Duccaritasutta — Duccaritavagga — the twenty-third chapter of the Fours
Setting
None stated; the Duccaritavagga gives no location for this discourse, and it is addressed to the mendicants directly
Speakers
The Buddha alone, addressing the mendicants
Form
Two parallel lists of four, bad verbal conduct and good verbal conduct, stated once each with no formula attached
Length
~1 minute to read
Northern parallel
The four kinds of wrong and right speech are among the most widely attested lists in the early collections; this reading guide does not assert a specific matching sutra number
Difficulty
★☆☆☆☆ — plain, and interesting mainly for where its words have appeared before
Why this discourse
A new chapter opens with material that is not new at all. False, backbiting, harsh, and nonsensical speech, then true, harmonious, gentle, and thoughtful speech — this discourse is, word for word, a merger of two discourses already given many chapters back, AN 4.148 and AN 4.149, each of which stated one half of this same list on its own. Whoever assembled this chapter’s opening reached for existing material rather than composing anything new.
Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
Speech goes wrong in four ways — false, divisive, harsh, nonsensical — and right in four matching ways — true, harmonious, gentle, thoughtful.
A verbatim merger
Musāvādo, pisuṇā vācā, pharusā vācā, samphappalāpo and saccavācā, apisuṇā vācā, saṇhā vācā, mantavācā — these eight terms, in this order, are identical to the content of AN 4.148 and AN 4.149, given separately many chapters back in the Ābhāvagga. There this reading guide called AN 4.148 ‘the skeleton’ for one of the tradition’s most-used lists, given with no definition and no consequence attached; AN 4.149 was its inverted pair, read together for the reason that a list of what not to say leaves silence as the only guaranteed compliance, and the positive list closes that gap.
Here the two are simply fused into a single discourse, the negative half and the positive half in one breath rather than two neighboring ones. Nothing about the content has changed; only the packaging has.
Why open a new chapter with old material
This is the most direct case of reuse this series has documented. AN 4.211 opened the previous chapter by carrying over a vocabulary; this discourse opens the present one by carrying over an entire, already-complete pair of discourses and presenting them as one. It is the clearest evidence available that the compilers of the Aṅguttara did not treat each chapter as requiring freshly composed content at its head. A chapter could open with whatever the compilers judged suitable, drawn from wherever it already existed in the collection.
All four verbal courses, for the first time as a set
It is worth noticing what is genuinely new in the selection, even though nothing in the wording is new. The previous chapter’s AN 4.214 took only one of the ten courses of action’s four verbal items, lying, and paired it with the three bodily courses. This discourse does the opposite: all four verbal courses on their own, none of the bodily ones. Between the two chapters, the ten courses of action have now been sliced two different ways — three-plus-one in one chapter, four-alone in the other — neither slicing wrong, both fitting the tetrad differently.
A title shared with its source
The Pāli title, Duccaritasutta, is the same title AN 4.148 already carries. Sujato’s English distinguishes them — ‘Bad Conduct’ there, ‘Verbal Conduct’ here, since this discourse folds in the positive half that AN 4.148 left to its neighbor — but the underlying Pāli name for the content has not changed across seventy-three discourses and eight chapters.
Key terms
musāvāda / saccavācā — “false speech” and “true speech” — the first pair, identical to AN 4.148 and AN 4.149.
pisuṇā vācā / apisuṇā vācā — “divisive speech” and “harmonious speech” — repeating what was heard here to people there so as to break them apart, and its opposite.
pharusā vācā / saṇhā vācā — “harsh speech” and “gentle speech” — the third pair.
samphappalāpa / mantavācā — “nonsense” and “thoughtful speech” — the fourth pair, requiring no malice or victim to count as a fault, matched by speech that is weighed before it is spoken.
dasa kammapatha — the ten courses of action — sliced differently here than at AN 4.214: all four verbal courses alone, rather than three bodily courses plus one verbal course.
The text
The discourse in full: bad verbal conduct, then good verbal conduct. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).
Four kinds of bad conduct by speech
§1“Mendicants, there are these four kinds of bad conduct by way of speech. What four? Speech that’s false, backbiting, harsh, or nonsensical. These are the four kinds of bad conduct by way of speech.
Four kinds of good conduct by speech
§2There are these four kinds of good conduct by way of speech. What four? Speech that’s true, harmonious, gentle, and thoughtful. These are the four kinds of good conduct by way of speech.”
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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 two earlier discourses does this discourse’s content match, word for word?
Correct: B. Given separately in the Ābhāvagga, here fused into one discourse.
Question 2 of 10
What four kinds of bad verbal conduct are named?
Correct: B. Identical to AN 4.148’s list.
Question 3 of 10
How does this discourse’s selection differ from AN 4.214, in the previous chapter?
Correct: B. Two different ways of slicing the same ten courses of action to fit a tetrad.
Question 4 of 10
What does the guide say this discourse demonstrates about how the compilers built chapter openings?
Correct: B. The clearest case of reuse this series has documented so far.
Question 5 of 10
What is the Pāli title of this discourse, and what earlier discourse shares it?
Correct: B. The same Pāli name persists across seventy-three discourses and eight chapters.
Question 6 of 10
What did this reading guide call AN 4.148 when it was first read?
Correct: B. The numbered collection preserves the countable skeleton; explanations live elsewhere.
Question 7 of 10
Why does the guide say the positive list, AN 4.149, matters alongside the negative one?
Correct: B. The tradition never gives one of the two lists without the other being available.
Question 8 of 10
What is pisuṇā vācā?
Correct: B. The second of the four kinds of bad verbal conduct.
Question 9 of 10
What formula, used through most of the previous chapter, is absent from this discourse?
Correct: B. This discourse is a plain list, stated and left, matching AN 4.148’s own bare style.
Question 10 of 10
What discourse follows this one, moving into a different formula reused from even earlier in the collection?
Correct: B. Reusing the tetrad-content of AN 4.212 under a formula borrowed from AN 4.3.
