Aṅguttara Nikāya
IX. Navaka Nipāta
I. Sambodha Vagga

IX. The Book of the Nines

Chapter I: The Awakening

Sutta 10

Ābuneyya-Puggala Suttaṃ

The Venerable

[247]

Thus have I heard:

"Monks, these nine are venerable,
worthy of honour,
worthy of gifts,
worthy of salutations,
the world's unsurpassed field for merit making.

What nine?^ed1

The Arahant,
he who has attained to arahantship,
the Non-returner,
he who has attained to the realization of the fruit of the Non-returner,
the Once-returner,
he who has attained to the realization of the fruit of the Once-returner,
the Streamwinner,
he who has attained to the realization of the fruit of the Streamwinner
and he who has become one of the clan.¹

[248] Monks, these nine are venerable,
worthy of honour,
worthy of gifts,
worthy of salutations,
the world's unsurpassed field for merit making."

¹ Gotrabhū. Comy. One endowed with exceedingly powerful insight and thought, with immediate prospects of attaining to the state of the Streamwinner and the Way. Lord Chalmers at F. Dial, ii, 300: spiritual clan. The Comy. ad A. v, 23, is much the same as our Comy.; see Child, s.v.; Cpd. 66-8; Vism. trsl 160; Expositor 56, 310 ff.