From PED:
Asabbha (adj.) [a + sabbha, i. e. *sabhya cp. sabh & in meaning court: courteous, hof: hoflich etc.] not belonging to the assembly -- room, not consistent with good manners ; impolite, vile, low, of base character J iii.527 (m tug ma); Dh 77 = J iii.367 = Th 1, 994; Miln 221; DhA i.256; ThA 246 (akkhi). Cp. next. -- Note. Both sabbha and sabbhin occur only in the negative form.

Perhaps "wicked" is too strong. How about 'unbecoming'? Not so strong and etymologically befitting.

I would render the sentence as
Unbecoming indeed, bhikkhus, this is known (to be), that is,...

kb

Bryan Levman wrote thus at 08:22 29/09/2010:

>Dear Yong Peng,
>
><Hence, sabbhi - by/with the good, asabbhi - by/with the wicked>.
>
>
>Yes, one of the meanings of asat (in Skt. and Pāli) is "bad" or "evil" and
>"wicked" would also work. See MW dictionary and Apte's Practical
>Sanskrit-English dictionary
>(http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.1:1:550.apte).
>
>
>I would translate as per my previous email (below), "That is
>known/praised/commended/extolled by bad/evil/wicked people..."
>
>Metta, Bryan
>
>
>
>Dear Yong Peng
>
><Asabbhi heta.m, bhikkhave, upa~n~naata.m yadida.m akata~n~nutaa akataveditaa.>
>
><??? Help needed for asabbhi.>
>
>I think it means,
>
>That is known by bad people (asabbhi) - namely (yadida.m) the condition of
>ingratitude, forgetfulness of benefits.
>
>per the commentary upa~n~nata = va.n.nita, thomita, pasattha, so one might
>translate, "That is praised/commended/extolled by bad people..."
>
>Metta, Bryan
>
>
>
>
>
>________________________________
>From: Ong Yong Peng <palismith@...>
>To: Pali@yahoogroups.com
>Sent: Tue, September 28, 2010 5:14:01 PM
>Subject: [Pali] Re: AN2.4 Samacitta Vagga (1)
>
>
>Dear Mahinda, Nina and all,
>
>thank you.
>
>The next question would be how do we translate this word, and its antonym
>asabbhi, into English.
>
>May I say that this is in the present participle, but take the adjective meaning
>of 'good'.
>
>Hence, sabbhi - by/with the good, asabbhi - by/with the wicked.
>
>Please advise. Thank you.
>
>metta,
>Yong Peng.
>
>--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, Mahinda wrote:
>
>> sabbhi = instrumental plural of sant.
>> - sant (ppr of atthi) being.
>
>This is one of those words whose formation becomes clear when the parallel word
>in Sanskrit is compared. The Skt word is sadbhi.h. Since Skt retains much older
>forms of Old Indo-Aryan, we can safely say that sadbhih had undergone certain
>regular phonetic simplifications and become sabbhi in popular speech and is
>found in that form in Pali.
>
>The Skt form itself consists of two elements sat+bhi.h. The first element (sat-)
>is the so-called weak form of sant. The second is the regular instrumental
>plural ending. (-tb- becomes -db- by Sandhi).
>
>
>
>
>
>
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>
>
>
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