Taking Up Arms

Identity

Segment range snp4.15:1.1–20.4. Sn 935–954 (20 verses). Received title Attadaṇḍasutta — "Taken-Up-Rod" or "[One with a] Weapon-Raised." The AV's most autobiographical sutta: its opening five verses are in the Buddha's first-person voice, narrating his own saṁvega (urgency) on seeing saṁsāric suffering — the collection's only first-person autobiographical passage in the Buddha's voice. The sutta is widely regarded as among the oldest texts in the Pāli canon (Cousins 2013, Jayawickrama 1976, Schmithausen, Lee 2024). It is also the AV's clearest case of a composite sutta with a compositional seam visible at v. 6 (tattha sikkhānugīyanti, "the trainings are recited there"), which Fronsdal 2016 reads as an ancient editorial marker joining an originally-separate Buddha-autobiography to a practice-catalog.

Text and form

All śloka (Norman 2001 p. 381). Places Snp 4.15 in the AV's all-śloka cluster with 4.1, 4.7, 4.10, plus Snp 4.16's opening Q-section — the AV's non-polemical metrical stratum. No reciter-tags.

Two-part architecture with compositional seam.

• Round 1 — the saṁvega narrative (vv. 1–5, Sn 935–939, first-person Buddha-voice). The Buddha speaks in his own voice: "from weapon-bearing fear has arisen — see the people quarrelling! I shall extol the urgency as it was aroused in me." Seeing people floundering like fish in shallow water, hostile to one another; seeing the world without core, all directions in turmoil; seeking a home and finding none unsettled; spotting the dart hard-to-see, lodged in the heart. By that dart pierced, one runs in all directions; but having plucked out the dart, one neither runs nor sinks.
• The seam (v. 6, Sn 940): Yāni sotāni lokasmiṁ, / Tāni sati nivāraṇaṁ; / Sotānaṁ saṁvaraṁ brūmi, / Paññāyete pidhīyare. Fronsdal reads tattha sikkhānugīyanti (echoed in the same verse-position of Round 2) as an explicit in-text marker of the training-recitation stratum — an ancient editorial seam joining the autobiographical Round 1 to the prescriptive Round 2.
• Round 2 — the practice-and-sage catalog (vv. 7–20, Sn 941–954, third-person imperative). The sage should be truthful, not bold, not deceitful, free of slander; should overcome sleep-torpor-sloth; should not lead himself into lying; should not cling to the old or prefer the new; greed is the great flood, longing the current — the sage stands on solid ground; the learned knowledge-master crosses the hard-to-cross chain; closing at v. 20 with the nādeti na nirassatī variant of the AV's attā-nirattā formula-family.

Content

"From taken-up-weapons, fear has arisen — see the people quarrelling! I shall extol the urgency as it was aroused in me. Seeing the population floundering like fish in little water, seeing them hostile to one another — fear came upon me. The world is everywhere without core; all directions are in turmoil. Desiring a home for myself, I saw nowhere unsettled. But seeing [them] quarrelling right up to the end, unease arose in me. Then I saw here a dart, hard-to-see, lodged in the heart. Pierced by that dart, one runs about in all directions; having plucked out that very dart, one neither runs nor sinks."

The training-recitation: whatever attachments are in the world, let him not be engaged in them; having pierced through all sensual pleasures, let him train toward nibbāna. Be truthful, not bold; not deceitful, free of slander; the sage, un-angry, would cross beyond the evils of greed and avarice. Overcome sleep, torpor, sloth; dwell not in heedlessness. Nibbāna-minded, let him not stand in pride. Not led into lying; not making affection for form; fully understanding conceit, let him live restrained from rashness. Not delighting in the old; making no preference for the new; not grieving at the vanishing; let him not cling to the pull.

I call greed the great flood; I call longing the current; the basis-constructing, the swamp of sensuality — hard-to-cross. Not swerving from truth, the sage, the brāhmaṇa stands on solid ground. Having relinquished everything, he is indeed called santa. He is the learned, the knowledge-master; having known dhamma, independent; rightly proceeding in the world, he does not long for anyone here. One who here has crossed-over sensuality, the chain-in-the-world-hard-to-cross — he does not grieve, does not hope; cut-stream, unbound.

