Saṅkhittasutta — Sekhabalavagga — the first chapter of the Fives
Setting
Sāvatthī, in Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika’s monastery; stated at the head of AN 5.1 and understood to hold across the chapter
Speakers
The Buddha alone, addressing the mendicants
Form
A single sentence naming the five, and a single sentence of injunction to train in them
Length
~1 minute to read
Northern parallel
The five items recur widely as building blocks of larger training lists across the Chinese Āgamas and Abhidharma literature; this reading guide does not assert a specific matching sutra number
Difficulty
★☆☆☆☆ — the shortest kind of opening statement, and its interest is in what it deliberately withholds
Why this discourse
The Fives open the way the Fours did not: with a bare list and no argument at all. Five powers of a trainee — faith, conscience, prudence, energy, wisdom — named once, followed by a single line telling the listener to train in having them. No simile, no story, no declaration of what results. A reader who has just finished the Fours, which opened on a first-person confession, may find this terse. That terseness is itself the discourse’s method: it names the material and waits for AN 5.2 to unpack it.
Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
Five things — faith, conscience, prudence, energy, wisdom — are called the sekhabala, the powers of a trainee, and the listener is told to train so as to have them.
A list met before, now made foundational
This exact five-item set already appeared once in this series, at AN 4.163, where it showed up almost in passing, one of two supports a mendicant was said to rely on. There it was a detail. Here it is the material the entire first chapter of the Fives is built from — the next nine discourses all turn the same five qualities over from different angles.
The earlier page also flagged the point worth repeating briefly here: this list shares three of its five terms — faith, energy, wisdom — with the much better known five faculties and five powers (indriya and bala) that close out the thirty-seven aids to awakening. It replaces the other two, mindfulness and immersion, with hiri and ottappa, conscience and prudence. The two lists are not the same list under two names; a reader should keep them distinct.
Conscience and prudence, briefly restated
Hiri and ottappa received a full discourse to themselves already, at AN 2.9, which called them lokapāla, world-protectors, and argued that without them ordinary social bonds would collapse. That argument is not repeated here; what matters for this page is only that the pair was already established as a fixed unit before the Fives began, and this discourse simply draws on it.
Why “in brief”
The title Saṅkhitta names the discourse’s own method: stated briefly. Its companion, the very next discourse, is titled Vitthata, “in detail.” This brief-then-detailed pairing at the head of a chapter has not appeared this way in this series before — the Fours opened with a confession, the Threes with a warning about three kinds of peril — and it is worth noticing as something distinctive to how the Fives choose to begin.
The pairing also sets an expectation for how to read the two discourses: not as two independent teachings but as one teaching given twice, compressed and then expanded. AN 5.1 should not be read in isolation; its brevity only makes sense next to what follows it immediately.
Who a “trainee” is
Sekha, trainee, is the canon’s standing word for someone who has entered the path but not yet completed it — anyone still doing the work these five powers support. It is a term of the path’s middle, neither beginner nor finished, and it is the word this whole chapter, and eventually this whole nipāta, takes its name from.
Key terms
sekhabala — “power of a trainee” — the five-item list this chapter is named for, already met once at AN 4.163 and now the organizing material of an entire vagga.
sekha — “trainee” — one who has entered the path but not yet completed it; the person these five powers are said to belong to.
saṅkhitta — “in brief” — this discourse’s own title, naming its compressed method and setting up its companion, vitthata.
vitthata — “in detail” — the title of AN 5.2, the discourse immediately following, which expands each of these five powers in turn.
lokapāla — “world-protector” — the epithet AN 2.9 gives to hiri and ottappa, two of this list’s five items, before the Fives begin.
The text
The discourse in full: the five powers of a trainee, named once, and the injunction to train in them. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).
At Sāvatthī
§1So I have heard. At one time the Buddha was staying near Sāvatthī in Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika’s monastery. There the Buddha addressed the mendicants, “Mendicants!” “Venerable sir,” they replied. The Buddha said this:
The five powers of a trainee
§2“Mendicants, there are these five powers of a trainee. What five? The powers of faith, conscience, prudence, energy, and wisdom. These are the five powers of a trainee.
The injunction
§3So you should train like this: ‘We will have the trainee’s powers of faith, conscience, prudence, energy, and wisdom.’ That’s how you should train.” That is what the Buddha said. Satisfied, the mendicants approved what the Buddha said.
· · ·
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 five qualities does AN 5.1 name as the powers of a trainee?
Correct: B. Saddhā, hiri, ottappa, vīriya, paññā — the sekhabala.
Question 2 of 10
What does the title ‘Saṅkhitta’ mean, and what does it signal?
Correct: B. Its companion discourse, titled ‘Vitthata’, does the expanding.
Question 3 of 10
Which two items does this five-list have that the standard five faculties/powers (faith, energy, mindfulness, immersion, wisdom) do not?
Correct: B. First flagged at AN 4.163, three chapters and one nipāta back.
Question 4 of 10
Where in this series was hiri and ottappa’s role as ‘world-protectors’ already established?
Correct: B. AN 2.9 argued that without the pair, ordinary social bonds would collapse.
Question 5 of 10
What does ‘sekha’ mean?
Correct: B. A term of the path’s middle — neither beginner nor finished.
Question 6 of 10
What form does AN 5.1 take?
Correct: B. No elaboration — that is left to what follows.
Question 7 of 10
What does the discourse instruct listeners to do with the five powers?
Correct: B. ‘So you should train like this’ — a direct injunction, not a description.
Question 8 of 10
Where is AN 5.1 set?
Correct: B. The setting most Aṅguttara discourses default to when nothing more specific is named.
Question 9 of 10
How does AN 5.1 relate to the discourse immediately following it?
Correct: B. A brief-then-detailed pair, meant to be read together.
Question 10 of 10
Why does the guide caution against treating ‘sekhabala’ as simply another name for the well-known five faculties?
Correct: B. Two different technical sets under related names — worth noticing, not worth conflating.
