Aṅguttara Nikāya (AN) — The Numerical Discourses

N=1 representative distillation. Source: Henry Clarke Warren, Buddhism in Translations (Harvard Oriental Series vol. 3, 1896 / 1909 reprint), public-domain via Internet Archive buddhismintransl00warr. Warren cites the Pali Text Society edition of the AN by paragraph (Warren's A.iii.33 ≈ modern AN 3.33). Quote anchors are working text pending Phase 7 char-for-char verification against Warren. Methodology & tags: ../00-methodology.md. One structured reading, not authoritative.

Source-access note (important)

This entry was scoped to include the famous Kālāma Sutta (AN 3.65), Tittha (AN 3.61), Anubuddha (AN 4.1), Anaṇa (AN 4.62), Kosala / inevitabilities (AN 5.49), Saññā (AN 7.6), Abhisanda (AN 8.39), Sukha (AN 10.65), and Mahānāma (AN 11.11). The standard scholarly English edition — F.L. Woodward & E.M. Hare, The Book of the Gradual Sayings (PTS, 5 vols, 1932–1936) — is not yet in the public domain under U.S. copyright rules (foreign works first published 1932+ remain protected for 95 years from publication, putting Vol I out of PD until ~2028). Other PD anthologies surveyed (Warren 1896; Müller SBE X 1881; Rhys Davids' Dialogues covers DN, not AN) do not contain those specific suttas verbatim. No verbatim quote is given for any sutta not represented in Warren. The distillation below uses what Warren does translate from the AN — a substantial and representative cross-section covering karma (AN 3.33, 3.99, 4.197), the inevitabilities (AN 3.36 = "Death's Messengers", thematic cousin to AN 5.49 Kosala), the three trainings (AN 3.88 = sīla/samādhi/paññā), training-results (AN 2.31), and rebuke of the heaven-goal (AN 3.18, 3.37).

AN's role in the canon

The AN organises its suttas numerically — chapters (nipāta) of ones, twos, threes … up to elevens — making it the canon's go-to handbook for enumerated lists: three roots of karma, three trainings, four right efforts, five precepts, eightfold path, ten powers, and so on. It is heavily used in formation and recitation. The selections below illustrate the AN's characteristic mode: short doctrinal lists, vivid similes (the salt-lump, the messengers), and direct ethical address ("O priests").

Atomic statements

AN-C1: There are three roots from which unwholesome action springs — covetousness, hatred, infatuation; deeds so rooted ripen wherever the doer is reborn. (FOUNDATIONAL / KARMA+MIND)

AN 3.33 (Warren §40a, A.iii.33): "There are three conditions, O priests, under which deeds are produced. And what are the three? Covetousness is a condition under which deeds are produced; hatred is a condition under which deeds are produced; infatuation is a condition under which deeds are produced."
AN 3.33 (Warren §40a): "When a man's deeds, O priests, are performed through covetousness, arise from covetousness, are occasioned by covetousness, originate in covetousness, wherever his personality may be, there those deeds ripen, and wherever they ripen, there he experiences the fruition of those deeds, be it in the present life, or in some subsequent one."
Stance: assert · Importance: core · Untranslatables: lobha (covetousness), dosa (hatred), moha (infatuation) — the three akusala-mūla (unwholesome roots).

AN-C2: The three opposites — non-covetousness, non-hatred, non-infatuation — uproot karmic fuel so that deeds become incapable of new ripening; like a fertile seed burned to soot and scattered. (FOUNDATIONAL / KARMA+LIBERATION)

AN 3.33 (Warren §40a): "When a man's deeds, O priests, are performed without covetousness… then, inasmuch as covetousness is gone, those deeds are abandoned, uprooted, pulled out of the ground like a palmyra-tree, and become non-existent and not liable to spring up again in the future."
AN 3.33 (Warren §40a): "It is like seed, O priests, that is uninjured, undecayed, unharmed by wind or heat, and is sound… if some one then burn it with fire and reduce it to soot, and having reduced it to soot were then to scatter it to the winds, or throw it into a swift-flowing river, then, O priests, will that seed be abandoned, uprooted… and become non-existent and not liable to spring up again in the future."
Stance: assert · Importance: core · Depends on: AN-C1

