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Manual of Indian Buddhism c4.s5: 6. Āmrapālī. Jīvaka. Buddha's Journey to Vaiśālī. Dispute Between Śākyas and Koliyas. Death of Śuddhodana. Admission of Nuns into the Order. Conversion of Khemā

Manual of Indian Buddhism c4.s5

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6. Āmrapālī. Jīvaka. Buddha's Journey to Vaiśālī. Dispute Between Śākyas and Koliyas. Death of Śuddhodana. Admission of Nuns into the Order. Conversion of Khemā

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Once upon a time, when the Tathāgata spent the rainy season near Rājagṛha, at the Kalandaka-nivāpa⁷ in the Bamboo grove — it may have been the second or third retreat or later — it came to the notice of Bimbisāra that there was in Vaiśālī a famous courtezan, named Āmrapālī (Ambapālī, Ambapālikā⁸). Being jealous of that city and wishing to emulate with it, he resolved to produce in his own kingdom some courtezan who in accomplishments would be superior to Āmrapālī. Such a person was found in the girl Sālavatī. After some time she became pregnant by Abhaya, the son of the King. She was delivered of a boy, who according to the custom of courtezans was exposed, but accidentally the Prince discovered the infant, and though unaware that it was his own son, he took the boy to the palace, called him Jīvaka, and gave him a careful education⁹.

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⁷ The N. Kalandaka-nivapa, c. g. Divy. 262; and Kalandaka-nivāsa.

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⁸ Her history and prehistory is told in Par. Dīp. 207 ff., commenting the highly poetical stanzas ascribed to her, Therīg. vv. 252-270. Cp. ROCKHILL op. c. 64; Tib. L. 253, where she is represented as the mother of Prince Abhaya by Bimbisāra. In Pali sources, the Comm. on Therag. vs. 64, and Par. Dīp. 207, she has a son, the Thera Vimala-Koṇḍañña by Bimbisāra; in the former passage her name is indicated by the conundrum Dumavhayā, the king's by Paṇḍaraketu. Abhaya's conversion told Majjh. N. Nr. 58.

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⁹ The story of Jīvaka is told MV. VIII, 1; Majjh. N. I, pp. 368 ff. Cp. ROCKHILL l. c. and Tib. l. 253, where J. is the son of Bimbisāra, procreated in adultery.

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When Jīvaka, surnamed Komārabhacca¹ had reached the years of discretion, he went to Takṣaśilā to study medicine under a renowned professor. After seven years of study he was perfectly skilled in the art and dismissed as such by his teacher. In course of time the young physician had occasion to show his eminent skill; he cured — not to speak of other cases — Pradyota the Cruel, King of Ujjayinī, as well as Bimbisāra, who appointed him to his physician in ordinary.

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¹ This answers to a Skr. Kaumārabhṛtya, but in Divy. 270 and 506 modified to Kumārabhūta. Komārabhaṇḍa, occasionally occurring in P. texts, looks like a misread Komārabhacca. ROCKHILL'S rendering of Tib. Gźon-nus-gsos l. c. is quite fanciful; the words clearly point to "therapeutics of children", i. e. Kaumārabhṛtya; see JÄSCHKE Tib. Engl. Dict. s. vv.

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On a certain day the Buddha happened to be troubled with constipation. Jīvaka was called and by applying a most delicate purgative succeeded in healing within short the Lord from his disease².

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² Albeit the Lord had conquered death and disease by his having eradicated their ultimate cause, viz. avidyā, the consequences of his former karman were not completely destroyed. Hence he was liable to human infirmities.

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It was not only by this happy cure that Jīvaka rendered himself useful to the Master; he presented him also two magnificent pieces of cloth he had received from Pradyota in acknowledgment of his medical services. The Lord accepted this gift, and, assembling the monks, gave them permission to wear a dress presented by laymen, but also, if they pleased, a cloth of rags³.

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³ According to HARDY M. of B. 249, these things occurred in the twentieth year.

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During his stay in the Bambu grove in the third rainy season, the Lord received a deputation from the Vaiśālans, imploring him to deliver them from a frightful pestilence which desolated their country. In vain they had sought relief by recurring to the 6 heretical teachers⁴, and now they besought the Buddha to save them. The Master willingly acceded to their demand, and proceeded on a road, prepared by order of the King, to the Southern bank of the Ganges. On the Northern side of the river he was most respectfully received by the Licchavi nobles. No sooner had he set foot in the country, than the malign spirits that caused the disease fled away and the sick were restored to health. Having entered the city, the Tathāgata uttered the Ratana-sutta⁵ and made numberless converts. After receiving many pious gifts he returned to Rājagṛha⁶.

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⁴ More about these worthies anon.

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⁵ The visit to Vaiśālī is told more circumstantially and with some variations in Mhv. I, 253; HARDY M. of B. 236; cp. Tib. I.. 285, where the event is placed much later, in the reign of Ajātaśatru. — The Ratana-Sutta (ed. CHILDERS, JRAS of 1870, p. 318; FRANKFURTER, Handb. 85) has its counterpart in Mhv. I, 290 ff (Svastyayana-Gatha).