Let the earlier [thing] wither away; let there be no "nothing" for you later; if you do not grasp in the middle, you will walk at peace. For one who has no "mine" anywhere in name-and-form, and does not grieve over "what does not exist" — he indeed does not diminish in the world (na jīyati). For whom there is no "this-is-mine" or "these [belong] to others" — not finding mineness, he does not grieve "I do not have." Not cruel, not fawning, unstirred, everywhere equal — this I declare as the benefit of the unwavering. For the unstirred one who knows, there is no performance of deeds; restrained from instigation, he sees safety everywhere. Not among the equal, not among the lower, not among the higher — the sage does not speak [of himself]. Stilled, greed-gone, he neither takes up nor casts down.

Key passages

v. 1 (Sn 935) — the opening.

Attadaṇḍā bhayaṁ jātaṁ, / janaṁ passatha medhagaṁ; / Saṁvegaṁ kittayissāmi, / yathā saṁvijitaṁ mayā.

From taken-up-weapons, fear has arisen — see the people quarrelling! I shall extol the urgency as it was aroused in me.

Title-verse. Attadaṇḍa ("taken-up-rod / weapon") — the violent reading against the Niddesa's moral reading (see Choice-points). Samvegaṁ kittayissāmi is the AV's only first-person-future declaration by the Buddha — a rare autobiographical-proclamation marker.

v. 4 (Sn 938) — the dart in the heart.

Osāne tveva byāruddhe, / disvā me aratī ahū; / Athettha sallamaddakkhiṁ, / duddasaṁ hadayanissitaṁ.

But seeing [them] quarrelling right up to the end, unease arose in me. Then I saw here a dart, hard-to-see, lodged in the heart.

The AV's signature image of diagnostic awakening. The salla ("dart") lodged in the heart picks up the Snp 4.1:2.4 sallaviddhova ruppati image but places it inside the Buddha's own first-person autobiography. Cross-canonical with MN 63 Cūḷamāluṅkya's poisoned-arrow parable, Snp 3.8 Sallasutta, and the general canonical arrow-of-craving imagery. The heart-lodged dart is the Buddha's self-diagnostic discovery.

v. 6 (Sn 940) — the seam.

Yāni sotāni lokasmiṁ, / (tattha sikkhānugīyanti) / Tāni sati nivāraṇaṁ; / Sotānaṁ saṁvaraṁ brūmi, / Paññāyete pidhīyare.

Whatever currents there are in the world — (the trainings are recited there) — mindfulness is their restraint; I declare restraint of the currents; by wisdom they are closed off.

Fronsdal 2016 reads tattha sikkhānugīyanti as an explicit in-text editorial marker: "trainings are recited there," flagging the Round 2 practice-catalog that follows as a compositionally-distinct stratum. If Fronsdal's reading is right, the AV's text itself preserves an editorial seam where Round 1 (autobiography) meets Round 2 (practice-catalog). The marker is unusual — most compositional seams in Pāli texts are inferred from stylistic analysis, not announced in-text.

v. 11 (Sn 945) — the flood-and-current vocabulary.

Gedhaṁ brūmi mahoghoti, / ājavaṁ brūmi jappanaṁ; / Ārammaṇaṁ pakappanaṁ, / kāmapaṅko duraccayo.

I call greed the great flood; I call longing the current; the basis-constructing, the swamp of sensuality — hard-to-cross.

The AV's most vivid flood-and-swamp imagery. Mahogha ("great flood") extends Snp 4.1:6.3's ogha vocabulary; kāma-paṅka ("swamp of sensuality") is unique to this verse in the AV. The verse closes on duraccayo ("hard-to-cross") — the same adjective the AV uses for visattikā elsewhere.

v. 16 (Sn 950) — the five-witness verse.

Sabbaso nāmarūpasmiṁ, / yassa natthi mamāyitaṁ; / Asatā ca na socati, / sa ve loke na jīyati.

For one who has no "mine" anywhere in name-and-form, and does not grieve over "what does not exist" — he indeed does not diminish in the world.

The AV's most densely-attested single verse in the Dhammapada-tradition — verified across five primary witnesses: Pāli Snp 4.15, Pāli Dhp 367, Sanskrit Udānavarga 32.17 (Bernhard 1965), Chinese Udānavarga T0212 ch. 33 v. 12 (Zhu Fonian 399 CE), Chinese Udānavarga T0213 ch. 32 v. 11 (Tianxizai, Song), plus Gāndhārī Brough 1962 v. 79. Six witnesses total; see Cross-recensional witnesses for the critical pāda-d divergence — the Pāli AV is the only witness whose pāda d reads loke na jīyati ("not overcome in the world") rather than the Dhammapada-tradition's "he is called a bhikkhu." This is the AV's clearest case of redactor-level textual modification detectable cross-recensionally (see Ch 4 treatment).

v. 20 (Sn 954) — the closing.

