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The present work offers a complete translation of the Aguttara Nikya, the fourth major collection in the Sutta Piṭaka, or Basket of Discourses, belonging to the Pali Canon
SuttaCentral has published an entirely new translation of the four Pali Nikāyas by Bhikkhu Sujato, which is the first complete and consistent English translation of these core texts. This is an ebook version of Bhikkhu Sujato's translation of the Aṅguttara Nikāya, which can also be read at SuttaCentral website. The “Numbered” or “Numerical” Discourses are usually known as Aṅguttara Nikāya in Pali, abbreviated AN. However, the Pali tradition also knows the form Ekottara (“one-up” or “incremental”), and this is the form usually found in the northern collections. These collections organize texts in numbered sets, from one to eleven. Compared to the other nikāyas, they are more oriented to the lay community. The Ekottarikāgama (EA) in Chinese is a highly unusual text, which features a range of variations within itself when it comes even to basic doctrines. It shares considerably less in common with the Pali Aṅguttara than the other collections do with their counterparts. In addition, there is a partial Ekottarikāgama in Chinese, as well as a variety of individual discourses and fragments in Chinese and Sanskrit. This translation of Aṅguttara Nikāya was updated on March 6th, 2023
"This landmark collection is the definitive introduction to the Buddha's teachings in his own words. The American scholar monk Bhikkhu Bodhi, whose voluminous translations have won widespread acclaim, here presents selected discourses of the Buddha from the Pali Canon, the earliest record of what the Buddha taught. Divided into ten thematic chapters, In the Buddha's Words reveals the full scope of the Buddha's discourses, from family life and marriage to renunciation and the path of insight. A concise informative introduction precedes each chapter, guiding the reader toward a deeper understanding of the texts that follow." "In the Buddha's Words allows even readers unacquainted with Buddhism to grasp the significance of the Buddha's contributions to our world heritage. Taken as a whole, these texts bear eloquent testimony to the breadth and intelligence of the Buddha's teachings, and point the way to an ancient yet ever vital path. Students and seekers alike will find this systematic presentation indispensable."--BOOK JACKET.
The seventh book of the Aṅguttara Nikāya, the Collection of the Numbered Discourses of the Buddha, collects 1124 suttas or discourses whose subject matter is centered on groups of seven topics. This book contains suttas to be read, long suttas with expositions, some of them interesting. This book is devoid of false suttas. The rulers' thread resurfaces two versions, the traditional one in which they are compared to bandits, fires and floods, as in AN 7.7 With Ugga, and a more disturbing variation: in AN 7.53 Mother of Nanda, the rulers appear as kidnappers and murderers of her son. In the section of featured suttas, this time we find more. Of particular note is AN 7.19: Nibbāna. Here the different final ways of becoming extinct are explained. AN 7.24 which denounces the work of the bhikkhus as the first cause of decline. AN 7.44 which explains the different planes of consciousness. The above AN 7.53, where a laywoman reaches the final achievement. AN 7.66 The Seven Suns, an interesting planetary cosmogony. AN 7.92 A Worthy One, in which any kind of rite or ceremony is qualified as an erroneous belief, as being able to deliver from Samsara.
The fifth book of the Aṅguttara Nikāya, the Collection of the Numbered Discourses of the Buddha, collects 1152 suttas or discourses whose subject matter is centered on groups of five topics. It should be remembered that the nikāyas were composed to be transmitted orally at a time when no writing system had yet been reintroduced in India. By that time, the ancient scripts of the archaic Harappan civilization had lost their meaning no less than fifteen centuries earlier and are still undecipherable to this day. Remembering was the key and redundancy was the guarantee for successful transmission. All suttas fit into complex mnemonic systems designed to be tolerant to errors and even loss of data. This not only served in its day for correct transmission, but becomes the most powerful tool for supporting the reconstruction of the message. This is especially important for The Book of Fives. This book contains suttas to be read, except for the final Mātikās contained in the last chapter. The contents do not enhance the interest of its predecessors in the numbered collection, and in no way displace the main work, the Saṃyutta Nikaya. In the section of anecdotal suttas, he returns to the nefariousness of the rulers, in the line of the previous ones. In this case, the legitimate and meritorious defense of one's own wealth against the scourge of the rulers in AN 5.41 and AN 5.148 is included. AN 5.104 reflects their corrupt behavior. We can highlight the suttas in which the Buddha denounces false bhikkhus who pretend to be bhikkhus in order to make a living by propagating false doctrines. In AN 5.80 and AN 5.167 he speaks of those false bhikkhus who live in houses or who are ordained as a bastard means of earning a living. Messages that are very topical today. On the side of the false suttas marked with double asterisk (**), we find this time only two false suttas. AN 5.229: Poisonous black snakes (I), the Buddha supposedly confers on women epithets such as these: "She is disgusting, stinking, cowardly, frightening and treacherous. These are the five drawbacks of a woman." AN 5.230: Poisonous black snakes (II). If the above was not enough, and so that there is no doubt about the misogynistic message that hangs on the Buddha, the sutta finishes off the woman like this: "She is irritable, hostile, venomous, biting and treacherous. This is the poison of a woman: she is usually very lustful. This is the forked tongue of a woman: she usually speaks divisively. This is the treachery of a woman: she is usually an adulteress." In short, we are still engaged in an arduous and exhaustive work of research and reconstruction in comparative linguistics to unravel some texts of little interest.
