To Tissa Metteyya

Identity

Segment range snp4.7:1.1–10.4. Sn 814–823 (10 verses). Received title Tissametteyyasutta — after the sutta's named interlocutor. The AV's first dialogue sutta: a named figure (Tissa Metteyya) asks the Buddha a question; the Buddha answers. But the dialogue-framing is itself interpretively contested: Norman (2001 p. 342) and Fronsdal (note 1 to ch. 7) both flag the speaker-tags as metrically non-original — they were added pre-Niddesa as reciter's notes but are not part of the original poem. Hoernle's Sanskrit (Frag. I) independently restructures the opening as prose introduction with the Q-content as embedded quotation — cross-recensional evidence that the Pāli's Q-A verse pair may be a metrification of what was originally prose narrative.

Text and form

Śloka throughout (Norman 2001 p. 343) — the AV's return to śloka metre for the first time since 4.1, and the collection's only other śloka sutta. No other AV sutta uses śloka; the two śloka suttas (4.1, 4.7) are also the AV's most concrete and least image-poor, suggesting śloka may be the metre for the AV's didactic-narrative content while Triṣṭubh serves the dialectical-philosophical content.

Speaker-tags (iccāyasmā tisso metteyyo at v. 1; metteyyāti bhagavā at v. 2). Norman and Fronsdal both flag these as extrametrical and non-original. The Niddesa already glosses them, so they were added pre-Niddesa but post the original verse-composition — consistent with the canonical convention of reciters adding interlocutor-identifications to standalone verse-clusters during transmission.

Architecture. Dialogue frame (vv. 1–2) around a 7-verse single-speaker discourse on the vibbhanta (disrobed monk):

• v. 1 — Tissa Metteyya asks the danger of methuna;
• v. 2 — Buddha names the danger: the teaching is forgotten, one practises wrongly;
• vv. 3–7 — the phenomenology of the disrobed monk: the chariot off-track (v. 3), the loss of fame (v. 4), the brooding wretch (v. 5), the verbal-attacker who sinks into falsehood (v. 6), the once-wise man reduced to a troubled fool (v. 7);
• v. 8 — the pivot: knowing this before-and-after, a sage firmly resolves;
• v. 9 — the prescription: train only in seclusion; don't think oneself best on that account; such a one is near to nibbāna;
• v. 10 — the closing goal-portrait: the empty muni unconcerned with kāma, envied by those still bound.

The dialogue-tags frame a discourse-structure that would read continuously without them — supporting Norman and Fronsdal's compositional reading that the verses were originally a single-speaker composition.

Content

Methunamanuyuttassa, vighātaṁ brūhi — Tissa Metteyya: "Tell us, sir, what trouble befalls one given over to sexual intercourse. Hearing your teaching, we shall train in seclusion." The Buddha answers: when one is given over to methuna, the teaching is forgotten, and one practises wrongly — that is something ignoble.

One who formerly wandered alone and then resorts to methuna is like a chariot careening off-track in the world; they call him a base ordinary person. Whatever fame and reputation he had before falls away; seeing this, one should train to give up methuna. Oppressed by sexual thoughts, he broods like a wretch; hearing the scorn of others, that sort is embarrassed. Then he makes weapons, reproached by others' words; this is his great greed — he sinks into falsehood. He was once known as wise, committed to the solitary life; but yoked to methuna, he is troubled like a fool.

Knowing this danger in the before-and-after, a sage should firmly resolve to wander alone and should not resort to methuna. One should train only in seclusion — this, for the noble ones, is highest. One should not think oneself best on that account; such a one is near to nibbāna. The empty muni wandering, unconcerned with sensual pleasures — people tied to sensual pleasures envy him, the flood-crossed.

Key passages

v. 3 (Sn 816) — the chariot image.

Eko pubbe caritvāna, / methunaṁ yo nisevati; / Yānaṁ bhantaṁva taṁ loke, / hīnamāhu puthujjanaṁ.

One who formerly wandered alone and then resorts to methuna — like a chariot careening off-track in the world — they call him a base ordinary person.

