Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
This discourse repeats Iti 35’s opening denial word for word, then names a different positive purpose for the spiritual life: direct knowledge (abhiññā) and complete understanding (pariññā).
Abhiññā and pariññā
These are technical terms recurring throughout the canon. Pariññā especially is the specific task the wider tradition assigns to the truth of suffering in the four noble truths’ formula — suffering is to be fully understood. Elsewhere in the canon that same fourfold formula pairs full understanding of suffering with pahāna, giving up, as the task for craving, its origin — which is exactly the word this discourse’s twin, Iti 35, names instead. Seen this way, the two discourses’ two answers are not competing alternatives; they read as two of the specific tasks the wider tradition assigns to a full encounter with the four truths.
What changes, what doesn’t
Line up the two discourses and the shared material is extensive: the identical opening denial, and a closing verse frame — “this is the path followed by the great souls, the great seers…” — repeated nearly unchanged. Only a handful of words differ: abhiññatthaṁ pariññatthaṁ here, where Iti 35 has saṁvaratthaṁ pahānatthaṁ; and the closing description of the goal shifts slightly from “because its objective is extinguishment” to “because it culminates in extinguishment” — a small variation in wording around the same idea.
Same skeleton, one different pair of words
This tight, almost formulaic substitution is itself worth noticing as a feature of how the Itivuttaka is composed: a fixed frame, repeated, with one meaningful pair of terms swapped out to make a related but distinct point. It is a compact way of saying two things without writing two discourses from scratch.
Reading the two as one
Identical titles and near-identical wording can look, out of context, like an error or a duplicate entry. Read as intended, they are a natural editorial habit within these very short, formulaic discourses: a single teaching, given twice, each time emphasizing one of two complementary purposes for the same spiritual life.
Key terms
The text
§1This was said by the Buddha, the Perfected One: that is what I heard.
§2“Mendicants, this spiritual life is not lived for the sake of fawning or flattering people, nor for the benefit of possessions, honor, or popularity, nor thinking, ‘So let people know about me!’ This spiritual life is lived for the sake of direct knowledge and complete understanding.” The Buddha spoke this matter. On this it is said:
§3“The Buddha taught the spiritual life
not because of tradition,
but for the sake of insight and understanding,
and because it culminates in extinguishment.
§4This is the path followed by the great souls,
the great seers.
Those who practice it
as it was taught by the Buddha
doing the teacher’s bidding,
make an end of suffering.”
§5This too is a matter that was spoken by the Blessed One: that is what I heard.
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