Abhabbasutta — Sītivagga — the ninth chapter of the Sixes, continuing the Second Fifty
Setting
None stated in the source
Speakers
The Buddha alone, addressing the mendicants
Form
A single six-item list, the third and final restatement of AN 6.89's content in this three-discourse set
Length
under 30 seconds to read
Northern parallel
The claim that a stream-enterer cannot regress into wrong view recurs widely across the Chinese Āgamas' treatment of irreversibility at the noble stages; this reading guide does not assert a specific matching sutra number
Difficulty
★☆☆☆☆ — brief, closing a three-discourse set on identical content restated three ways
Why this discourse
AN 6.91 completes the three-discourse arc begun at AN 6.89: the identical six things — substantialist view, doubt, misapprehension of precepts and observances, and rebirth-bound greed, hate, and delusion — are now stated in their strongest form yet: not merely given up, but things an individual accomplished in view is incapable of giving rise to at all.
Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
An individual accomplished in view cannot give rise to substantialist view, doubt, misapprehension of precepts and observances, or forms of greed, hatred, and delusion that lead to rebirth in places of loss.
A third framing, stronger than the first two
AN 6.89 framed the six items as a requirement to be met; AN 6.90 framed them as an accomplished fact in the past tense; this discourse frames them as a standing incapacity (abhabba, “incapable”) — not simply that the fetters have been given up once, but that they cannot arise again at all. The three discourses trace an escalation from prescription, to description, to guaranteed irreversibility.
Irreversibility as this discourse's real claim
The word abhabba does more work than a simple negative: it names an incapacity, not merely an absence. Where AN 6.90 could in principle describe a temporary state, this discourse states outright that the three fetters and their associated forms of greed, hate, and delusion cannot recur for one accomplished in view — the technical basis for stream-entry's traditional description as irreversible.
Closing a set before the chapter's final tetrad
AN 6.89–91 form a complete, self-contained arc on one six-item list; the chapter's remaining four discourses, AN 6.92–95, turn to an entirely different and unrelated set of four “impossible” lists, checked individually in the pages that follow.
Key terms
abhabba — “incapable,” unable — the discourse's own title term, naming a standing incapacity rather than a simple negation.
sakkāyadiṭṭhi, vicikicchā, sīlabbataparāmāsa — “substantialist view, doubt, misapprehension of precepts and observances” — identical to AN 6.89 and 6.90's lists.
apāyagamanīyaṁ rāgaṁ dosaṁ mohaṁ — “forms of greed, hate, and delusion that lead to rebirth in places of loss” — likewise identical to the two discourses before it.
uppādetuṁ — “to give rise to” — the verb this discourse denies of these six things for one accomplished in view, stronger than AN 6.90's simple past-tense “given up.”
diṭṭhisampanna puggalo — “an individual accomplished in view” — the discourse's subject, identical across all three discourses of this set.
The text
The discourse in full: the three fetters plus rebirth-bound greed, hate, and delusion, which an accomplished individual can no longer give rise to. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).
Six things that can no longer arise
§1“Mendicants, an individual accomplished in view can’t give rise to six things. What six? Substantialist view, doubt, misapprehension of precepts and observances, and forms of greed, hate, and delusion that lead to rebirth in places of loss. An individual accomplished in view can’t give rise to these six things.”
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Self-check quiz
7 questions. Click an answer to see immediate feedback. No score is recorded — this is for your own checking.
Question 1 of 7
How does AN 6.91's framing of the six-item list differ from AN 6.89's and AN 6.90's, according to the guide?
Correct: B. An escalation from prescription, to description, to guaranteed irreversibility.
Question 2 of 7
What does the term abhabba name, beyond a simple negation, according to the guide?
Correct: B. The technical basis for stream-entry's traditional description as irreversible.
Question 3 of 7
What three discourses together form a complete arc on one identical six-item list, according to the guide?
Correct: B. A self-contained three-discourse set, distinct from the earlier shared-formula triplet.
Question 4 of 7
What comes after this three-discourse arc, according to the guide?
Correct: B. A shift to genuinely new content for the chapter's closing tetrad.
Question 5 of 7
Is a setting stated for AN 6.91?
Correct: B. A bare formula, as brief as AN 6.90's.
Question 6 of 7
What verb does this discourse deny of the six items, stronger than AN 6.90's phrasing?
Correct: B. A claim of incapacity to arise, not merely an accomplished past fact.
Question 7 of 7
Does AN 6.91 include a paired reversal or negative half?
Correct: B. Matching AN 6.90's one-sided, purely descriptive form.
