Aṅguttara Nikāya
4. Catukka Nipāta
IV. Cakka Vagga

The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha
IV. The Book of the Fours
IV. The Wheel

Sutta 40

Udāyī Suttaɱ

Udāyī

Translated from the Pali by Bhikkhu Bodhi.

© 2012 Bhikkhu Bodhi
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[43] [429]

[1][pts] Then the brahmin Udāyī approached the Blessed One and exchanged greetings with him.

When they had concluded their greetings and cordial talk, he sat down to one side and said to the Blessed One:

"Does Master Gotama praise sacrifice."

"I do not praise all sacrifice, brahmin, nor do I withhold praise from all sacrifice.

(1) I do not praise a violent sacrifice at which cattle, goats, rams, chickens, and pigs are slain, at which various creatures are led to slaughter.

(2) For what reason?

Because arahants and those who have entered the path to arahantship do not attend a violent sacrifice.

(3) "But I praise a non-violent sacrifice at which cattle, goats, rams, chickens, and pigs are not slain, where various creatures are not slaughtered, that is, a regular giving, a sacrifice offered by family custom.

(4) For what reason?

Because arahants and those who have entered the path to arahantship attend a non-violent sacrifice."

When a sacrifice is timely and allowable,
well prepared and non-violent,
[44] the self-controlled followers of the spiritual life
attend such a sacrifice as this.

Those in the world who have removed the coverings,
transcenders of time and destination,
the Buddhas who are proficient in sacrifice,
praise this kind of sacrifice.

Having prepared an appropriate gift,
whether of the ordinary kind or in memory of the dead,
one makes the sacrifice with a confident mind
to a fertile field, to followers of the spiritual life.

When what has been properly obtained
is properly offered, properly sacrificed,
to those worthy of offerings,
the sacrifice is vast and the deities are pleased.

The wise person endowed with faith,
having sacrificed thus with a generous mind,
is reborn in a happy world,
in [a realm] without affliction.