Appearance

Reading guide

The teaching in one sentence

Confidence in a person is formed on one of four grounds, and three of them are unreliable.

The four grounds

Rūpappamāṇa, taking appearance as the measure. Ghosappamāṇa, taking voice as the measure. Lūkhappamāṇa, taking roughness or austerity as the measure. Dhammappamāṇa, taking principle as the measure.

Pamāṇa is a measure or standard — the thing by which one sizes something up. So the four name what a person is using as their instrument, and the discourse does not say the first three produce no information. It says they are being used as the measure.

The third is the one that dates least. Lūkha is rough, coarse, harsh — used of poor food and worn robes, and by extension of ascetic practice. Judging a teacher by how little they eat and how badly they dress was a live phenomenon in the period and remains one wherever renunciation is visible.

Why appearance and voice are so hard to displace

The first two are the ones the verses attack, and the reason given is worth quoting: those who judge on appearance and are swayed by a voice are full of desire and greed.

That is a diagnosis rather than a scolding. The claim is that these two measures are not neutral errors of method but expressions of wanting — one is drawn to a face and to a voice, and the drawing does the assessing before any judgment is formed.

That connects the discourse to AN 4.3, which said the fault in praise and criticism is the missing examination. Here the mechanism is supplied: what fills the gap where examination should be is attraction.

The difficult verses

The last three verses are among the more obscure in the chapter and honest reading should say so. They turn on a contrast between anto, inside, and bahi, outside.

Not knowing what’s inside, nor seeing what’s outside, the fool shut in on every side, gets carried away by a voice. Then: not knowing what’s inside, but discerning what’s outside, seeing the fruit outside, they’re also carried away by a voice. And finally: understanding what’s inside, and discerning what’s outside, seeing without hindrances, they don’t get carried away by a voice.

The most defensible reading takes inside as one’s own condition and outside as the visible conduct of others, with the middle verse describing someone who can read other people but not themselves — and who is therefore still captured by a persuasive voice, because the capture happens where they are not looking.

It should be said that other readings exist and that the Pāli is compressed. What the three verses establish beyond doubt is a ranking: knowing neither is worst, knowing only the outside is still insufficient, and only both together resist a voice.

Judging by principle

The fourth ground, dhammappamāṇa, is given no definition here at all. The discourse names it and stops.

What it means has to be taken from elsewhere in the collection, and the material is abundant. AN 3.65 told the Kālāmas to judge a teaching by whether it leads to welfare or harm when undertaken. AN 3.2 said a person is known by their deeds. AN 4.3 required examination before praise or criticism. AN 4.47 gave the test of consistency over time.

Taken together those supply the content this discourse omits: judge by what the teaching does, by what the person does, after looking, and over a period long enough for consistency to show. None of those is available from a face, a voice, or a thin robe.

Using it

The list works as a self-audit and it is uncomfortable in the right way. Asked honestly — on what did my confidence in this teacher actually form? — most people will find at least one of the first three in the answer, usually the second.

The discourse does not say that confidence formed on a bad ground is necessarily misplaced. A person judged rightly for the wrong reason has still been judged rightly. What it says is that the measure is unreliable, which means it will fail in the cases where it matters — and those are exactly the cases where someone with a good face and a good voice is not what they appear.

Key terms