The sutta's signature image. Hoernle's Sanskrit at Frag. I obv. 1.5 preserves this verse in near-direct cognate: yo nisevate methunam … yānaṁ bhrāntaṁ yathā … loke hīnam āhuḥ prthagjanam. The wobbling-chariot simile (yānaṁ bhantaṁ / yānaṁ bhrāntaṁ) survives word-for-word across the Pāli and Sanskrit recensions.

v. 5 (Sn 818) — the wretch brooding.

Saṅkappehi pareto so, / kapaṇo viya jhāyati; / Sutvā paresaṁ nigghosaṁ, / maṅku hoti tathāvidho.

Oppressed by [sexual] thoughts, he broods like a wretch. Hearing the scorn of others, that sort is embarrassed.

The Niddesa elaborates with four animal-similes (owl hunting mouse, jackal hunting fish, cat at a sewer-gap, donkey with a broken cart — all brooding animals). BHS phonological datum: Hoernle (Frag. I obv. 1.6) reads dhyāyato where the Pāli has jhāyati. The Pāli jhāyati here is from √kṣai ("to languish, dwindle"); the BHS redactor treated it as if from √dhyai ("to meditate") — a phonological misanalysis since MIA jh can develop from kṣ, not only from dhy. Direct external attestation that the verse circulated in Buddhist Sanskrit and underwent cross-recensional vocabulary-misanalysis in transmission.

v. 6 (Sn 819) — weapons and falsehood.

Atha satthāni kurute, / paravādehi codito; / Esa khvassa mahāgedho, / mosavajjaṁ pagāhati.

Then he makes weapons, reproached by others' words; this is his great greed — he sinks into falsehood.

Norman (p. 344) flags gedha as a possible phonological variant of godha ("binding") on the strength of Aśoka's Fifth Rock Edict, which alternates apalibodha (< budh-) with apaligodha (< gudh-). A 3rd-c. BCE external attestation that the root-vocabulary of the AV's ethical register shares forms with the Aśokan edicts.

v. 9 (Sn 822) — anti-conceit and nibbāna-santike.

Vivekaññeva sikkhetha, / etaṁ ariyānamuttamaṁ; / Na tena seṭṭho maññetha, / sa ve nibbānasantike.

One should train only in seclusion — this, for the noble ones, is highest. One should not think oneself best on that account — such a one is near to nibbāna.

Na tena seṭṭho maññetha echoes Snp 4.5:4.3 Samoti attānamanūpaneyya, hīno na maññetha visesi vāpi — the AV's signature anti-spiritual-pride move, the triplet samo / hīno / visesi as the no-comparison grammar. Nibbāna-santike ("near to nibbāna") is the AV's most positive goal-language, concrete and spatial — a conspicuous contrast to the collection's usual no-position vocabulary.

v. 10 (Sn 823) — the closing.

Rittassa munino carato, / Kāmesu anapekkhino; / Oghatiṇṇassa pihayanti, / Kāmesu gadhitā pajā.

The empty muni wandering, unconcerned with sensual pleasures — people tied to sensual pleasures envy him, the flood-crossed.

The Niddesa imports the classical 5-fold longing-simile at mnd7:79.3 — "like one in debt longs for debtlessness, like the diseased for health, like one bound for release, like a slave for freedom, like a rough-road traveller for safe ground, so beings tied to kāma long for the flood-crossed state." A shared simile-cluster with DN 2 Sāmaññaphalasutta.

Choice-points

Speaker-tag status. Iccāyasmā tisso metteyyo (v. 1) and metteyyāti bhagavā (v. 2) break the metre — they are extrametrical reciter's-notes added pre-Niddesa but post the original verse-composition. Norman and Fronsdal both make this argument independently. Hoernle's Sanskrit corroborates from the other direction: the Sanskrit opening at Frag. I obv. 1.1–1.4 is prose introduction with the v. 1 content quoted inside ("at that time he spoke this Arthavargīya Sūtra: 'for one given to methuna…'"), with the Sanskrit verse-body beginning at what the Pāli calls v. 3. The Pāli's Q-A verse pair may be a metrification of what was originally a prose narrative frame with embedded question. The implication is that the sutta's dialogue framing is a late transmission feature, not an original compositional feature. The underlying discourse reads continuously as a single-speaker Buddha monologue on the disrobed monk.