AN-C3: Karma is not mechanical "deed-for-deed" requital; the same slight evil ruins one person and is shrugged off by another, depending on whether the person is "limited" or "abides in the universal" — the salt-lump simile. (OPERATIONAL / KARMA+DISCIPLINE)

AN 3.99 (Warren §40b, A.iii.99): "O priests, if any one says that a man must reap according to his deeds, in that case, O priests, there is no religious life, nor is any opportunity afforded for the entire extinction of misery. But if any one says, O priests, that the reward a man reaps accords with his deeds, in that case, O priests, there is a religious life…"
AN 3.99 (Warren §40b): "We may have the case, O priests, of an individual who does some slight deed of wickedness which brings him to hell; or, again, O priests, we may have the case of another individual who does the same slight deed of wickedness, and expiates it in the present life…"
AN 3.99 (Warren §40b): "It is as if, O priests, a man were to put a lump of salt into a small cup of water… [vs.] a man were to throw a lump of salt into the river Ganges. What think ye, O priests? Would now the river Ganges be made salt and undrinkable by the lump of salt?"
Stance: assert · Importance: core · Note: a classical attestation that liberation is possible — strict mechanical karma would make spiritual life pointless. The "reward accords with deeds" reading leaves room for the path.

AN-C4: Aging, sickness, and death are "death's messengers" visible in every life; the thoughtful heed them and act nobly now, the heedless do not — and no one else can bear the consequences of one's own deeds. (FOUNDATIONAL / IMPERMANENCE+KARMA)

AN 3.36 / "Devadūta Sutta" (Warren §51a, A.iii.35): "Did you not see among men a woman or a man, eighty or ninety or a hundred years of age, decrepit, crooked as the curved rafter of a gable roof, bowed down, leaning on a staff, trembling as he walked, miserable, with youth long fled…?"
AN 3.36 (Warren §51a): "Did you not see among men women or men, diseased, suffering, grievously sick, rolling in their own filth, who when lying down had to be lifted up by others, and by others had to be laid down again?"
AN 3.36 (Warren §51a): "Did it not occur to you, being a person of mature intelligence and years, 'I also am subject to old age, and in no way exempt. Come now! I will act nobly with body, voice, and mind'?"
AN 3.36 (Warren §51a): "And it was not your mother who did this wickedness, nor was it your father, nor your brother, nor your sister, nor your friends and companions, nor your relatives and kinsfolk, nor the deities, nor the monks and Brahmans; but it was you yourself who did this wickedness, and you alone shall feel its consequences."
Stance: assert · Importance: core · Note: thematic cousin to the requested AN 5.49 Kosala "five inevitabilities" (aging, sickness, death, loss of the loved, karma). Warren's A.iii.35 corresponds to AN 3.36 in modern numbering (PTS volume vs. modern Bhikkhu Bodhi numbering differ).

AN-C5: The path is structured as three "elevated" trainings — conduct (sīla), concentration (samādhi), and wisdom (paññā) — set out in fixed lists. (FOUNDATIONAL / DISCIPLINE+PRACTICE)

AN 3.88 (Warren §80, A.iii.88): "Whenever, O priests, a priest is correct in his conduct, and lives restrained by the restraints of the Pātimokkha, is exemplary in his habits and associations, and afraid of even the smallest fault, and adopts and disciplines himself in the precepts, this, O priests, is called the discipline in elevated conduct."
AN 3.88 (Warren §58b): "Whenever, O priests, a priest, having isolated himself from sensual pleasures, having isolated himself from demeritorious traits… enters upon the first trance [jhāna]… second trance… third trance… fourth trance, which has neither misery nor happiness, but is contemplation as refined by indifference, this, O priests, is called the discipline in elevated concentration."
AN 3.88 (Warren §70b): "Whenever, O priests, a priest knows the truth concerning misery, knows the truth concerning the origin of misery, knows the truth concerning the cessation of misery, knows the truth concerning the path leading to the cessation of misery, this, O priests, is called the discipline in elevated wisdom."
Stance: assert · Importance: core · Untranslatables: sīla, samādhi, paññā, Pātimokkha (monastic rule), jhāna (Müller / Warren: "trance").

