Abyābajjhasutta — Kammavagga — the twenty-fourth chapter of the Fours
Setting
None stated; the Kammavagga gives no location for this discourse, and it is addressed to the mendicants directly
Speakers
The Buddha alone, addressing the mendicants
Form
Two parallel statements, placement in hell or heaven, on a tetrad of hurtful or pleasing conduct and view
Length
under a minute to read
Northern parallel
This reading guide does not assert a specific matching sutra number for this discourse
Difficulty
★★☆☆☆ — brief, but worth pausing on for its vocabulary
Why this discourse
Hurtful conduct and hurtful view deliver a person to hell; pleasing conduct and pleasing view deliver them to heaven. The words doing the work here, sabyābajjha and abyābajjha, are not new to this chapter — they are the exact terms AN 4.233 used to define the choices behind dark and bright deeds, nine discourses earlier in this same chapter. This is one of the tightest internal echoes this series has found.
Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
Hurtful conduct in body, speech, and mind, plus hurtful view, delivers a person to hell as if placed there; pleasing conduct and pleasing view deliver them to heaven.
The same words, nine discourses apart
Sabyābajjhena kāyakammena… abyābajjhena kāyakammena — ‘hurtful’ and ‘pleasing’ are precisely the adjectives AN 4.233 applied to the saṅkhāra, the intentional choices, that define dark and bright deeds: someone who makes hurtful choices by way of body, speech, and mind, or pleasing choices. There, the vocabulary described the origin of a whole causal chain running through rebirth and feeling. Here, the identical vocabulary fills the AN 4.212 tetrad instead, describing conduct that earns a destination directly rather than triggering the fuller mechanism AN 4.233 traced.
One chapter, one small vocabulary, two formulas
Combined with AN 4.239's use of sāvajja, this discourse confirms that this chapter is doing, in miniature and within a single chapter, what earlier chapters did across chapter boundaries: taking a small set of morally loaded adjectives — blameworthy, hurtful, pleasing — and fitting them into more than one consequence-formula the collection has already established. The chapter’s own opening discourses supplied the vocabulary; its closing pair puts that vocabulary to work a second way.
What stays constant across the two uses
In both settings, hurtful and pleasing name the moral character of an intentional choice, not an external judgment imposed afterward. AN 4.233 was explicit that the words describe saṅkhāra, the choices themselves, prior to any rebirth or result; this discourse’s tetrad, following AN 4.212’s template, likewise describes conduct and view as themselves hurtful or pleasing, with the hell or heaven destination following as consequence rather than definition.
Key terms
sabyābajjha / abyābajjha — “hurtful” and “pleasing” — the exact vocabulary AN 4.233 used for the choices behind dark and bright deeds, reused here nine discourses later.
saṅkhāra — “choice, formation” — what AN 4.233 called the hurtful or pleasing intentional act; this discourse applies the same adjectives directly to conduct and view instead.
yathābhataṁ nikkhitto — “placed as if delivered there” — the AN 4.212 formula, continued from AN 4.239.
kāyakamma, vacīkamma, manokamma, diṭṭhi — the tetrad's four slots: deeds by body, speech, and mind, and view — as at AN 4.212 and AN 4.239.
kammakkhaya — “the ending of deeds” — not named in this discourse, but the destination AN 4.233 reserved for choices neither hurtful nor pleasing, distinct from either destination named here.
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? Hurtful deeds by way of body, speech, and mind, and hurtful view. 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? Pleasing deeds by way of body, speech, and mind, and pleasing view. 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 pair of terms fills this discourse's tetrad?
Correct: B. The exact vocabulary AN 4.233 used for the choices behind dark and bright deeds.
Question 2 of 10
Where did this same vocabulary previously appear in this chapter?
Correct: B. Nine discourses earlier in the same chapter.
Question 3 of 10
What does the guide say distinguishes the two uses of this vocabulary?
Correct: B. Same words, different formula and different level of elaboration.
Question 4 of 10
What formula does this discourse continue from AN 4.239?
Correct: B. Continued unchanged.
Question 5 of 10
What does the guide say this discourse, together with AN 4.239, confirms about this chapter?
Correct: B. The same technique earlier chapters used across chapter boundaries, now done within one chapter.
Question 6 of 10
What did AN 4.233 call the hurtful or pleasing choice, prior to rebirth or result?
Correct: B. The intentional formation defining dark and bright deeds.
Question 7 of 10
What stays constant between this discourse's use of hurtful/pleasing and AN 4.233's, per the guide?
Correct: B. The destination follows as consequence rather than functioning as the definition.
Question 8 of 10
What tetrad template does this discourse fill?
Correct: B. The same template as AN 4.239, with different vocabulary.
Question 9 of 10
What discourse follows this one, closing the chapter's shorter discourses before its final two?
Correct: B. Moving to genuinely new content on the four stages of awakening.
Question 10 of 10
What destination does AN 4.233 reserve for choices that are neither hurtful nor pleasing?
Correct: B. Not named in this discourse, which addresses only the hurtful and pleasing poles.