Same visesī udavā nihīno, / yo maññatī so vivadetha tena; / Tīsu vidhāsu avikampamāno, / ... santo vītagedho, nādeti na nirassatīti.

Not among the equal, not among the lower, not among the higher — the sage does not speak [of himself]. Stilled, greed-gone, he neither takes up nor casts down.

Nādeti na nirassatī — "he neither takes up nor casts down" — is the variant-verbal form of the AV's attā-nirattā formula family. Verbatim with the semantic content of Snp 4.3:8.3 (Attā nirattā na hi tassa atthi), Snp 4.10:11.3 (Attā vā nirattā vā), Snp 4.14:5.4 (natthi attā kuto nirattā vā). Six-witness across four AV suttas; Norman's ātta / nirasta reading ("taken-up / laid-down") is the published consensus against the Niddesa's ātman / nirātman reading.

Choice-points

v. 1, attadaṇḍa reading. Two etymologies:

• Moral (Niddesa): atta-daṇḍa = "one's own [bad] conduct" — three-fold daṇḍa (bodily / verbal / mental violence). The reading derives fear from one's own wrong-kamma.
• Violent (modern consensus): atta-daṇḍa = "taken-up-rod / weapon-raised" — atta as past-participle of ā-dā- ("takes up") plus daṇḍa ("stick, weapon"). Supported by SN 1.70, SN 4.25 Samiddhi-series, Dhp 406, and Pj II's own comment on Snp v. 630 (attadaṇḍesu janesu nibbutaṁ, "peaceful among weapon-bearers"). Norman 2001 p. 381: "Since attadaṇḍa elsewhere has the meaning 'uplifted stick'… it is probable that that is the meaning here, especially as the verse goes on to say 'look at people quarrelling,' which implies violence."

Modern translator consensus follows the violent reading: Sujato "Taking Up Arms"; Bodhi "One Who Has Taken Up the Rod"; Fronsdal "Violence"; Thanissaro "Violence"; Norman "[One Who Has] Taken Up a Stick"; Lee "Taking Up Weapons." The violent reading aligns with the Pj II occasion (Śākyan-Koliyan water-quarrel over the Rohiṇī river, matching Jātaka 536 and Dhp-a III 254).

v. 1, saṁvijita etymology. Two roots: saṁ-√vid ("to know") — "as it was known / experienced by me"; saṁ-√vij ("to tremble, shake") — "as it was shaken / stirred in me." The latter preserves the etymological connection to saṁvega itself (saṁ-√vij). Pj II, per Lee 2024 (p. 588 n. 44), reads the verse as placing the saṁvega in the Buddha's bodhisatta period — the pre-awakening realisation of saṁsāric suffering. A biographical reading that makes Round 1 the Buddha's narrative of his own path-to-awakening.

v. 6, tattha sikkhānugīyanti as seam. Fronsdal's reading (2016) of this line as an explicit in-text editorial marker is interpretively load-bearing. If the line is a recitation-cue marking the transition from autobiographical narrative to practice-catalog, the AV itself preserves evidence of a compositional seam — unusual in early verse and worth Chapter 4's detailed treatment. An alternative reading treats the phrase as internal to the Round 2 content rather than as a stratification-marker; the Niddesa appears to prefer the latter, but Fronsdal's reading is contextually apt.

v. 16, nāmarūpasmiṁ vs. saṁnicaya. Bernhard's Sanskrit UV 32.17 reads yasya saṁnicayo na asti ("for whom there is no accumulation"); Pāli Dhp 367, Pāli Snp 4.15, and both Chinese UV translations read nāmarūpa. Five of six witnesses attest nāmarūpa; Bernhard's reading is the isolated variant. The Pāli form — the technical Buddhist ontological term — appears to be the older form on multiple-witness grounds, against the initial lectio-difficilior guess (Bernhard's more secular saṁnicaya ["accumulation"] might seem older). The Chinese UV translators (working from Indic sources in 399 CE and in the Song dynasty) preserve what appears to be the textually-more-conservative form.

Vocabulary and commentary

Lexical profile. Round 1's vocabulary is autobiographical-narrative: attadaṇḍa, bhaya, samvega, phandamāna, salla, hadaya, nissita. Round 2's vocabulary is practice-catalog-register: gathita, sikkhā, medhāga, thīna-middha, māna, pamāda, ajjhopāya, ānisaṁsa, anejassa, nisaṅkhati. The two registers do not share vocabulary items; the composite-sutta reading is supported lexically as well as thematically.