AN-C6: The two trainings yield two fruits — training in quiescence abandons passion; training in insight abandons ignorance. (OPERATIONAL / DISCIPLINE+TRUTH)

AN 2.31 (Warren §58c, A.ii.31): "What advantage, O priests, is gained by training in quiescence? The thoughts are trained. And what advantage is gained by the training of the thoughts? Passion is abandoned."
AN 2.31 (Warren §70c): "What advantage, O priests, is gained by training in insight? Wisdom is developed. And what advantage is gained by the development of wisdom? Ignorance is abandoned."
Stance: assert · Importance: core · Untranslatables: samatha (quiescence/calm), vipassanā (insight), avijjā (ignorance).

AN-C7: Heaven is not the goal — moral evil shames the path more than loss of heavenly bliss; the saint surpasses the gods because the gods are not free from passion, hatred, or rebirth. (FOUNDATIONAL / LIBERATION+ETHICS)

AN 3.18 (Warren §91, A.iii.18): "If wandering ascetics, O priests, members of another sect, were to say to you, 'Sirs, is it in order to be reborn in the world of the gods that the monk Gotama leads a holy life?' would ye not, O priests, if that question were put to you, be distressed at, ashamed of, and loathe the idea?"
AN 3.18 (Warren §91): "But much more, O priests, should ye be distressed at, ashamed of, and loathe doing evil with the body; be distressed at, ashamed of, and loathe doing evil with the voice; be distressed at, ashamed of, and loathe doing evil with the mind."
AN 3.37 (Warren §92, A.iii.37): "Sakka, the leader of the gods, O priests, was not free from passion, was not free from hatred, was not free from infatuation. But that priest, O priests, who is a saint, who has lost all depravity… who has destroyed every fetter that binds him to existence, who is released by perfect knowledge…"
AN 3.37 (Warren §92): "Sakka, the leader of the gods, O priests, is not released from birth, old age, death, sorrow, lamentation, misery, grief, and despair; in short, he is not released from misery."
Stance: assert · Importance: core · Note: a sharp Atlas signal — the Buddhist goal is not heaven; even the king of the gods (Sakka / Indra) is, by this teaching, inferior to a liberated monk because still bound to rebirth.

AN-C8: A person's anger, generosity, and freedom from envy at others' good fortune shape both beauty/ugliness and wealth/poverty in the next life — anger and stinginess are not free. (OPERATIONAL / ETHICS+KARMA)

AN 4.197 / "Mallika Sutta" (Warren §43, A.iv.197): "Mallika, when a woman has been irascible and violent, and at every little thing said against her has felt spiteful, angry, enraged, and sulky… when she has given no alms to monk or Brahman… but has been of an envious disposition, and felt envy at the gains, honor, reverence, respect, homage, and worship that came to others… then, when she leaves that existence and comes to this one, wherever she may be born, she is ugly… and indigent, poor, needy, and low in the social scale."
AN 4.197 (Warren §43, summary verse): "But every deed a man performs, / With body, or with voice, or mind, / 'T is this that he can call his own. / This with him take as he goes hence. / This is what follows after him. / And like a shadow ne'er departs."
Stance: assert · Importance: supporting · Note: lay-ethics correlate of AN-C1 — anger and envy carry across; generosity protects.

AN-C9: The Buddha grounds the teaching in personal verification: "what I by myself, unassisted, have known, and seen, and learnt, that I tell you." (FOUNDATIONAL / TRUTH+PRACTICE)

AN 3.36 (Warren §51a, conclusion): "Now this, O priests, that I tell you, I did not get from any one else, be he monk or Brahman; but, O priests, what I by myself, unassisted, have known, and seen, and learnt, that I tell you."
Stance: assert · Importance: core · Note: the epistemic posture of personal verification is the AN's signature, classically given in the (unfortunately PD-inaccessible to us) Kālāma Sutta (AN 3.65) but here on record in Warren's verbatim quote from AN 3.36. This is the single most important AN principle for the cross-tradition Atlas — it strengthens P9 (Wisdom and discernment of truth) by giving it explicit anti-authoritarian content: see for yourself, do not believe by tradition.

