Dictionary of Pali Proper Names v2.c31.2193

v2.c31.2193

The Commentaries give long accounts of the preaching of the Mahāsamaya.⁵ The arahants mentioned are Sākyan and Koliyan youths, representatives of Sākyan and Koliyan families, sent to join the Order as a sign of gratitude to the Buddha for having averted the quarrel between the two families regarding the water of the Rohiṇī. On that occasion the Buddha had preached to the opposing armies the Attadaṇḍa Sutta and the Phandana, Laṭukika and Vaṭṭaka Jātakas.⁶ He then related the story of their origin, showing that both families were descended from a common stock. When the quarrel was thus settled, two hundred and fifty young men from each family entered the Order and the Buddha dwelt with them in Mahāvana. But the wives of the men tried to entice them back; the Buddha, therefore, took them to Himavā, where he preached to them the Kuṇāla Jātaka on the banks of the Kuṇāla Lake. At the conclusion of the sermon they attained to various fruits of the Path, from anāgāmiphala to sotāpatti. He then returned with them to Mahāvana, where they developed insight and became arahants. They assembled to pay homage to their teacher on the evening of the full-moon day of Jeṭṭhamāsa, and to the assembly came the devas of the ten thousand world systems. The Buddha told the monks the names of the devas present (as given in the Mahāsamaya), and, surveying the assembly, saw that it consisted of two kinds of beings, one capable of benefiting by his teaching (bhabbā), and the other not so capable (abhabbā). The bhabbā, he saw, could be divided into six groups—the rāgacaritā and the dosa-moha-vitakka-saddhā-buddhi-caritā, according to temperament. To these, respectively, he preached six suttas, calculated to benefit each separate class, and, in order that each sutta might take the form of question and answer, he created a Buddha-form to ask questions, while he himself answered them. The six suttas, so preached, were the Purābheda, Kalahavivāda, Cūlavyūha, Mahāvyūha, Tuvaṭaka and Sammāparibbājaniya. Countless numbers of beings realized the Truth.⁷