Aparihāniyasutta — Anuttariyavagga — the third chapter of the Sixes
Setting
None stated in the source
Speakers
The Buddha alone, addressing the mendicants
Form
A bare list of six qualities, each negated or reversed from AN 6.21's six causes of decline
Length
~1 minute to read
Northern parallel
As with AN 6.21, this theme recurs across the Saṁyutta and its Chinese counterparts; this reading guide does not assert a specific matching sutra number
Difficulty
★☆☆☆☆ — a direct mirror of the preceding discourse
Why this discourse
AN 6.22 takes AN 6.21's six causes of decline and states their opposite: not relishing work, talk, sleep, or company; being easy to admonish; and having good friends. Where AN 6.21 arrived at its list through a deity's report and the Buddha's addition, AN 6.22 states the same material directly, without narrative frame, as six principles that prevent decline rather than cause it.
Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
Six principles prevent a mendicant's decline: not relishing work, talk, sleep, and company, being easy to admonish, and having good friends.
A precise mirror, not a new list
Each of AN 6.22's six items is the direct negation or reversal of one item from AN 6.21: not relishing work/talk/sleep/company (reversing the first four), being easy to admonish (sovacassatā, reversing dovacassatā), and having good friends (kalyāṇamittatā, reversing pāpamittatā). Nothing new is introduced; the list is constructed entirely by inversion.
Why state the inversion at all
It might seem redundant to state the reverse of an already-given list. But doing so makes explicit what is otherwise only implied: readers are not left to infer the positive form of AN 6.21's warning for themselves. The canon's preference for stating both a warning and its positive counterpart directly, rather than trusting an audience to invert it mentally, recurs across this collection.
Losing the narrative frame
AN 6.21 was a story: a deity's nighttime visit, the Buddha's approval, his own addition the next morning. AN 6.22 strips all of that away, presenting the same six-item structure as a bare formula with no scene at all. The content survives the loss of its narrative wrapping intact — suggesting the story in AN 6.21 was occasion, not substance.
A pattern already familiar from this chapter's predecessor
This positive-restatement move already appeared at AN 6.11/6.12 in the previous chapter, though there the second discourse added an outcome clause rather than simply inverting the first. Here the technique is starker: pure inversion, term for term, with no elaboration beyond the reversal itself.
Key terms
aparihāniya — “non-declining,” “conducive to non-decline” — the discourse's own title, and the quality named of all six items together.
sovacassatā — “being easy to admonish” — reversing AN 6.21's dovacassatā, hard to admonish.
kalyāṇamittatā — “having good friends” — reversing AN 6.21's pāpamittatā, bad friends.
kammārāmatā — “relishing work” — the quality negated as the first item here, matching AN 6.21's first cause of decline.
saṅgaṇikārāmatā — “relishing company” — the fourth quality negated, closing the personal-habit half of the list before the two relational items.
The text
The discourse in full: the six principles that prevent decline. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).
The six principles that prevent decline
§1“Mendicants, I will teach you these six principles that prevent decline. … And what, mendicants, are the six principles that prevent decline? Not relishing work, talk, sleep, and company, being easy to admonish, and having good friends. These six qualities prevent decline. Whether in the past, future, or present, all those who have not declined in skillful qualities do so because of these six qualities.”
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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 six principles does AN 6.22 name as preventing decline?
Correct: A. The direct inversion of AN 6.21's six causes of decline.
Question 2 of 10
How is AN 6.22's list constructed, according to the guide?
Correct: B. Nothing new is introduced beyond the reversal itself.
Question 3 of 10
What does AN 6.22 lack, compared to AN 6.21?
Correct: B. The content survives the loss of its narrative wrapping intact.
Question 4 of 10
What does the guide suggest this implies about AN 6.21's deity narrative?
Correct: B. The same six-item structure holds with or without the narrative wrapping.
Question 5 of 10
What earlier pairing in this chapter's predecessor does the guide compare this to?
Correct: B. A similar stated-negative/stated-positive move, though executed differently.
Question 6 of 10
What does sovacassatā mean?
Correct: B. The direct reversal of AN 6.21's dovacassatā.
Question 7 of 10
Is a setting stated for AN 6.22?
Correct: B. A bare formula with no scene at all.
Question 8 of 10
What does kalyāṇamittatā mean?
Correct: B. The sixth and final item, reversing pāpamittatā.
Question 9 of 10
How many of the six items concern personal habits versus relational qualities?
Correct: B. Matching the structure of AN 6.21's six causes of decline.
Question 10 of 10
What comes next in the chapter, after this pair on decline and non-decline?
Correct: A. A shift to a different, more technical subject.