Cross-AV bonds: nādeti na nirassatī (v. 20 variant-form of attā-nirattā family: 4.3:8.3, 4.10:11.3, 4.14:5.4); mosavajje na nīyetha (v. 14 = 4.14:14.2 Sn 932); pharusena ne na paṭivajjā non-retaliation formula shared with 4.14 and 4.16; the closing same visesī uda vā nihīno triplet at v. 20 = Snp 4.5:4.3, 4.7:9.3, 4.9:8.1. The late-AV cluster (4.14, 4.15, 4.16) shares dense practice-catalog vocabulary.

Mahāniddesa (Mnd 15). Covers all twenty verses. The Niddesa on Round 1 is unusually literal — it treats the first-person narrative as the Buddha's direct autobiographical testimony and supplies the full saṁvega-doctrine. The Niddesa on Round 2 is practice-cataloging: the standard 22-defilement cascade on gathita, the seven-fold salla list on v. 4, the ogha-fourfold on mahogha. At v. 16 (Sn 950), the Niddesa imports the same nāmarūpa-four-mahābhūta analysis as the prose Nikāyas — placing the AV's verse in the canonical-doctrinal framework.

Cross-recensional witnesses

Pāli: full; 20 verses.

Chinese Yizujing YZJ-16 維樓勒王經 ("King Virūḍhaka Sūtra") at [T0198_p0189a01]–[T0198_p0189c22]: 21 verses = 20 parallel + 1 added (Lee 2024 Table 2). The Chinese frame narrative supplies a completely different occasion from the Pj II Pāli commentarial frame:

• Pj II: the Śākyan-Koliyan water-quarrel over the Rohiṇī river — the Buddha intervenes between two armies preparing to fight over water rights. Consistent with Jātaka 536 and Dhp-a III 254.
• Yizujing: the Virūḍhaka-genocide — King Virūḍhaka of Kosala leading his army to massacre the Śākyans at Kapilavastu. The Buddha intervenes (or fails to intervene, depending on narrative version) in the genocide-prevention scene. Matches the canonical Virūḍhaka-narrative of DN 27 Aggañña-sutta and Dhp-a I 357.

Both frames are Śākyan-military-crisis narratives, but they select different canonical incidents. The convergence on the Śākyans-at-war genre, against the Pāli canonical text's content-silence on any specific occasion, is notable — both traditions independently reach for a Śākyan-military episode as the natural occasion for the Attadaṇḍa verses' fear-from-weapon-bearers opening.

Sanskrit (Hoernle 1916): not attested. Hoernle's four folios stop at the 10th varga.

Gāndhārī (Split Arthapada): not attested. The scroll's coverage ends at Sn 844.

Sanskrit / Chinese / Gāndhārī Dharmapada-tradition: Sn 950 (v. 16) is preserved as the AV's five-witness verse across the Dhp-tradition.

• Pāli Dhp 367 — direct parallel with identical pādas a, b, c but pāda d reading "he is indeed called a bhikkhu" rather than the AV's loke na jīyati.
• Sanskrit Udānavarga 32.17 (Bernhard 1965 p. 2843) — preserves the Dhp-tradition bhikkhu-vocative pāda d (sa vai bhikṣur nirucyate); pāda a reads yasya saṁnicayo na asti (outlier against the other four witnesses' nāmarūpa).
• Chinese UV T0212 ch. 33 v. 12 (Zhu Fonian, 399 CE) — 一切名色… 乃為比丘 ("entirely name-and-form… thus a bhikkhu").
• Chinese UV T0213 ch. 32 v. 11 (Tianxizai, Song) — 一切諸名色… 乃名真苾芻 ("entirely name-and-form-s… thus called a true bhikṣu").
• Gāndhārī Dhp (Brough 1962) v. 79 — ta nama-ruvasa asajamana / akijana nanuvadadi dukhu. Preserves nāma-rūpa in pāda a; pāda c reads akiñcana ("having-nothing"); pāda d reads nanuvadadi dukhu ("suffering does not pursue [him]") — a third distinct pāda-d reading.

Three distinct pāda-d readings across six witnesses:

• "Called a bhikkhu" — Dhp 367, UV 32.17, T0212, T0213 (four witnesses, cross-linguistic across Pāli, Sanskrit, two Chinese translations).
• "Not overcome in the world" — Pāli Snp 4.15 only.
• "Suffering does not pursue him" — Gāndhārī Brough v. 79 only.

