San Bu Pm Qizil Pc 71Travelling With Thieves
Pāli / Sanskrit:Theyyasattha
Save your scripture progress
Create a free account to save scriptures, track progress, and continue your daily learning path.
Exposition of the Theyyasattha Sutta (Travelling With Thieves)
Background
The Theyyasattha Sutta is recorded in the Vinaya Pitaka of the early Buddhist Dharma and reflects practical situations encountered by Sangha communities in the course of practice. This is not a discourse on lofty doctrine, but practical guidance in discipline (Vinaya), helping monks, nuns, and laypeople recognize the boundary between right and wrong conduct.
According to the Theravada traditional context, this sutta arose from a specific event in which Buddhists encountered the situation of travelling together with people of immoral conduct. This is a practical question: should a monk or Buddhist associate and travel with people whose conduct is inconsistent with moral principles?
Main Content
The Theyyasattha Sutta centers on the ethical principle of social association. The specific content of this sutta has not been fully translated in the descriptive information, but according to the general context of the Vinaya Pitaka, the sutta instructs that monks and nuns should not have overly intimate relations with people of bad conduct (papa-sila), or with deceitful persons and thieves.
The main principle is this: although one need not absolutely avoid them, one must be cautious. If travelling together on the road, especially through deserted or dangerous places, the practitioner must be aware of the potential risks, not only physical danger but also harm to reputation and community trust. If the "thieves" are discovered during the journey, practitioners travelling with them will be suspected regarding their character and purpose.
The Buddha taught that monks and nuns must preserve their reputation, because reputation is the foundation for receiving the community's trust. A monk associated with dishonest actions harms the fourfold assembly, monks, nuns, male lay followers, and female lay followers, and encourages wrongdoers to continue acting wrongly.
Practical Meaning
The Theyyasattha Sutta offers a profound lesson on choosing companions and one's living environment.
🌏 The Buddhist canon is vast — some sūtras (such as comparative Vinaya across schools, or untranslated Tibetan-canon texts) have to this day NEVER been translated into Vietnamese or English by anyone, scholars included. Rather than leave it blank, Inti AI offers a FAITHFUL summary grounded in the tradition — from the sūtra's title, origin and essence — so you can still reach this rare part of the treasury. Whenever an original translation exists, the app shows the original first.
Translations belong to the translator/source credited above. The bilingual compilation, presentation, and AI translations compiled by Inti are © Inti Foundation. Please attribute when quoting; do not bulk-copy or use commercially without permission.