Reading guide
A formula already met, now confirmed reused
Confirmed by direct comparison with this project's own earlier work on SN 45.91-102, this vagga's own name and structure are not new: the same “slants, slopes, and inclines” (ninnā, poṇā, pabbhārā) three-verb image, applied there to the eightfold path, is here applied to the five faculties, with twelve discourses total per the uddāna — six on slanting east, six on slanting to the ocean.
Five great rivers, more compressed here than at SN 45
As general canonical background, confirmed at SN 45.92-95: the formula's own east-slanting half names five great rivers of the Ganges basin in turn — the Gaṅgā (Ganges), Yamunā, Aciravatī, Sarabhū, and Mahī — but SN 48's own copy of this formula, confirmed by directly listing bilara-data's own directory, is compressed into a single merged file quoting only the Gaṅgā's own opening instance, rather than SN 45's own five-file split naming each river individually.
Twelve discourses, confirmed by this file's own uddāna
This merged file's own closing uddāna — “cha pācīnato ninnā, cha ninnā ca samuddato; dvete cha dvādasa honti” (“six on slanting to the east, and six on slanting to the ocean; these two sixes make twelve”) — states, in the text's own words, exactly how many discourses this single page represents: SN 48.71 through SN 48.82.
Key terms
The text
§1“Mendicants, the Ganges river slants, slopes, and inclines to the east. In the same way, a mendicant developing and cultivating the five faculties slants, slopes, and inclines to extinguishment. How so? It’s when a mendicant develops the faculties of faith, energy, mindfulness, immersion, and wisdom, which rely on seclusion, fading away, and cessation, and ripen as letting go. That’s how a mendicant developing and cultivating the five faculties slants, slopes, and inclines to extinguishment.”
UddānaSix on slanting to the east, and six on slanting to the ocean; these two sixes make twelve, and that’s how this chapter is recited.
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