The Pāli AV is the outlier. The Dhammapada-tradition's four-witness agreement on the bhikkhu-vocative closing makes the AV's loke na jīyati the modified reading. The most economical explanation: a verse originally circulating in the Dhammapada-tradition with a bhikkhu-vocative close was incorporated into the Pāli Aṭṭhakavagga with pāda d rewritten to match the AV's thematic register. The AV's loke na jīyati ("not overcome in the world") fits the collection's broader "flood-crosser / unshaken sage" vocabulary (cf. oghatiṇṇa at Snp 4.7:10.3); the bhikkhu-vocative closing is the Dhammapada-tradition's house style (cf. Dhp chapters 25 Bhikkhu-vagga, 26 Brāhmaṇa-vagga).

This is the AV's clearest case of redactor-level textual modification detectable through cross-recensional primary-text comparison. Chapter 4 treats this as methodological proof-of-concept — compositional stratigraphy can be evidenced empirically at the pāda level through cross-recensional analysis, not only inferred from stylistic cues.

UV ch. 32 Bhikṣu-varga contains further motif-level overlap with Snp 4.15 vv. 7–20 beyond Sn 950: the anokasārī / aniketa-sārī (homeless-wanderer) vocabulary at UV 32.5 (cognate of Snp 4.9:10 Sn 844); the hand-foot-speech-controlled triplet at UV 32.7 parallelling Snp 4.15 v. 9; the mountain-unshaken-by-wind yathā parvataḥ śailo simile at UV 32.11–16 parallelling Snp 4.15's aneja vocabulary at v. 19. UV ch. 32 and Snp 4.15 vv. 7–20 are compositional kin — both collect bhikṣu/muni-ideal verses drawn from a shared verse-stock, arranged differently in the two traditions.

Coverage note. Snp 4.15 has the AV's densest Dhp-tradition attestation via Sn 950's six-witness presence, the AV's longest-established composite-sutta reading via the v. 6 tattha sikkhānugīyanti seam, the AV's only first-person-Buddha-voice passage, and the AV's most divergent cross-recensional frames (Śākyan-Koliyan water-quarrel vs. Virūḍhaka genocide). Cross-recensionally, 4.15 is among the richest AV suttas.

Internal cross-references

Within the AV. Nādeti na nirassatī (v. 20) is the variant-verbal form of the attā-nirattā formula family — four-sutta AV bond with 4.3:8.3, 4.10:11.3, 4.14:5.4. Mosavajje na nīyetha (v. 14) = 4.14:14.2 Sn 932 verbatim — the late-AV practice-catalog bond. Pharusena ne na paṭivajjā non-retaliation (v. 17) shared with 4.14:17 and 4.16:17. Same visesī uda vā nihīno triplet at v. 20 = 4.5:4.3, 4.7:9.3, 4.9:8.1 — the AV's anti-conceit grammar. Oghatiṇṇa / mahogha flood-vocabulary (v. 11) echoes 4.1:6.3, 4.7:10.3. The salla-in-the-heart image at v. 4 echoes 4.1:2.4 sallaviddhova ruppati but locates the dart inside the Buddha's own autobiographical narrative rather than as a generic simile.

Within the Khuddaka. Sn 950 = Dhp 367 (pādas a, b, c identical; pāda d AV-modified). The saṁvega vocabulary echoes Snp 3.8 Sallasutta (another salla-themed death-meditation sutta; cross-Snp twin with Snp 4.6). The Niddesa's saṁvega-doctrine gloss on Round 1 draws on AN 4.113 Patoda-sutta (the four types of horses responding to the goad), a canonical saṁvega-formula passage. The practice-catalog of Round 2 is structurally related to Snp 1.3 Khaggavisāṇa and to Snp 4.14 Round 2.

Prose-nikāya uptake. No direct named-citation of Snp 4.15. The sutta's Round 1 is the AV's strongest connection to the canonical-biographical narrative of the Buddha's pre-awakening saṁvega; Pj II places the saṁvega episode in the bodhisatta-period, aligning it with the DN 14 Mahāpadānasutta / Dīghanikāya buddhavaṁsa biographical-framework.

Reception and external attestation

Mahāniddesa: Mnd 15 covers all twenty verses. Literal on Round 1's autobiographical narrative; practice-cataloguing on Round 2. Sn 950 receives a full nāmarūpa-mamāyita gloss at mnd15:155.1.

