Ahirikasutta — 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, naming four qualities of an untrustworthy person
Length
under a minute to read
Northern parallel
This reading guide does not assert a specific matching sutra number for this discourse
Difficulty
★☆☆☆☆ — short, but worth reading against its source in the previous chapter
Why this discourse
Faithless, unethical, shameless, imprudent — a compact tetrad that is not, on inspection, entirely new material. Three of its four terms were already assembled into a sevenfold list back at AN 4.202, in the previous chapter, describing an untrue person. This discourse draws on that same pool of qualities, compressed to fit the tetrad this chapter requires, with one term swapped in to make the count.
Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
Faithlessness, lack of ethics, shamelessness, and lack of prudence deliver a person to hell as if placed there; faith, ethics, conscience, and prudence deliver them to heaven.
A tetrad drawn from a sevenfold list
Assaddho, dussīlo, ahiriko, anottappī — faithless, unethical, shameless, imprudent. Three of these four terms — faithless, shameless, imprudent — appear in the sevenfold description of an untrue person at AN 4.202, alongside four more: little learning, laziness, poor mindfulness, and witlessness. This discourse keeps three of those seven and adds a fourth term of its own, dussīla, unethical, which AN 4.202’s list left implicit rather than naming outright.
The relationship is compression, not contradiction. AN 4.202’s seven qualities and this discourse’s four are drawn from the same underlying concern — what makes a person untrustworthy — sorted differently to fit two different chapters’ different forms, sevenfold there and fourfold here.
Shame and prudence, a standard pair
Hiri and ottappa, conscience and prudence, moral shame and moral dread, are named together throughout the canon as the two guardians of the world, lokapāla dhammā — the inner sense of shame at wrongdoing and the outward fear of its consequences, working together to restrain conduct where external rules cannot reach. Their absence, named here as a pair, is treated as serious enough to place a person in hell alongside faithlessness and lack of ethics.
What compression across chapters shows
Between AN 4.202 and this discourse, the collection has now shown the same technique twice at different distances: within a single chapter, as with the pāpadhamma vocabulary recombined across AN 4.204–4.210, and across a chapter boundary, as here. A pool of qualities describing untrustworthiness does not belong to one discourse or one chapter; it circulates, contracting and expanding to fit whatever form the compilers are working in at the time.
Key terms
assaddha / saddha — “faithless” and “faithful” — the first term, shared with the sevenfold list at AN 4.202.
dussīla / sīlavā — “unethical” and “ethical” — the one term in this tetrad not drawn directly from AN 4.202’s seven, made explicit here.
ahirika / hirimā — “shameless” and “conscientious” — already named at AN 4.202; one of the two guardians of the world.
anottappī / ottappī — “imprudent” and “prudent” — the second guardian of the world, paired with conscience against wrongdoing.
lokapāla dhammā — “guardians of the world” — the standard name in the wider canon for conscience and prudence together, restraining conduct from within.
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’re faithless, unethical, shameless, and imprudent. … Someone with four qualities is placed in heaven as if delivered there. … They’re faithful, ethical, conscientious, and prudent. …”
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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 qualities does this discourse name?
Correct: B. A tetrad drawn substantially from AN 4.202’s earlier sevenfold list.
Question 2 of 10
How many of this discourse’s four terms also appear in AN 4.202’s sevenfold list?
Correct: B. The fourth term, unethical, is added explicitly here.
Question 3 of 10
What four terms does AN 4.202’s sevenfold list include that this discourse drops?
Correct: B. Compressed out to fit this chapter’s four-item form.
Question 4 of 10
How does the guide characterize the relationship between this discourse and AN 4.202?
Correct: B. A shared pool of qualities describing untrustworthiness, sevenfold there and fourfold here.
Question 5 of 10
What are hiri and ottappa called together in the wider canon?
Correct: B. Moral shame and moral dread, restraining conduct where external rules cannot reach.
Question 6 of 10
What does the guide say the compression seen here and in the previous chapter shows about the collection?
Correct: B. Shown here across a chapter boundary, and earlier within a single chapter at AN 4.204–4.210.
Question 7 of 10
What formula structures this discourse?
Correct: B. Continued from AN 4.212 through most of the chapter.
Question 8 of 10
Which earlier discourse first assembled a sevenfold list including three of this tetrad’s terms?
Correct: B. Describing an untrue person and an even more untrue person.
Question 9 of 10
What form does this discourse take?
Correct: B. Continuing the chapter’s cluster of compressed discourses.
Question 10 of 10
What discourse closes this chapter, immediately following this one?
Correct: B. The chapter’s final discourse, returning to full, unelided form.