v. 5, jhāyati. The Pāli form is from √kṣai ("to languish, dwindle, brood wretchedly"). The BHS version (Hoernle 1916A p. 71) reads dhyāyato — treating the form as if from √dhyai ("to meditate"). Norman (p. 344) identifies this as cross-recensional phonological misanalysis: the BHS redactor did not realise that MIA jh could develop from kṣ (not only from dhy). The Pāli reading is philologically correct.

v. 6, gedha. Norman (p. 344) flags a possible phonological-historical connection to godha ("binding, attachment") on the strength of Aśoka's Fifth Rock Edict apalibodha / apaligodha alternation. The verse's sense — mahāgedho as "great greed" — is secure on its own terms; the etymological connection to godha is a supplementary datum that places the AV's root-vocabulary in the post-Aśokan phonological environment.

v. 2, sāsana. The Niddesa (mnd7:17–18) imports the nine-fold aṅga taxonomy of Buddhist literature (suttaṁ, geyyaṁ, veyyākaraṇaṁ, gāthā, udānaṁ, itivuttakaṁ, jātakaṁ, abbhutadhammaṁ, vedallaṁ) on the bare sāsana — a Vinaya-period canonical-codification scheme imposed on a single word.

Vocabulary and commentary

Lexical profile. Snp 4.7 is the only AV sutta with no diṭṭhi-debate vocabulary. The collection's signature lexicon — diṭṭha-suta-muta-sīlavata, attaṁ pahāya / attā nirattā, kappa / purekkhāra / nivesana, brāhmaṇa re-appropriation — is absent. In its place, the vocabulary is Vinaya-period institutional-Buddhist: methuna, sāsana, sikkhā, ekacariyā, viveka, paṇḍita, vibbhanta-implied, anāriya, ariya, nibbāna-santike. Combined with the śloka metre and the non-original speaker-tags, this makes the sutta stylistically and register-ically distinct from the AV's core diṭṭhi-debate cluster.

A small archaism preserves at v. 1: sikkhissāmase (first-person plural future with Vedic -āmase ending; Norman's note on v. 32). Consistent with the AV's Vedic-archaism markers elsewhere (Snp 4.2's cutāse, avītataṇhāse; Snp 4.4's sitāse; Snp 4.6's jarasā).

Mahāniddesa (Mnd 7). The Niddesa for this sutta is the AV commentary's most ethnographically concrete. Three specific findings:

1. Maritime trade routes at mnd7:56. The Niddesa catalogues routes a wealth-pursuing disrobed monk might take: Takkasīla (Taxila), Suvaṇṇabhūmi (mainland Southeast Asia), Tambapāṇi (Sri Lanka), Suppāraka (Sopara, Maharashtra coast), Bhārukaccha (Broach, Gujarat), Yona (Greek-influenced regions, probably NW India / Bactria), Marukantāra (the Thar desert), and named hill-and-mountain-pass routes (Jaṇṇupatha, Ajapatha, Meṇḍapatha, Saṅkupatha, Chattapatha). The presence of Yona gives a terminus post quem for Mnd 7's composition in the 3rd–2nd c. BCE or later — post-Aśoka, in line with the standard Niddesa-dating.

2. Royal punishments at mnd7:56. A 32-fold catalog of corporal punishments (whipping, caning, dismemberment, the bilaṅgathālikā porridge-pot treatment, the saṅkhamuṇḍika shell-shaved treatment, the rāhumukha Rāhu's-mouth treatment, impalement, etc.) — the same list attested at MN 13 and MN 129. Concrete historical-sociological evidence of contemporary criminal punishments.

3. Family-obligation excuses for disrobing at mnd7:46. Direct quotations of the kinds of justifications disrobed monks offered: "I was happy in the going-forth, but my mother had to be supported, so I disrobed… my father / brother / sister / son / daughter / friend / kinsman had to be supported, so I disrobed." Ethnographic reportage: the Niddesa knows the social phenomenon of monastic disrobing from close acquaintance with the excuses actually offered.

Other Niddesa moves are standard — the 9-fold aṅga taxonomy on sāsana, the 10-fold puthujjana etymology, the three sikkhā plus four-truth formula on sikkhetha, the 22-defilement cascade on ritta, the five-fold longing-simile on oghatiṇṇa. The ethnographic content is what distinguishes Mnd 7 from the more abstract Niddesas for the diṭṭhi-debate cluster.