The sixth book of the Aṅguttara Nikāya, the Collection of the Numbered Discourses of the Buddha, collects 649 suttas or discourses whose subject matter is almost always centered on groups of six topics. And I say almost always, because there are not many topics in the texts of six elements, so many are forced as in the case of chapter 11 called triads because they are just that, triads. And well, since three plus three is six... two triads are put in and we have, supposedly, a sextet ready to be included in the Book of Sixes. But we will also see that six is made by adding one to five, or two to a group of four... In AN 6.29 he talks all the time about five things and ends up adding another to complete the six. Although this book also contains suttas to be read, except for the final Mātikās contained in the last chapters, its content remains uninteresting. It is becoming increasingly clear that the Anguttara Nikaya bases its popularity on its traditionally terrible translations that force the reader to go about inventing extrapolations to help him skip abstruse paragraphs, providing that undefined mysterious halo of the abstract. In the section of anecdotal suttas, we have AN 6.42 with Nāgita. In it the Buddha rants against fame and its drawbacks, such as the difficulty of being able to shit or pee in peace, with five hundred followers who do not stop following you wherever you go. We can highlight AN 6.18 A fish merchant where the Buddha exposes professions where his cruelty is not even economically compensated. AN 6.60 with Hatthisāriputta denounces the danger of teaching jhānas to people who are not going to pawn them for enlightenment. Finally, the group from AN 6.92 to AN 6.93 called Things that cannot be done, where obviousness is exposed, such as that it is absurd for someone with the correct belief to think of taking as a teacher someone who is not a Tataghata. Interestingly, this book lacks false suttas. In short, we are still engaged in an arduous and exhaustive work of research and reconstruction in comparative linguistics to unravel some texts without much interest.
The tenth book of the Aṅguttara Nikāya, the Collection of the Numbered Discourses of the Buddha, collects 746 suttas or discourses whose subject matter is centered on groups of ten topics. The most frequent are the eight components of the eightfold path expanded to ten and also ten components of ethics. This book is especially thick because of the continuous repetitions upon repetitions with very slight variations. The volume is also notable for including extensive content on monastic discipline. As the most outstanding sutta we have AN 10.26: With Kāḷī. Fierce criticism of the Brahmanical meditation methods called "kasinas" which, in early medieval times, were included by Buddhaghosa in his entrance work to a famous Sinhalese monastery and which today some claim as "effective" methods of meditation within Buddhism. The most interesting suttas in this volume are: AN 10.6: Contemplation. Perceiving without perceiving. One of the most curious things one feels when entering current. AN 10.14: Emotional Sterility. Doubts about the Master cause emotional sterility. AN 10.19: Abodes of the Noble Ones (I). When one stops searching. AN 10.29: Kosala (I). Tremendous criticism of wrong practice. AN 10.31: With Upāli. The reasons for the establishment of the monastic code. AN 10.64: Faith. On those who have entered the stream. AN 10.65: Happiness (I). Family and friends who get together and annoy you. AN 10.76: Three things. A beautiful sutta on renunciations. AN 10.92: Dangers. Teaching on perishability and faith. AN 10.108: Physicians: Interesting sutta on physicians and the list of diseases known and treated with varying degrees of success. This book does not contain false suttas. In summary, this time the arduous and exhaustive work of research and reconstruction in comparative linguistics has been especially dense and thick.
