Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
Holding any of four things above the teaching takes a person to hell; holding the teaching above them takes a person to heaven.
The third version
AN 4.43 gave these four as four individuals found in the world — people who value anger, denigration, material things, or honor rather than the true teaching, with the mirror, and verses about growth.
AN 4.44 gave the same content as four things that oppose the true teaching, with the rotten seed and the well-watered herbs.
This gives them as four qualities a person has, with hell and heaven. Three grammatical forms for one list: persons, forces, qualities.
The Fours have now done this twice in a chapter and a half — AN 4.17 through 4.19 with the prejudices, and AN 4.43, 4.44, and this with the four things valued. It is the collection’s standard way of storing material it considers important, and the number of arrangements is a rough index of weight.
What each form is good for
The three are not interchangeable in use, and the differences are worth stating.
As persons (AN 4.43), the list sorts. It is the form to reach for when the question is what kind of person one is dealing with, and it invites the reader to place themselves.
As forces (AN 4.44), the list diagnoses. It is the form to reach for when something is not growing and the question is what is in the way, and it does not require anyone to be labelled.
As qualities with a destination (AN 4.84), the list warns. It is the form for someone who has already recognized the condition and needs a reason to move, and it supplies the reason from outside the present moment.
A teacher with all three has a diagnosis, a classification, and a motivation for the same four items. That is more useful than any one of them, and it is what the collection has preserved.
The four themselves
Kodha, anger. Makkha, denigration — belittling what others have done, and refusing to acknowledge a benefit received. Lābha, material things. Sakkāra, honor.
As AN 4.43’s guide set out, the first two are hostile states and the second two acquisitions, and between them they cover the two ordinary reasons a principle gets set aside: because one is angry, and because one has something to lose.
The word attaching all four to the teaching is garu, weighty. Nothing here is described as rejecting the Dhamma. What is described is a scale on which something else outweighs it.
Closing the group
The chapter’s four hell-and-heaven discourses end here, and what follows changes direction entirely: AN 4.85 and 4.86 sort people by the light and darkness of their circumstances, and AN 4.87 through 4.90 give the four kinds of ascetic four different ways.
That makes the Macalavagga a chapter of two halves. The first half restates ethical material with a common consequence; the second gives one set of four titles four different definitions.
Both halves are exercises in re-presentation rather than new teaching, which makes this the most nakedly compiled chapter in the Fours so far. Saying so is not a criticism of it. A collection built for recitation needs material arranged for retrieval, and this chapter is where the arranging is most visible.
Key terms
The text
Placed in hell
§1“Mendicants, someone with four qualities is placed in hell as if delivered there. What four? They value anger, or denigration, or material things, or honor rather than the true teaching. 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? They value the true teaching rather than anger, or denigration, or material things, or honor. Someone with these four qualities is placed in heaven as if delivered there.”
Self-check quiz
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