Abhabbasutta — Khemavagga — the sixth chapter of the Nines
Setting
None stated in the source
Speakers
The Buddha alone, addressing the mendicants
Form
Two mirror-image statements — impossible without giving up, possible after giving up — naming the same nine defilements
Length
~1 minute to read
A break from this chapter's template
Unlike every discourse since AN 9.52, this one is not an Udāyī-to-Ānanda dialogue and does not use the qualified-versus-definitive nine-stage grid at all
Difficulty
★★☆☆☆ — straightforward, notable chiefly for the list it shares with this project's largest peyyāla closings
Why this discourse
Without giving up nine things — greed, hate, delusion, anger, acrimony, disdain, contempt, jealousy, and stinginess — perfection cannot be realized; giving them up, it can, closing this chapter with a return to plain doctrinal statement after ten discourses of the same recurring template.
Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
Without giving up nine defilements — greed, hate, delusion, anger, acrimony, disdain, contempt, jealousy, and stinginess — a mendicant cannot realize perfection; giving up these same nine, they can.
A structural break, closing the chapter
After ten discourses running the Udāyī-to-Ānanda template — nine of them defining terms through the nine progressive attainments — this discourse abruptly returns to the Buddha's own plain voice, addressing the mendicants directly with no dialogue frame and no reference to the nine attainments at all.
The first nine of this project's standard seventeen-item list
Readers of this project will recognize this list immediately: greed, hate, and delusion, followed by anger, acrimony, disdain, contempt, jealousy, and stinginess, are exactly the first nine items of the same seventeen-item defilement list (greed plus sixteen more) that has closed every nipāta's Rāgapeyyāla so far in this project — AN 3.183-352, AN 4.304-783, AN 6.170-649, AN 7.645-1124, and AN 8.148-627. Here, though, only the first nine are named, stopping before deceitfulness, deviousness, obstinacy, aggression, conceit, arrogance, vanity, and negligence.
Two mirror statements, one list
The discourse's structure is simple and symmetrical: the same nine items are named twice, first as an obstacle (‘without giving up’) and then as a condition met (‘after giving up’), closing Khemavagga on a note of plain ethical urgency rather than another round of the chapter's meditative vocabulary game.
Key terms
abhabbo arahattaṁ sacchikātuṁ — “impossible to realize perfection” — this discourse's own title phrase, naming what remains out of reach without giving up the nine items.
rāgaṁ, dosaṁ, mohaṁ — “greed, hate, delusion” — the first three of this discourse's nine, the same three roots met throughout this nipāta.
kodhaṁ, upanāhaṁ, makkhaṁ, paḷāsaṁ, issaṁ, macchariyaṁ — “anger, acrimony, disdain, contempt, jealousy, and stinginess” — the remaining six, exactly matching the first six items of the standard seventeen-item list that closes this project's largest peyyāla pages.
bhabbo arahattaṁ sacchikātuṁ — “possible to realize perfection” — the discourse's mirror-image second statement, naming the same nine items as an obstacle removed.
khemavaggo — “Khemavagga” — the chapter this discourse closes; the source's own colophon here numbers it ‘paṭhamo’ (“first”), apparently restarting the count for the Second Fifty rather than continuing the running 1–10 numbering used in each discourse's own header.
The text
The discourse in full: two mirror-image statements naming the same nine defilements. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).
Impossible without giving up nine things
§1“Mendicants, without giving up nine things you can’t realize perfection. What nine? Greed, hate, delusion, anger, acrimony, disdain, contempt, jealousy, and stinginess. Without giving up these nine things you can’t realize perfection.
Possible after giving them up
§2After giving up nine things you can realize perfection. What nine? Greed, hate, delusion, anger, acrimony, disdain, contempt, jealousy, and stinginess. After giving up these nine things you can realize the fruit of perfection.”
· · ·
Self-check quiz
6 questions. Click an answer to see immediate feedback. No score is recorded — this is for your own checking.
Question 1 of 6
How does this discourse's form differ from every other discourse in this chapter since AN 9.52?
Correct: B. A return to the Buddha's own plain voice, with no dialogue frame.
Question 2 of 6
What nine items does this discourse name as obstacles to perfection?
Correct: B. The same three roots plus six further defilements familiar from elsewhere in this nipāta.
Question 3 of 6
How does this list relate to the standard seventeen-item list that closes this project's largest peyyāla pages?
Correct: B. A partial reuse, stopping before deceitfulness, deviousness, and the remaining eight items.
Question 4 of 6
What structure do the discourse's two statements form?
Correct: B. Simple symmetry, closing the chapter with plain ethical urgency.
Question 5 of 6
What curiosity does the source's own closing colophon show, according to the guide?
Correct: B. An honestly noted inconsistency, not smoothed over.
Question 6 of 6
Is a setting given for this discourse?
Correct: C. A bare doctrinal statement, closing this chapter without narrative frame.
