Reading guide
Bookending AN 5.181
After eight discourses of progressively steeper compression, this closing discourse restores the full pattern in complete detail, exactly matching AN 5.181's structure: the five motives spelled out in full, the declaration of which is best, and the milk-to-cream-of-ghee simile repeated verbatim.
Only the almsbowl, nothing more
Pattapiṇḍika means eating only from the almsbowl itself, mixing whatever food is received into that single container rather than using separate plates or dishes — the most literal application of ‘few possessions’ to eating, using only the one vessel a mendicant already carries.
The same five motives, one final time
Stupidity and folly; corrupt, showy wishes; madness and mental disorder; imitating what's praised; or genuine renunciation — the identical five motives named at AN 5.181, restated here word for word, and concluding with the same judgment: only the last is genuinely best.
The chapter's real subject, restated at both ends
By restoring the full analysis at both the first and last discourse in this ten-part catalog, the compilers make the chapter's real subject unmistakable: not any particular ascetic practice, but the single underlying question of motive that applies equally to all ten.
Closing the chapter
The chapter closes with its colophon, ‘Dasamaṁ. Araññavaggo catuttho’ (‘The tenth. The fourth chapter on wilderness dwellers’), followed by an uddāna verse naming this chapter's ten discourses in brief — the same summarizing mechanism explained in full at AN 5.10.
Key terms
The text
Five kinds of almsbowl-only eater
§1“Mendicants, these five eat only from the almsbowl. What five? One may eat only from the almsbowl because of stupidity and folly. Or because of corrupt wishes, being of wishful temperament. Or because of madness and mental disorder. Or because it is praised by the Buddhas and their disciples. Or for the sake of having few wishes, for the sake of contentment, self-effacement, seclusion, and simplicity. These are the five who eat only from the almsbowl. But the person who eats only from the almsbowl for the sake of having few wishes is the foremost, best, chief, highest, and finest of the five.
The best of the five, in simile
§2From a cow comes milk, from milk comes curds, from curds come butter, from butter comes ghee, and from ghee comes cream of ghee. And the cream of ghee is said to be the best of these. In the same way, the one who eats only from the almsbowl for the sake of having few wishes is the foremost, best, chief, highest, and finest of the five.”
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