Great Disciples of the Buddha

Their Lives, Their Works, Their Legacy

Nyanaponika, Hellmuth Hecker, Bodhi, Bodhi

• Publisher: Wisdom Publications
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780861718641
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Buddhism

A perennial favorite, Great Disciples of the Buddha is now relaunched in our best-selling Teachings of the Buddha series.Twenty-four of the Buddha's most distinguished disciples are brought to life in ten chapters of rich narration. Drawn from a wide range of authentic Pali sources, the material in these stories has never before been assembled in a single volume. Through these engaging tales, we meet all manner of human beings - rich, poor, male, female, young, old - whose unique stories are told with an eye to the details of ordinary human concerns. When read with careful attention, these stories can sharpen our understanding of the Buddhist path by allowing us to contemplate the living portraits of the people who fulfilled the early Buddhist ideals of human perfection. The characters detailed include:

• Sariputta
• Nanda
• Mahamoggallana
• Mahakassapa
• Ananda
• Isidasi
• Anuruddha
• Mahakaccana
• Angulimala
• Visakha
• and many more.

Conveniently annotated with the same system of sutta references used in each of the other series volumes, Great Disciples of the Buddha allows the reader to easily place each student in the larger picture of Buddha's life. It is a volume that no serious student of Buddhism should miss.

CHAPTER 1

SĀRIPUTTA

THE MARSHAL OF THE DHAMMA

Nyanaponika Thera

PROLOGUE

IN MANY TEMPLES OF SRI LANKA you will find, on either side of the Buddha image, the statues of two monks. Their robes are draped over one shoulder and they stand in the attitude of reverence, with joined palms. Quite often there are a few flowers at their feet, laid there by some pious devotee.

If you ask who they are, you will be told that they are the Enlightened One’s two chief disciples, the arahants Sāriputta and Mahāmoggallāna. They stand in the positions they occupied in life, Sāriputta on the Buddha’s right, Mahāmoggallāna on his left. When the great stūpa at Sāñchi was opened up in the middle of the last century, the relic chamber was found to contain two stone receptacles; the one to the north held the bodily relics of Mahāmoggallāna, while that on the south enclosed those of Sāriputta. Thus they had lain while the centuries rolled past and the history of two thousand years and more played out the drama of impermanence in human life. The Roman Empire rose and fell, the glories of ancient Greece became a distant memory; new religions wrote their names, often with blood and fire, on the changing face of the earth, only to mingle at last with legends of Thebes and Babylon; and gradually the tides of commerce shifted the great centers of civilization from East to West, while generations that had never heard the Teaching of the Buddha arose and passed away. But all the time that the ashes of the holy disciples lay undisturbed, forgotten in the land that gave them birth, their memory was held dear wherever the Buddha’s message spread, and the record of their lives was passed down from one generation to another, first by word of mouth, then in the written pages of the Buddhist Tipitaka, the most voluminous and detailed scripture of any religion. Next to the Enlightened One himself, it is these two disciples of his who stand highest in the veneration of Buddhists in the Theravāda lands. Their names are as inseparable from the annals of Buddhism as that of the Buddha himself. If it has come about that in the course of time many legends have been woven into the tradition of their lives, this is but the natural outcome of the devotion that has always been felt for them.

And that high esteem was fully justified. Few religious teachers have been so well served by their immediate disciples as was the Buddha. This you will see as you read these pages, for they tell the story of one of the two greatest of them, the Venerable Sāriputta, who was second only to the Buddha in the depth and range of his understanding and in his ability to teach the doctrine of deliverance. In the Tipiṭaka there is no connected account of his life, but it can be pieced together from the various incidents, scattered throughout the canonical texts and commentaries, in which he figures. Some of them are more than incidents, for his life is so closely interwoven with the life and ministry of the Buddha that he plays an essential part in it, and on a number of occasions it is Sāriputta himself who takes the leading role—as skilled preceptor and exemplar, as kind and considerate friend, as guardian of the welfare of the bhikkhus under his charge, as faithful repository of his Master’s doctrine, the function which earned him the title of Dhammasenāpati, Marshal of the Dhamma. And always as himself, a man unique in his patience and steadfastness, modest and upright in thought, word, and deed, a man to whom one act of kindness was a thing to be remembered with gratitude so long as life endured. Even among the arahants, those freed from all defilements of passion and delusion, he shone like the full moon in a starry sky.

