Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
Speaking well or ill of people without having examined them damages the speaker before it damages anyone else.
Four faults that are one fault
The list is symmetrical: praise the blameworthy, blame the praiseworthy, arouse confidence in the dubious, withhold it from the inspiring. Two errors about persons, two about things, and each in both directions.
What unites them is the phrase attached to the first pair: without examining or scrutinizing (ananuvicca apariyogāhetvā). This is not a discourse against criticism. The astute person in the second half criticizes too — they criticize those deserving of criticism, after examining. The fault is never the verdict. It is delivering a verdict one has not earned.
That distinction is worth pressing on with students, because it is easy to hear these lists as counselling silence. They do not. AN 4.3 asks for more speech about merit and fault, not less — but only after the work of looking has been done.
“They keep themselves broken and damaged”
Khataṁ upahataṁ attānaṁ pariharati: they carry around a self that is dug up and spoiled. Khata is the past participle of digging — excavated, undermined — which is where the title comes from.
The grammar puts the damage in the reflexive. The person who misjudges publicly is described as maintaining their own injury, and the discourse says this before it mentions blame from sensible people or the consequences after death. The order is deliberate: the first cost of speaking without looking is what it does to the speaker’s own condition.
This is the same logic AN 3.2 used in the Threes — a person is characterized by their deeds because wisdom shines in its traces. Careless speech about others is itself a trace, and it is legible.
The losing hand at dice
The second verse is the memorable one. A bad throw at dice is trivial even if you lose your money, everything you own, and yourself — because the really terrible hand is to hate the holy ones.
The image assumes a listener who understands gambling ruin, which in this social world included staking oneself into slavery. The verse takes the worst outcome its audience could picture and calls it small. That is the whole rhetorical move, and it works because the comparison is concrete.
The number, and how to read it
The third verse says a slanderer of noble ones goes to hell for a hundred thousand times a hundred million, times five hundred and thirty-six times a thousand times ten million years. Translators differ on how to parse the compound; the figure is astronomical on any reading.
Two honest observations. First, the specificity is not precision — a number this size functions as an intensifier, in the way a modern speaker says a figure they have no intention of anyone computing. Second, verses of this kind sit awkwardly beside the sober analytic prose they follow, and this collection contains both registers without reconciling them.
For teaching, the useful move is to name the tension rather than smooth it over. The prose gives a criterion anyone can apply tomorrow: examine before you speak. The verse supplies a threat. They are aimed at different listeners, and a student who notices the difference is reading well, not badly.
The mirror, and the merit
The second half reverses every term: after examining, the astute person criticizes the blameworthy and praises the praiseworthy, and so keeps themselves intact and unscathed and brims with much merit.
Note that accurate speech about other people is here a source of merit, not merely the avoidance of a fault. The collection generally treats merit as arising from giving, ethics, and cultivation; this discourse quietly adds sound judgment publicly expressed to the list.
Key terms
The text
The untrue person
§1“When a foolish, incompetent untrue person has four qualities they keep themselves broken and damaged. They deserve to be blamed and criticized by sensible people, and they brim with much wickedness. What four? Without examining or scrutinizing, they praise those deserving of criticism, and they criticize those deserving of praise. They arouse faith in things that are dubious, and they don’t arouse faith in things that are inspiring. When a foolish, incompetent untrue person possesses these four qualities they keep themselves broken and damaged. They deserve to be blamed and criticized by sensible people, and they brim with much wickedness.
The true person
§2When an astute, competent true person has four qualities they keep themselves intact and unscathed. They don’t deserve to be blamed and criticized by sensible people, and they brim with much merit. What four? After examining and scrutinizing, they criticize those deserving of criticism, and they praise those deserving of praise. They don’t arouse faith in things that are dubious, and they do arouse faith in things that are inspiring. When an astute, competent true person possesses these four qualities they keep themselves intact and unscathed. They don’t deserve to be blamed and criticized by sensible people, and they brim with much merit.
The verses
§3When you praise someone worthy of criticism, or criticize someone worthy of praise, you choose a losing hand with your own mouth: you’ll never find happiness that way.
§4A losing hand at dice is a trivial thing, if all you lose is your money and all you own, even yourself. What’s a really terrible hand is to hate the holy ones.
§5For a hundred thousand times a hundred million, times five hundred and thirty-six times a thousand times ten million years a slanderer of noble ones goes to hell, having aimed bad words and thoughts at them.”
Self-check quiz
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