Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
The same distinction as AN 4.39, with the emphasis moved from the sacrifice that fails to the offering that succeeds.
A discourse that is mostly a pointer
The abbreviation here is heavier than anywhere else in the chapter. Even the approach is cut: Then Udāyī the brahmin went up to the Buddha, … and asked him. The greeting formula, the sitting to one side, the reasons for praising and criticizing — all elided.
This is how the collection stores a variant. The prose exists to establish that the teaching was also given to Udāyī; the reciter fills it in from the discourse before. What is written out in full is only what is new, which is the verses.
It is honest to say that this makes AN 4.40 a thin discourse on the page and a normal one in performance. A reader working through the Fours in order should read AN 4.39 and 4.40 as a single sitting, which is how they were meant to arrive.
Who Udāyī is
Simply Udāyī brāhmaṇo, a brahmin of that name, and nothing further is said about him. The name is common in the canon and attaches to several different figures, including monastics; there is no basis in this discourse for identifying him with any of them.
That is worth stating rather than guessing at. The discourse needs only that he is a brahmin asking the standard brahmin question, and it supplies nothing else.
Four qualities of a good sacrifice
The first verse names them: well-prepared and non-violent, a sacrifice that’s allowable and timely. Prepared, harmless, allowable (kappiya, permissible under the training), and timely.
Two of these are new relative to AN 4.39. Allowability introduces the question of whether what is offered may properly be received — a real concern in a tradition with detailed rules about what monastics may accept. Timeliness introduces the question of occasion.
Together they shift the analysis from the recipient to the gift. AN 4.39 asked who would attend; this asks what may properly be given, which is the donor’s side of the same transaction.
Well-gotten, well-offered, well-sacrificed
Suladdhaṁ suhutaṁ suyiṭṭhaṁ — three adverbs covering the whole life of the gift: how it was obtained, how it was presented, how it was given.
The first is the one usually left out of discussions of generosity and the one this collection returns to most. A gift made from what was wrongly acquired is not made good by the giving. The verse puts acquisition first in the sequence, before presentation and before the act itself.
‘To those worthy of a religious donation’ then supplies the recipient condition, and the field image from AN 4.34 returns: in the fertile field of spiritual practitioners. Source, manner, occasion, and recipient — the verse has assembled a complete account of what makes an offering work.
The mind of letting go
The last verse names the interior condition: when an intelligent, faithful person sacrifices like this, with a mind of letting go — muttacāga, with generosity released, an open hand.
That is the item none of the external conditions can supply, and putting it last is right. A gift can be well-gotten, allowable, timely, and correctly directed and still be given tightly. The verse asks for the hand to be actually open.
This closes the Cakkavagga, and it closes it on a lay note. The chapter opened with the four conditions for a prosperous life and ends with how to give away part of it. Between them it has held the lion’s roar, the four bests, two brahmin conversations, and the discourse on non-decline — a chapter with unusually wide range, and one that returns at the end to the audience it began with.
Key terms
The text
The question, abbreviated
§1Then Udāyī the brahmin went up to the Buddha, … and asked him, “Does the worthy Gotama praise sacrifice?” “Brahmin, I don’t praise all sacrifices. Nor do I criticize all sacrifices. … Take the kind of sacrifice where cattle, goats and sheep, chickens and pigs, and various kinds of animals are slaughtered. I don’t praise that kind of violent sacrifice.
The non-violent sacrifice
§2But take the kind of sacrifice where cattle, goats and sheep, chickens and pigs, and various kinds of animals are not slaughtered. I do praise that kind of non-violent sacrifice; for example, a regular gift as an propitious sacrifice.
The verses
§3Well-prepared and non-violent, a sacrifice that’s allowable and timely, is attended by disciplined spiritual practitioners. The Buddhas—who have drawn back the veil from the world, passing beyond time and rebirth—praise this sacrifice, as they are expert in sacrifice.
§4When you’ve prepared a suitable offering, whether as sacrifice or for ancestors, sacrifice it with confident heart, in the fertile field of spiritual practitioners. When it’s well-gotten, well-offered, and well-sacrificed, to those worthy of a religious donation, a sacrifice is truly abundant, and even the deities are pleased.
§5When an intelligent, faithful person, sacrifices like this, with a mind of letting go, that astute one is reborn in a happy, pleasing world.”
Self-check quiz
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