Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
Of every kind of giving, sharing, or support a person can offer, giving the teaching itself always outranks giving material things — a comparison repeated three times, in three matched formulas.
A note on the title
It’s worth being upfront here: this discourse’s English title, “Giving,” is exactly the same title given to a different, unrelated discourse elsewhere in the Itivuttaka collection (Iti 26). This is simply the title Bhikkhu Sujato’s translation gives this particular discourse in the source text — not a label invented or disambiguated for this reading guide. The two discourses share nothing beyond the name.
Three matched comparisons
The prose lays out the same structure three times over. First, gifts: “a gift of things of the flesh and a gift of the teaching. The better of these two gifts is the gift of the teaching.” Second, sharing: “sharing things of the flesh and sharing the teaching. The better of these two kinds of sharing is sharing the teaching.” Third, support: “support in things of the flesh and support in the teaching. The better of these two kinds of support is support in the teaching.” The repetition itself is the argument — three different categories of generosity, and the same ranking each time.
A famous parallel
The same ranking — the gift of the teaching surpassing every other gift — is also the entire subject of a well-known standalone verse elsewhere in the canon, in the Dhammapada’s chapter on craving, phrased there almost identically: the gift of the teaching surpasses all other gifts. It’s a useful reminder that this isn’t a one-off claim particular to this short discourse, but a comparison the tradition returns to more than once.
Repeated, and extended, four discourses later
Worth flagging for anyone reading straight through this stretch of the collection: this exact threefold “gift, sharing, support” formula reappears, essentially unchanged, in Iti 100 — the discourse that immediately follows the close of this book and opens the next. There, the Buddha adds a fourth pairing (“offering”) and frames the whole comparison inside a striking self-description of himself as a “brahmin.”
Key terms
The text
§1.1This was said by the Buddha, the Perfected One: that is what I heard.
§2.1–2.3“There are, mendicants, these two gifts. A gift of things of the flesh and a gift of the teaching. The better of these two gifts is the gift of the teaching.
§3.1–3.3There are these two kinds of sharing. Sharing things of the flesh and sharing the teaching. The better of these two kinds of sharing is sharing the teaching.
§4.1–4.5There are these two kinds of support. Support in things of the flesh and support in the teaching. The better of these two kinds of support is support in the teaching.” The Buddha spoke this matter. On this it is said:
§5.1–5.4“It is said to be the supreme, ultimate gift,
and the sharing praised by the Buddha;
what wise and sensible person, confident in the best of fields,
would not sow a such timely gift?
§6.1–6.4For those who are diligent in the dispensation of the Holy One,
both those who speak and those who listen,
confident in the dispensation of the Holy One,
such a gift purifies the highest goal.”
§7.1This too is a matter that was spoken by the Blessed One: that is what I heard.
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