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⁶ Among the donations mention is made Mhv. 1. c. of the Salavana. It was presented by Gośṛṅgī, who had sent a parrot to invite Buddha to dinner; the same is told Tib. L. l. c. of Āmrapālī.

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Three consecutive rainy seasons were spent by the Lord in the Bambu grove; in the fifth he sojourned near Vaiśālī in the Kūṭāgāra hall of the Mahāvana⁷. In that period there arose a dispute between the Śākyas and the Koḷiyas about the water of the river Rohiṇī, which owing to an unusual drought was not sufficient to irrigate the fields on both sides of the river. The quarrel rose high, and a battle would have ensued, had not the Buddha, perceiving by his divine eye what was going on, hastened through the sky to the place where the parties stood ready to fight, and moved them to lay down the arms. The eloquent discourse which he delivered at that occasion had the effect that he made many converts¹.

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⁷ The succession of places where B. is said to have spent the Retreat is differently given; we follow the order in BIGANDET. A really historical chronology is out of question. — Mahāvana is characterized in BIGANDET I, 204 as a forest of Saltrees; thus it appears to be identical with Sālavana, the donation of Gośṛṅgī.

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¹ Dhp. p. 351; Jat. V, p. 412. Cp. HARDY M. of B. 307.

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A short time after the event the Buddha got the notice that his father was seriously ill. Without delay he flew with some of his followers through the sky to Kapilavastu. Having come into the presence, of the patient, he preached to him the instability of all things, so that Śuddhodana reached the fourth stage, that of Arhatship, and, paying for the third time in his life homage to his son, he entered Nirvāṇa.

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After the death of her husband, the Matron Gautamī² desired to forsake the world and embrace a religious life. Therefore she went to the Lord, who was then sojourning in the Banyan garden, and asked to become a nun. But the Buddha refused, because he would not admit females into the Order, and returned to Vaiśālī.

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² For details concerning G. see ED. MÜLLER in Par. Dīp. p. XI.

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Far from giving up her design, the widowed Queen and many other ladies cut their hair, put on yellow robes and went on foot to Vaiśālī. When these ladies, covered with dust, with swollen feet, and bathed in tears arrived at the Kūṭāgāra hall, they were seen by Ānanda, who, having ascertained the object of their journey, went to the Master and pleaded in their favour. At first the Buddha was unwilling to admit women into the Congregation; at last, however, at the instances of Ānanda, who remembered him of the motherly care of Gautamī, he gave his consent, on the condition that the Matron should submit to 8 duties of subordination (garudhamma). Gautamī gladly promised to keep those duties³, whereupon she with all the other ladies became nuns.

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³ As to those duties and the whole story of the admission of G. see CV. X, 1; cp. HARDY E. M. p. 157; M. of B. 312; ROCKHILL op. c. 61. The institution of the Order of nuns took place in the 7th year according Tib. I. 268, nearly agreeing with the chronology in BIGANDET.

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Although the Master thus had ceded to the entreaties of Ānanda, he was fully aware of the dangerous consequences attending on the admission of women. "If no women had been admitted into the Order", said he to Ānanda, "the Good Law would stand 1000 years, but now chastity and holiness will not last long, and the Law will only stand 500 years". His misgivings proved true by the subsequent events: the ladies, even Gautamī, were now and then fretful, and some time afterwards, when the Lord sojourned at Śrāvastī, some nuns moved the indignation of the public by their scandalous behaviour⁴.

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⁴ Instances of indecent conduct are related CV. X, 9—27.

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From Vaiśālī the Tathāgata went to Śrāvastī, where he spent the 6th rainy season. At the end of the Retreat he removed to Rājagṛha. Whilst he was staying in the Bambu grove happened the conversion of Khemā, wife to Bimbisāra. In the pride of her beauty she had never deigned to see the Lord, but on a certain day, when she was taking her recreation in the Bambu grove, she was brought by a contrivance of the King into the presence of the Master, who, to cure her from her vanity, produced by his miraculous power a female beautiful as a Nymph from heaven. While she was gazing on that apparition, he made it pass through the stages of youth, middle age, old age, and death. By that frightful sight Khemā was prepared to hear the lessons of the Master, and on hearing him utter some stanzas⁵ she at once attained the first stage, or as others say, Arhatship¹. Before her Arhatship she was tempted by Māra, but she happily overcame the temptation².

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⁵ Par. Dīp. p. 133, vss. 66—70; cp. Dhp. vs. 347.

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¹ Par. Dīp. p. 126 ff. with the quotation from Apadāna there; cp. Dhp. p. 412.

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² See the beautiful verses Therīg. 139 ff. Saṃy. N. V, 4, 2 ff.; cp. CAROLINE FOLEY, Women Leaders of the Buddhist Reformation, p. 3-10. The same story of conversion is told of Nandā; see above p. 28. Apparently another person is Kṣema, daughter to Prasenajit, in Avad. Śat. VIII, 9.

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