Step 4 — Clusters

Cluster	Atomic statements	Intent
The three roots of karma	C1, C2, C8	Greed/hate/delusion cause action; their opposites uproot it
Karma is not mechanical	C3	Same deed, different fruit depending on the doer — leaving room for the path
Mortality-awareness as motive	C4	Old age/sickness/death are evident; act nobly now
The three trainings	C5, C6	Sīla–samādhi–paññā / samatha–vipassanā yield specific abandonments
Liberation, not heaven	C7	Even the king of the gods is bound; the goal is release
Personal verification	C9	The Buddha teaches what he has himself known, and disclaims hearsay

Step 5 — Internal tensions

One worth naming: AN-C3 (salt-lump) softens strict karma — "if a man must reap according to his deeds, there is no religious life" — while AN-C1 / AN-C8 / AN-C2 strongly assert deed-fruit correspondence. The reconciliation Warren's text gives is that the same deed has different weight in different mind-conditions (greater discipline = "Ganges" rather than "small cup"). This is doctrinally important: it preserves moral causation while denying mechanical fate.

Step 6 — Synthesized AN-level principles

AN-P1: Three roots of action — and their reversal

Unwholesome deeds spring from covetousness (lobha), hatred (dosa), and infatuation (moha); their opposites — non-greed, non-hatred, non-delusion — uproot karmic fuel so that deeds become "not liable to spring up again in the future."

Tier: FOUNDATIONAL · Domain: KARMA+MIND · Covers: C1, C2, C8 · Evidence: AN 3.33, 4.197 · Untranslatables: lobha, dosa, moha (the three akusala-mūla)

AN-P2: Karma is conditioned, not mechanical

Identical deeds produce different consequences according to the doer's moral capacity; strict deed-for-deed retribution would render the spiritual life pointless. The path is possible because karma is qualified by mind, training, and the "universal."

Tier: FOUNDATIONAL · Domain: KARMA+DISCIPLINE · Covers: C3 · Evidence: AN 3.99 (the salt-lump simile)

AN-P3: Mortality-awareness as the engine of ethical urgency

Aging, sickness, and death are "death's messengers" visible in every life. The thoughtful person, seeing them, resolves to act nobly with body, speech, and mind now; the heedless ignore them and suffer. No one else can bear one's own karma.

Tier: FOUNDATIONAL · Domain: IMPERMANENCE+KARMA · Covers: C4 · Evidence: AN 3.36 (Devadūta) · Note: thematic cousin to the requested AN 5.49 Kosala "inevitabilities," which lacked a PD source.

AN-P4: The path is three trainings — sīla, samādhi, paññā

Conduct restrained by precept, concentration cultivated through the four jhānas, and wisdom that discerns the Four Truths constitute the structure of the path. Training in samatha abandons passion; training in vipassanā abandons ignorance.

Tier: FOUNDATIONAL · Domain: DISCIPLINE+PRACTICE+TRUTH · Covers: C5, C6 · Evidence: AN 3.88, 2.31 · Untranslatables: sīla, samādhi, paññā, samatha, vipassanā, jhāna

AN-P5: The goal is not heaven but liberation; and the teaching stands on personal verification

Rebirth in a god-realm is not the aim — the saint surpasses Sakka (king of the gods) precisely because the saint is freed from rebirth itself. The Buddha vouches for the doctrine on the ground of direct personal knowing — "not got from any one else… what I by myself, unassisted, have known, and seen, and learnt." The teaching is to be tested against experience, not received on authority.

Tier: FOUNDATIONAL · Domain: LIBERATION+TRUTH · Covers: C7, C9 · Evidence: AN 3.18, 3.37, 3.36 · Note: the classical attestation of "test before believing" is the (PD-inaccessible-to-us) Kālāma Sutta AN 3.65; the same epistemic posture is verbatim on record in AN 3.36 (above) and is therefore brought into the principle here. This is the AN's single strongest contribution to P9 of the N=3 synthesis and to the cross-tradition Atlas.

