Sutta Name Nikaya Vagga Academic PTS PSA Plae Keywords Notes
Alagadduupama Majjhima Muulapa.n.naasa, Opamma Vagga MN.022 M.i.130ff, MA.i.321ff. 18/279 sense pleasure, snake, raft, theoretical learning In this sutta are enumerated the nine categories of the Lord Buddha's Teachings (nava"ngasatthusaasana): 1. discourses (sutta); 2. discourses mixed with verse (geyya); 3. prose-expositions (veyyaakara.na); 4. verses (gaathaa); 5. exclamations or psalms (udaana); 6. thus-said discourses (itivuttaka); 7. birth-stories (jaataka); 8. marvellous ideas (abbhuutadhamma), and; 9. question and answer catechetical teachings (vedalla) at M.i.133. Foolish people who have learned the doctrine by heart but fail to study its import, fail to get benefit from what they have learned -- like a man who finds an snake but instead of profitting from it, is bitten to death. Those who understand the teaching and use it are as a man who catches the snake firmly with a forked stick. Also parable of the raft. This sutta is quoted by Buddhaghosa as an example of a Sutta containing many parables (atthena upamam parivaretva)


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Last modified on: Sunday, 9 January 2000.