Cross-recensional witnesses

Pāli: full; 10 verses.

Sanskrit (Hoernle 1916 Fragment I). The AV Sanskrit editio princeps begins with Snp 4.7. Coverage is dense but gappy: five of ten verses are directly preserved (Sn 816, 818, 820, 822; Sn 814 as prose-embedded quotation), and five are lost to MS damage (817, 819, 821, 823, plus 815 subsumed with 814 in prose). Two substantive findings from the preserved Sanskrit:

• The opening is restructured as prose (Frag. I obv. 1.1–1.4). Sn 814 appears as a prose-embedded quotation — "at that time he spoke this Arthavargīya Sūtra: 'for one given to methuna…'" — not as a standalone verse with speaker-tag. Hoernle (p. 711) notes this matches the structural pattern of Snp 3.3 Subhāsitasutta in the Pāli Mahāvagga itself (where Sn 450 is quoted inside prose narrative). The Sanskrit verse-body begins at what the Pāli calls v. 3. This is cross-recensional evidence that the Pāli's v. 1–2 as standalone verses is a metrification — a Pāli-stream conversion of what was originally prose narrative with embedded quotation. The speaker-tag non-originality (Norman / Fronsdal) and the Sanskrit prose-frame converge on the same compositional reading.
• The verse-body is recensionally stable. Where Sanskrit is preserved (Sn 816, 818, 820, 822), the Pāli–Sanskrit correspondence is near-verbatim: yo nisevate methunam / yānaṁ bhrāntaṁ yathā … loke hīnam āhuḥ prthagjanam (816); kapaṇaṁ dhyāyato bata / śrutvā dhīrasya nīgghoṣaṁ mām(ku)r bhavati (818); sa c=eva maithune yukto ma(ndava)t pratidṛ(śyate) (820); [purvba]pareṣadā ten=anyam n=[ān]va manyeta (822). This is the AV's first full Pāli-Sanskrit verse-cognate evidence — consistent with the collection's 16-sutta pre-bifurcation structure (Chapter 1 §1.3): the verse-cores are shared pre-recensional material, the narrative envelopes are recension-specific.

Gāndhārī: not attested. The Split Arthapada scroll begins at Sn 841 (Snp 4.9).

Chinese Yizujing YZJ-7 彌勒難經 ("Maitreya's Inquiry Sūtra") at [T0198_p0179a24]–[T0198_p0179b10] (frame) plus verse-body: 10 parallel + 0 added verses (Lee 2024 Table 2) — like YZJ-2 and YZJ-4, a clean 1:1 verse-count parallel, with all narrative expansion kept in prose.

The frame is distinctive and theologically pointed: elderly bhikkhus at Rajagaha's Veḷuvana discuss dharmavinaya; Sāriputta is present but cannot answer properly; Mahā-Koṭṭhita (likely — 大句私, with the identification philologically plausible though not fully confirmed) instructs him via the Samādhi-sūtra; Maitreya then arrives at Sāriputta's dwelling, poses challenging dharmavinaya questions, and Sāriputta is stumped (冥於是事不能對, "obscured on this matter, unable to respond"). Maitreya then goes to the Buddha and asks the questions in verse. The verses of Snp 4.7 follow.

This is a pointedly Maitreya-exalting narrative that the Pāli does not preserve. Maitreya outperforms Sāriputta in dharmavinaya knowledge; Maitreya is the intermediary between Sāriputta's failure and the Buddha's teaching. Given that the Yizujing was translated by Zhi Qian c. 223–253 CE, this is early evidence of Maitreya's elevated status in the transmission-chain behind the Chinese recension — centuries before the full Maitreya-bodhisattva cult is documented elsewhere in Chinese Buddhism. For the tradition behind the Chinese AV, Tissa-Metteyya is not only named but theologically upgraded.

Pj II's framing is different: two friends, Tissa and Metteyya. Metteyya becomes arahant; Tissa disrobes; Metteyya asks the Buddha for Tissa's sake. Pj II reads "Tissa Metteyya" as referring to a single person (Tissa = personal name; Metteyya = clan); the Yizujing reads it as two persons (Tissa = the Cittahatthisāriputta-implied disrobing monk; Metteyya = Maitreya the elevated questioner).