Although the Aṅguttara Nikāya is known as the "Numbered" or "Numerical" Discourses, its etymology may give us clues to its origin. The word Aṅguttara is composed of aṅga, which in pāli and Sanskrit means "member" or "division" and uttara meaning "northern". In Sanskrit "north" is used figuratively also in the sense of superior, above, so uttara could be figuratively translated as "more than" in an incremental sense. The different categories into which the early Buddhist canonical texts prior to Hinayana scholasticism were divided were called aṅgas. Originally categories were made depending on the type of material within the various texts and later, it was used to classify those same texts. Aṅguttara can therefore refer to its geographical origin as "northern division" or "incremental division". The second meaning seems clear with respect to the organization in books, from the book of ones, successively up to the book of eleven, where discourses are grouped in relation to the number of teaching topics they contain. However, "northern division", besides being the most direct translation, can give clues about its geographical origin, considering, in addition, that the pāli itself is linguistically related to the Prakrit dialects of northwestern India, but where it appears is in the south. This second book, that of the Doses maintains the matrix structure of Mātikās of the previous book, serving as a mnemonic base of headings to be remembered, so it is not very readable and, therefore, its interest is very scarce. We can highlight AN 2.61, on the permanent female dissatisfaction as a very curious original contribution.
The third book of the Aṅguttara Nikāya, the Collection of the Numbered Discourses of the Buddha, collects 352 suttas or discourses whose subject matter focuses on groups of three topics. For example, suttas are collected, not exhaustively, that speak of the three emotional reactions: pleasant, unpleasant and indifferent. There are other suttas included in other collections that are not in this one. The book of threes breaks with the purely mnemonic mechanics of the "matika" series of the first two books. This is a book made to be read. Even so, both its subject matter and content are far from interesting since they neither relate the life of the Buddha nor include unique doctrinal principles. Perhaps the sutta of greatest interest is AN 3.65: With the kālāmas of Kesamutta, which is about adopting a belief based on results rather than fallacies. It is a lengthy and interesting sutta. On the opposite side and marked with a double asterisk (**), we find a pair of extemporaneous suttas, out of context, with a particular structure and a spurious content. They are the suttas AN 3.80: Minor and AN 3.107: Lamentations. "Minor" is a discourse similar both structurally and in content to the decadent suttas that Gogerly encountered upon his arrival in Sri Lanka in the nineteenth century, characterized by depicting the Buddha as somewhere between mythological and fantastic being endowed with magical powers, much to the taste of Eastern excess. So we can here see the Buddha giving voices heard in all the galaxies and, at the end of the sutta, the imagination runs wild when the Buddha becomes a prophet, predicting that: "Ānanda will be extinguished in the present life", which turned out to be false. Every false sutta has a bastard intention, and in this case it is to rivet the orthodoxy and trustworthiness of one of the leaders of the First Council who, far from being worthy, did not even achieve anything since he was more occupied in the robe dealing than in practice. The other apocryphal sutta is AN 3.107: Lamentations, a strangely structured sutta that amounts to a scolding against people who hear music, or laugh. The author did not dare to assign to the Buddha the authorship of the rebuke and left it at a simple "it is considered".
The fourth book of the Aṅguttara Nikāya, the Collection of the Numbered Discourses of the Buddha, collects 783 suttas or discourses whose subject matter is centered on groups of four topics. For example, suttas are collected that speak of the four elements. The groups of four give rise to repetitions of the type A, B, A and B and not A and not B, or even, A, not A, A and not A and not A and not A and not A and not A. They are also employed using four of the five precepts, or groups of three to which a third component is added, such as belief, for example. Although this is a book made to be read, it is of little or no interest. Only some sutta may be interesting, although there are none that have a theme that is not intensely explained in the Saṃyutta Nikaya. Anecdotally, it is worth mentioning the suttas AN 4.61 where he says that "with his legitimate wealth he defends himself from the threats of such things as fire, floods, rulers, bandits or hateful heirs" and AN 4.120, which tells us that the four dangers are "fire, floods, rulers and bandits". It is not the only time that the Buddha puts the critical focus on the figure of the rulers whose functions are against all ethics, since their job is precisely to steal, kill and lie. On the opposite side and marked with a double asterisk (**), we find this time up to six false suttas. AN 4.76: In Kusinārā, the Buddha says he is sure that in his Saṅgha at least everyone has entered the stream...Ānanda himself being there. This is another sutta with a clear interpolation in defense of the attendant. AN 4.118: Inspirational, which is the precursor to a travel brochure in which the Buddha supposedly invites devotees to go on pilgrimage to the four most iconic sites...including where he would die. AN 4.127: Incredible things about the Tataghata, some of which are incredible, such as the galactic lights. AN 4.129: Unbelievable things about Ānanda. Yet another propaganda interpolation in favor of the wizard. AN 4.130: Four incredible and amazing things about a wheel-spinning monarch, in which we again interpolate propaganda in favor of the wizard, equating him to a universal monarch. AN 4.187: With Vassakāra, the gossiper. A strange sutta in which a brahmin tells a gossip to the Buddha, which had a bearing on the plot of the text. In short, an arduous and exhaustive work of research and reconstruction to make known some texts that really do not contain anything of real interest.