Step 7 — Traceability

AN-Principle	Atomic statements	Suttas (Warren PTS-numbered)
AN-P1	C1, C2, C8	AN 3.33 (A.iii.33), AN 4.197 (A.iv.197)
AN-P2	C3	AN 3.99 (A.iii.99)
AN-P3	C4	AN 3.36 (A.iii.35)
AN-P4	C5, C6	AN 3.88 (A.iii.88), AN 2.31 (A.ii.31)
AN-P5	C7, C9	AN 3.18 (A.iii.18), AN 3.37 (A.iii.37), AN 3.36 (A.iii.35)

Step 8 — Quality

Coverage: 9 atomic statements drawn from 7 AN suttas covered verbatim in Warren (AN 2.31, 3.18, 3.33, 3.36, 3.37, 3.88, 3.99, 4.197). Not exhaustive of the AN — this is a representative sampling, not a full distillation; the AN runs to ~9,500 suttas across 11 nipāta. Coverage of Warren's AN selections: ~100% of his AN material.
Orphaned: 0% within the scoped Warren extract.
Principles: 5 (within 3–12 range).
Traceability: 100%.
Quote accuracy: working text from Warren OCR (Internet Archive buddhismintransl00warr) — flagged for Phase 7 char-for-char re-verification against a clean Warren scan, and for re-quotation against modern editions when PD becomes available (Vol I of Woodward enters U.S. PD ~2028).

Suttas requested but not quoted (PD access gap)

Sutta	Theme	Status
AN 3.65 Kālāma	"See for yourselves" — anti-authority epistemics	No PD verbatim source verified. Theme captured via AN 3.36 (AN-C9, AN-P5).
AN 3.61 Tittha	Three sectarian views refuted	No PD source verified.
AN 4.1 Anubuddha	Four things to be realized	No PD source verified.
AN 4.62 Anaṇa	Four kinds of lay happiness (ownership, enjoyment, debtlessness, blamelessness)	No PD source verified. Adjacent ethics in AN 4.197 (Warren).
AN 5.49 Kosala	Five inevitabilities (aging, sickness, death, loss, karma)	No PD source verified. Adjacent themes in AN 3.36 (Warren).
AN 7.6 Aniccatā/Saññā	Perceptions leading to dispassion	No PD source verified.
AN 8.39 Abhisanda	Streams of merit — refuge + five precepts	No PD source verified.
AN 10.65 Sukha	What brings real happiness	No PD source verified.
AN 11.11 Mahānāma	Six recollections (Buddha/Dhamma/Saṅgha/sīla/dāna/devas)	No PD source verified.

These remain on the Phase 7 audit backlog.

Step 9 — Validation (frame-independent claim vs warrant)

AN principle	Claim (may converge cross-tradition)	Warrant (frame-specific, likely diverges)
AN-P1	Greed, hatred, and delusion are the roots of harmful action; their opposites — generosity, non-hatred, clarity — uproot it.	Karmic fuel is uprooted across rebirths; no divine forgiveness needed or available.
AN-P2	Moral cause-and-effect is real, but not mechanical; capacity and condition modulate consequence.	Reconciles karma with the possibility of liberation in this very life — Buddhist-specific soteriology.
AN-P3	Mortality-awareness is a primary ethical motive; act nobly now.	Karma is personally non-transferable; no other (parent, friend, deity, monk) can bear it — sharp divergence from grace/atonement/intercession traditions.
AN-P4	A serious path requires conduct + concentration + wisdom, in that structural order.	Jhāna/samatha/vipassanā are technically specified meditative attainments — frame-specific.
AN-P5	Test teachings against experience; do not accept by authority. The highest goal is not pleasure (even celestial) but liberation.	"Liberation" = nibbāna, cessation of rebirth, not communion with God. Saint surpasses gods — a goal-structure orthogonal to theistic traditions.

Atlas signal — strongest from this extract:

AN-P5's "personal verification, not authority" is the canonical Theravāda formulation of free inquiry. It converges strongly with cross-tradition principles of conscience (Catholic conscience; Quaker "inner light"; Vedantic anubhava; even modern scientific epistemic norms) — while the warrant (the Buddha himself models personal verification without a creator-revealer) diverges from revealed-tradition warrants.
AN-P3's "no one else bears your karma" is the sharpest divergence from intercession/grace traditions in this entire extract.
AN-P5's "saint surpasses Sakka" explicitly relativises the entire god-realm — this is the AN's plainest non-theistic moment and the deepest Atlas-level divergence from theistic traditions.

References

Warren, H.C. Buddhism in Translations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1896. Public domain. Internet Archive buddhismintransl00warr. AN selections at §§40, 43, 51, 58, 70, 80, 91, 92.
../00-methodology.md · ../README.md · ../principles-distillation.md · 00-index-and-traceability.md