Peṭakopadesa: Sn 818 quoted verbatim at pe1:58.1 — "Saṅkappehi pareto so, kapaṇo viya jhāyati; Sutvā paresaṁ nigghosaṁ, maṅku hoti tathāvidho". Primary-text verified. Combined with the Pe's citations of Snp 4.2 (Sn 774, 777) and Snp 4.6 (Sn 804, 807), this is the fifth AV verse cited in Pe chapter 1. The Pe's colophon at pe9:65.1 attributes the whole manual to Thera Mahākaccāyana — doubling the tradition-internal Mahākaccāna–AV link established at SN 22.3, Ud 5.6, and the cross-recensional Divyāvadāna and Mahāvastu witnesses. Chapter 8 treats the extended web in detail.

Coverage note. Snp 4.7 is the AV's first fully 3-recension sutta at verse-level (Pāli + Chinese + Sanskrit), the first where the Pāli–Sanskrit verse-cognate correspondence is primary-text-verifiable, and the first where cross-recensional evidence (Sanskrit prose-restructure + speaker-tag non-originality) converges on a compositional-history reading of the sutta's dialogue framing.

Internal cross-references

Within the AV. The Na tena seṭṭho maññetha anti-conceit move (v. 9) echoes Snp 4.5:4.3's samo / hīno / visesi triplet — the AV's signature anti-spiritual-pride formula recurring across the diṭṭhi-debate cluster and into the dialogue suttas. Methuna vocabulary is shared with Snp 4.9:1.2's Māgandiya-sutta (the Buddha's autobiographical Nāhosi chando api methunasmiṁ). The closing oghatiṇṇa muni of v. 10 echoes the AV's repeated pāragū / oghatiṇṇa goal-vocabulary across the collection.

Cross-AV–PV linkage: Tissa Metteyya appears as named interlocutor in both Snp 4.7 (AV) and Snp 5.3 Tissametteyyamāṇavapucchā (PV), using the same speaker-tag formula (iccāyasmā tissametteyyo / metteyyāti bhagavā) in both. The two suttas share a named-character tradition across the AV and PV — a cross-collection linkage that may reflect a shared reciter-tradition transmitting both collections, possibly under the Mahākaccāna-attributed pedagogy the Pe citations suggest (Chapter 8). Snp 5.3's vocabulary (ubhantam abhiññāya, majjhe mantā na lippati, sibbinim accagā) also echoes AV themes: ubhayante at Snp 4.5, paṇṇe vāri yathā na limpati at Snp 4.6.

Within the Khuddaka. Methuna vocabulary appears across Snp 1.12 Munisutta (Muniṁ carantaṁ virataṁ methunasmā), Snp 2.7 Brāhmaṇadhammikasutta (on the ancient brahmins' celibacy), Snp 4.7 (focal), and Snp 4.9 — a cross-vagga renunciate-celibacy stratum spanning Snp's Uraga-, Cūḷa-, and Aṭṭhaka-vaggas. The Niddesa's 32-fold punishment catalog is shared with MN 13 Mahādukkhakkhandha and MN 129 Bālapaṇḍita; the 5-fold longing-simile of v. 10 is shared with DN 2 Sāmaññaphala. The Niddesa's Samādhi-sūtra reference at the Yizujing's frame-position is paralleled in AN 6.60 Cittahatthisāriputta.

Prose-nikāya uptake. No direct named-citation of Snp 4.7. The Pe's citation of Sn 818 at pe1:58.1 is the sutta's strongest paracanonical anchoring. The Niddesa's family-obligation-excuses-for-disrobing content at mnd7:46 is consistent with the canonical-prose portrayal of disrobed monks (AN 6.60, various Vinaya passages).

Reception and external attestation

Mahāniddesa: Mnd 7 covers all ten verses. See Vocabulary and commentary.