Paramatthajotikā II: the Śākyan-Koliyan water-quarrel frame. The Buddha intervenes between two armies preparing to fight over the Rohiṇī river; the Attadaṇḍa verses are the intervention-discourse.

Aśoka Bhabru edict: not identified.

Peṭakopadesa: no verse of Snp 4.15 is cited in Pe chapter 1's AV-extraction.

Reading

Snp 4.15 is the AV's autobiographical-meditative centrepiece and among the oldest Pāli texts on the standard scholarly consensus (Cousins, Jayawickrama, Schmithausen, Lee). The sutta's Round 1 is the AV's only first-person Buddha-voice passage — an autobiographical saṁvega narrative running from the sight of weapon-bearing armies through the vision of people floundering like fish in little water to the climactic diagnostic I saw here a dart, hard-to-see, lodged in the heart. The Buddha's own awakening-to-suffering is narrated in verse at the AV's penultimate position, giving the collection its one autobiographical anchor. Round 2's practice-catalog then applies the diagnostic finding — once the dart is known, this is what the training looks like.

The composite-sutta reading rests on three convergent lines of evidence. Lexically, Round 1 and Round 2 share no vocabulary items — the two registers are distinct. Structurally, v. 6's tattha sikkhānugīyanti ("the trainings are recited there") functions as an explicit editorial marker, flagged by Fronsdal as a seam unusual in Pāli early verse for being announced in-text. Thematically, the first-person autobiography of Round 1 and the third-person imperatives of Round 2 inhabit different voices with no transitional bridge. These three lines together make 4.15 the AV's clearest composite-sutta case, more so than 4.16 (whose Śloka-Triṣṭubh seam is metrical rather than thematic-structural) or 4.14 (whose Q2 interrogation at v. 7 is a milder transition).

Sn 950 is the sutta's most methodologically important verse for the book's broader argument. Six-witness attestation across Pāli (×2), Sanskrit (×1), Chinese (×2), and Gāndhārī (×1) traditions; three distinct pāda-d readings; the Pāli AV as the single outlier against a four-witness Dhammapada-tradition agreement. The natural reading — the AV redactor modified pāda d from the Dhammapada-tradition's bhikkhu-vocative close to an AV-theme-matching "not overcome in the world" — gives the book its clearest primary-text evidence of redactor-level textual modification detectable cross-recensionally. Chapter 4's stratigraphic reading uses Sn 950 as methodological proof-of-concept: compositional choices at the pāda level are empirically recoverable through cross-recensional triangulation, not only inferable from stylistic cues within a single recension. This is the book's single strongest argument that stratigraphic analysis of the AV is empirically grounded rather than speculative.

The cross-recensional Śākyan-military-crisis frame convergence between Pj II (water-quarrel) and Yizujing (Virūḍhaka genocide) is a second-order finding. Both Pāli commentarial and Chinese recensional traditions independently chose a Śākyan-at-war occasion for the verses' fear-from-weapon-bearers opening, without converging on a specific incident. The convergence on the genre (Buddha intervenes between armies; Śākyans in military crisis) with divergence on the incident (water-quarrel vs. Virūḍhaka-genocide) makes the verse-core / narrative-envelope pattern visible again — two traditions reaching for the same type of occasion independently, drawn by the verse's internal content to similar but non-identical framings. The pattern recurs at Snp 4.3 (Sundarī across three traditions), 4.4 (Candābha / Mojie), 4.10 (three-frames — Suddhodana / Mṛgaśiras / Pj II), and is the AV's signature transmission-historical feature. At 4.15 the convergence is on Śākyan-military-crisis; elsewhere it is on narrative incident; what is consistent is the pattern of independent tradition-specific framings around stable verse-cores.

Round 2's practice-catalog closes the AV on a programmatic note. The sage is same visesī uda vā nihīno, yo maññatī so vivadetha tena — the three-mode conceit triplet shared with 4.5, 4.7, 4.9 — and the closing santo vītagedho nādeti na nirassatī brings the attā-nirattā family to its final AV occurrence in variant-verbal form. The sutta that opens on the Buddha's own saṁvega closes on the sage who neither takes up nor casts down. Round 1 narrates the diagnosis; Round 2 prescribes the training; v. 20 names the achieved goal-state in the AV's signature no-position formula. The collection's closing sutta (4.16 Sāriputta) will supply the formal pedagogical frame — a named disciple asking for practice-instruction — but the substantive arc of practice-and-goal is complete at the close of 4.15.