Yathābhatasutta — Sekhabalavagga — the first chapter of the Fives
Setting
None stated; the discourse continues from AN 5.1, whose setting at Sāvatthī in Jeta’s Grove is understood to hold
Speakers
The Buddha alone, addressing the mendicants
Form
The identical lacking/having template from AN 5.3, with a new image replacing the present-life/rebirth pairing
Length
~1 minute to read
Northern parallel
The 'carried and set down' image for karmic destination recurs across early Buddhist literature broadly; this reading guide does not assert a specific matching sutra number
Difficulty
★★☆☆☆ — short, and its single image carries the whole discourse
Why this discourse
Where AN 5.3 spoke of a present condition and a future expectation, AN 5.4 compresses both into one picture: yathābhataṁ nikkhitto, carried and set down exactly so — the way a parcel is delivered to the one address it was addressed to, no detour possible. A mendicant lacking the five powers is placed in hell as if delivered there; one who has them is placed in heaven the same way. The image does the discourse’s entire argument in four words.
Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
A mendicant lacking the five powers is placed in hell as if delivered there; one who has all five is placed in heaven as if delivered there — the identical five qualities from every discourse so far in this chapter.
The image itself
Yathābhataṁ nikkhitto is a delivery image: something carried and put down exactly where it was being carried to. It removes any sense of a journey, a trial, or a weighing of the evidence at the end. The destination was already fixed by what was being carried; arrival simply confirms it.
This is a stronger claim than AN 5.3’s ‘can be expected’ (pāṭikaṅkhā), which leaves room for expectation to be an estimate. ‘Placed as if delivered’ leaves none. The two discourses are not contradictory — both attach the same outcome to the same causes — but this one states it with more force.
Hell and heaven, named without elaboration
Neither destination is described here. There is no picture of what hell or heaven contains, no duration given, no geography. The discourse is entirely about the mechanism — the fact of a match between quality and destination — and leaves every question about what either place is like to be answered, if at all, elsewhere in the canon. A reading guide should resist filling in what the text itself declines to specify.
The list, unchanged a third time
This is now the third discourse in the chapter — after AN 5.1 and 5.3 — to use the identical five terms, faithless, shameless, imprudent, lazy, witless, against their five opposites. No discourse so far has varied the list itself; each varies only what is said to follow from it. That consistency is worth noticing as a feature, not an accident: the chapter is building confidence in one fixed list by attaching it to consequence after consequence.
What is still to come
AN 5.5 turns from a cosmic destination to a social one — not where a person is reborn, but what other mendicants are entitled to say about someone who disrobes, or who endures. The image changes from a parcel delivered to a courtroom of one’s peers, but the same five qualities remain the deciding factor.
Key terms
yathābhataṁ nikkhitto — “placed as if carried and set down there” — the discourse’s central image, a delivery with no possible detour between carrying and arrival.
niraya — “hell” — named as a destination here without any description of what it contains; the text declines to elaborate.
sagga — “heaven” — the positive destination, equally undescribed, matched here to having all five powers.
pāṭikaṅkhā — “can be expected” — the softer verb AN 5.3 used for the same outcome; AN 5.4’s delivery image states the same claim with more force.
assaddho — “faithless” — the first of the five negative terms, identical in wording across every discourse in this chapter so far.
The text
The discourse in full: lacking the five, placed in hell as if delivered there; having them, placed in heaven the same way. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).
Lacking the five
§1“Mendicants, a mendicant with five qualities is placed in hell as if delivered there. What five? It’s when a mendicant is faithless, shameless, imprudent, lazy, and witless. A mendicant with these five qualities is placed in hell as if delivered there.
Having the five
§2A mendicant with five qualities is placed in heaven as if delivered there. What five? It’s when a mendicant is faithful, conscientious, prudent, energetic, and wise. A mendicant with these five qualities is placed in heaven as if delivered there.”
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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 does the image ‘yathābhataṁ nikkhitto’ convey?
Correct: A. A delivery image — destination fixed before arrival, arrival only confirming it.
Question 2 of 10
How does this discourse’s claim compare in force to AN 5.3’s ‘can be expected’ (pāṭikaṅkhā)?
Correct: B. Both attach the same outcome to the same causes; this one states it with more force.
Question 3 of 10
How much detail does AN 5.4 give about what hell and heaven actually contain?
Correct: B. The discourse is entirely about the mechanism, not the destinations' contents.
Question 4 of 10
How many discourses in this chapter, counting AN 5.4, have now used the identical five-quality list (faithless, shameless, imprudent, lazy, witless) against its opposites?
Correct: C. The list stays fixed; only the attached consequence changes each time.
Question 5 of 10
What does the guide suggest is the chapter’s strategy in repeating the same list across multiple discourses?
Correct: B. Consistency treated as a deliberate feature, not an accident.
Question 6 of 10
What does AN 5.5, the next discourse, shift the consequence to?
Correct: B. The image changes from parcel to courtroom of one’s peers; the five qualities stay the deciding factor.
Question 7 of 10
Is a simile or extended story used to make this discourse’s point?
Correct: B. Four words, ‘placed as if delivered’, do the whole discourse’s work.
Question 8 of 10
What five qualities are absent in the mendicant placed in hell?
Correct: B. The sekhabala list, unchanged from AN 5.1.
Question 9 of 10
How does the reading guide caution against reading this discourse?
Correct: B. The text is silent on contents and duration, and the guide follows that silence.
Question 10 of 10
Where is AN 5.4 set?
Correct: B. Consistent with every discourse in this chapter after the first.