Paramatthajotikā II: two-friends-Tissa-and-Metteyya framing (Bodhi 2017 apparatus). Metteyya becomes arahant; Tissa (his friend) disrobes for the sake of a woman; Metteyya asks the Buddha about Tissa's fate. Pj II reads "Tissa Metteyya" as a single named individual (Tissa = personal name; Metteyya = clan). The framing differs from the Yizujing's two-person reading (Tissa = the disrobing monk; Metteyya = Maitreya the elevated questioner) — another case of independent commentarial traditions supplying divergent narrative framings for the same verse-core.

Aśoka Bhabru edict: not identified.

Peṭakopadesa: Sn 818 verbatim at pe1:58.1 (see Cross-recensional witnesses). Attribution to Mahākaccāna at pe9:65.1.

Reading

Snp 4.7 is the AV's first dialogue sutta, its first return to śloka since 4.1, and the first sutta to operate in a Vinaya-period institutional-Buddhist register rather than the AV's own diṭṭhi-debate register. The vocabulary is methuna, sāsana, sikkhā, vibbhanta-implied, nibbāna-santike — the lexicon of the Buddhist monastic institution, not of the AV's dialectical polemic. None of the AV's signature diṭṭhi-debate formulas appear; none of its signature goal-vocabulary (dhono, anūpayo, kuppa-paṭicca-santi, diṭṭhasuta-muta) is present. The sutta belongs to the AV but does not speak the AV's characteristic idiom.

Two cross-recensional findings converge on a compositional-history reading of the dialogue framing. Norman and Fronsdal independently flag the speaker-tags iccāyasmā tisso metteyyo and metteyyāti bhagavā as metrically extrametrical — reciter's additions to the original verse-text, added pre-Niddesa but post-composition. Hoernle's Sanskrit corroborates from the other direction: the Sanskrit recension restructures the opening as prose introduction with the v. 1 content as an embedded quotation, not as a standalone metric verse with speaker-tag. The Pāli's Q-A verse pair is plausibly a metrification of what was originally prose narrative. The underlying discourse — vv. 3–10 without the framing pair — reads continuously as a single-speaker Buddha monologue on the disrobed monk. The dialogue-with-named-interlocutor is a transmission feature, not an original compositional feature.

This matters for the broader picture of the AV's reciter-transmission history. If the Tissa-Metteyya named-interlocutor framing of Snp 4.7 is a reciter-tradition construct, the parallel framing of Snp 5.3 Tissametteyyamāṇavapucchā (which uses the same speaker-tag formula) is likely the same reciter-tradition's construct. The AV and PV may have been transmitted together by a reciter-lineage that constructed paired named-interlocutor framings across both collections — and the Mahākaccāna-attributed Peṭakopadesa, which cites verses from Snp 4.2, 4.6, and 4.7, points to the Mahākaccāna reciter-tradition as the specific locus. Chapter 8 treats this convergence as the strongest candidate answer to the question of how the AV and PV came to be canonical collections under a shared pedagogical inheritance.

The Niddesa's ethnographic content for this sutta is the AV commentary's most historically concrete. The maritime trade routes catalog (Takkasīla → Suvaṇṇabhūmi → Tambapāṇi → Suppāraka → Bhārukaccha → Yona → Marukantāra) places the Niddesa's compositional context in the post-Aśokan period — the presence of Yona (Greek-influenced regions, implied by Alexander's conquests and their Indian-subcontinent aftermath) gives a plausible 3rd–2nd c. BCE terminus post quem. Combined with Norman's Aśoka-edict cross-reference at v. 6's gedha/godha, Mnd 7 is datable via internal evidence to the Aśokan-or-post-Aśokan period, in line with the standard Niddesa-dating discussion in Chapter 5.

The Yizujing's Maitreya-exalting frame is a distinct Chinese-tradition compositional move. Zhi Qian's 3rd-c.-CE translation preserves a narrative in which Maitreya outperforms Sāriputta on dharmavinaya and then poses the verses to the Buddha — early evidence of Maitreya's elevated tradition-internal status, centuries before the full Chinese Maitreya-bodhisattva cult is documented. For the transmission-stream behind the Chinese AV, Tissa-Metteyya is not only named but theologically upgraded. The Pāli preserves only the minimal speaker-tag; the Chinese preserves an elaborate priority narrative. Both are constructions layered over a verse-core whose Pāli–Sanskrit primary-text correspondence is stable where both recensions preserve it.