Reading guide
Five losses, but an explicit ranking among them
Unlike most five-item lists in this nipāta, this discourse doesn't treat all five items as equally weighted. It states directly that three of the five — loss of relatives, wealth, and health — do not determine a bad rebirth, while the other two — loss of ethics and loss of view — do.
The same asymmetry in the positive list
The mirrored endowments list makes the identical claim: having relatives, wealth, and health doesn't secure a good rebirth; only ethical conduct and right view do.
What this reframes
Ordinary worldly losses and gains, even ones as significant as family, wealth, and health, are explicitly set aside as irrelevant to the deepest question this collection addresses — postmortem destination. Only the two items concerning one's own conduct and understanding carry that weight.
A closing echo of the whole chapter's concerns
Loss of health (rogabyasana) directly recalls this whole chapter's sustained attention to sickness, care, and the body, closing on the note that health itself, however serious a loss, is not what ultimately determines a person's future.
The chapter's close
The colophon ‘Dasamaṁ. Gilānavaggo tatiyo’ — the tenth discourse, the third Gilānavagga by the traditional count — follows the mechanism explained in full at AN 5.10.
The uddāna's opening lines
The mnemonic verse names this chapter's discourses by key terms: gilāna (sick), satisūpaṭṭhi (mindfulness well established), the two carer discourses, the two longevity discourses, vapakāsa (living apart), and samaṇasukha (an ascetic's happiness), trailing into the verse's remaining, untranslated lines.
Key terms
The text
Five losses
§1“Mendicants, there are these five losses. What five? Loss of relatives, wealth, health, ethics, and view. It is not because of loss of relatives, wealth, or health that sentient beings, when their body breaks up, after death, are reborn in a place of loss, a bad place, the underworld, hell. It is because of loss of ethics or view that sentient beings, when their body breaks up, after death, are reborn in a place of loss, a bad place, the underworld, hell. These are the five losses.
Five endowments
§2There are these five endowments. What five? Endowment with relatives, wealth, health, ethics, and view. It is not because of endowment with relatives, wealth, or health that sentient beings, when their body breaks up, after death, are reborn in a good place, a heavenly realm. It is because of endowment with ethics or view that sentient beings, when their body breaks up, after death, are reborn in a good place, a heavenly realm. These are the five endowments.”
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