truly denied; falsely claimed when unexperienced, or falsely denied when experienced. The chapter has, in two short elided discourses, mapped the complete space of truthful and false reporting about one’s own perception.
Why denial is treated as gravely as false claim
It would be easy to think claiming false experience is the worse fault, since it manufactures something from nothing, while denying true experience merely withholds. The discourse does not rank them; both are placed in hell by the identical formula, with the identical weight. A false denial can do as much damage as a false claim — a witness who denies having seen a wrongdoing is exactly as corrosive to truth as one who claims to have seen a wrongdoing that never occurred.
A short pair, closing a small unit
AN 4.217 and AN 4.218 are, between them, a complete small unit: one formula, one set of four terms, exhausted from both directions in the minimum two discourses the chapter’s form allows. It is the same economy already seen at AN 4.212 and AN 4.213, where a fixed frame took one variable and produced a matched pair; here the variable is not a swapped term but a reversed direction.
Key terms
diṭṭhe adiṭṭhavādī — “denying having seen what one has seen” — the mirror of AN 4.217’s adiṭṭhe diṭṭhavādī, false claim reversed into false denial.
diṭṭha suta muta viññāta — “seen, heard, sensed, known” — the same fourfold division used at AN 4.217 and first defined at AN 4.24, now exhausted from both directions.
vohārapatha — “way of speaking, ground of expression” — the term naming this discourse and its pair together.
musāvāda — “false speech” — the general fault both this discourse and AN 4.217 narrow to a specific form, concerning testimony about one’s own experience.
saccavādī — “a truth-speaker” — not named directly in this discourse’s elision, but the positive character both halves of this pair describe by their heaven formulas.
The text
The discourse exactly as the source abridges it, ellipsis marks included. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).
The elided discourse
§1“Someone with four qualities is placed in hell as if delivered there. … They say they haven’t seen, heard, thought, or known something, but they have. … Someone with four qualities is placed in heaven as if delivered there. … They say they’ve seen, heard, thought, or known something, and they have. …”
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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 four false claims does this discourse name?
Correct: B. The mirror of AN 4.217’s false claims.
Question 2 of 10
How does this discourse relate to AN 4.217?
Correct: B. Together the two discourses exhaust all four logical combinations of experience and claim.
Question 3 of 10
According to the guide, does this discourse rank false denial as less serious than false claim?
Correct: B. A false denial can be exactly as corrosive to truth as a false claim.
Question 4 of 10
What complete unit do AN 4.217 and AN 4.218 form together, according to the guide?
Correct: B. The same economy already seen at AN 4.212 and AN 4.213, with direction as the variable instead of a swapped term.
Question 5 of 10
Where was the diṭṭha-suta-muta-viññāta division first defined in this series?
Correct: B. Carried forward through both this discourse and its predecessor.
Question 6 of 10
What example does the guide give for why false denial matters as much as false claim?
Correct: B. Both directions damage truth equally.
Question 7 of 10
What formula structures this discourse?
Correct: B. The same formula running through most of this chapter.
Question 8 of 10
What four combinations of experience and claim are exhausted between AN 4.217 and AN 4.218?
Correct: B. The complete space of truthful and false reporting about perception.
Question 9 of 10
What is the form of this discourse, matching its immediate neighbors?
Correct: B. Continuing the chapter’s cluster of compressed discourses.
Question 10 of 10
What discourse follows this one, moving to a new topic?
Correct: B. The chapter moves from truthful speech to a different fourfold failing.