This then is the man, of profound intellect and sublime nature, a true disciple of the Great Teacher, whose story we have set down, to the best of our ability, in the pages that follow. If you, the reader, can gather from this imperfect record something of the qualities of a perfected human being, fully liberated and raised to the highest level of realization, and of how such a person acts and speaks and comports himself toward his fellows, and if the reading of it gives you strength and faith in the assurance of what a human being may become, then our work has been worthwhile and is fully rewarded.

THE QUEST FOR THE DHAMMA

EARLY LIFE

The story begins at two brahmanical villages in India, called Upatissa and Kolita, which lay not far from the city of Rājagaha.¹ Before our Buddha had appeared in the world, a brahmin woman named Rūpasārī, living in Upatissa village,² conceived; and so too, on the same day at Kolita village, did another brahmin woman whose name was Moggallī. The two families were closely connected, having been friends with one another for seven generations. From the first day of their pregnancy the families gave due care to the mothers-to-be, and after ten months both women gave birth to boys, on the same day. On the name-giving day Rūpasārī’s child received the name Upatissa, as he was a son of the foremost family of that village; and for the same reason Moggallī’s son was named Kolita.

When the boys grew up they were educated and acquired mastery of all the sciences. Each of them had a following of five hundred brahmin youths, and when they went to the river or park for sport and recreation, Upatissa used to go with five hundred palanquins, and Kolita with five hundred horse carriages.

Now at Rājagaha there was an annual event called the Hilltop Festival. Seats were arranged for both youths and they sat together to witness the celebrations. When there was an occasion for laughter, they laughed; when the spectacle was exciting, they became excited; and they paid their fees for the extra shows. In this manner they enjoyed the festival for a second day. On the third day, however, strange thoughts cast their shadows across their hearts, and they could no longer laugh or share in the excitement. As they sat there, watching the plays and dances, for just a moment the specter of human mortality revealed itself to their inner vision, and once they had caught a glimpse of it their attitude could never again be the same. For each, this somber mood gradually crystallized into a compelling question: “What is there to look at here? Before these people have reached a hundred years they will all be dead. Shouldn’t we go seek a teaching of deliverance?”

It was with such thoughts in mind that on this third day they sat through the festival. Kolita noticed that his friend seemed pensive and withdrawn and asked him: “What is the matter, my dear Upatissa? Today you are not happy and joyous as you were on the other days, but you seem to be troubled about something. Tell me, what is on your mind?”

“My dear Kolita, I have been thinking that there is no benefit at all for us in enjoying these hollow shows. Instead of wasting my time on such festivals, what I really ought to do is to seek a path to deliverance from the entire round of rebirths. But you too, Kolita, seem to be discontented.”

And Kolita replied: “My thoughts are exactly the same as yours.” When he knew that his friend shared his inclination, Upatissa said: “That was a good thought of ours. However, for those who seek a teaching of deliverance there is only one thing to do: to leave home and become ascetics. But under whom shall we live the ascetic life?”

At that time, there lived at Rājagaha a wandering ascetic (paribbājaka) named Sañjaya, who had a great following of pupils. Deciding to take ordination under him, Upatissa and Kolita approached him, each with his own following of five hundred brahmin youths, and all of them received ordination from Sañjaya. And from the time of their ordination under him, Sañjaya’s reputation and support increased abundantly.

Within a short time the two friends had learned Sañjaya’s entire doctrine. They then went to him and asked: “Master, does your doctrine go so far only, or is there something beyond?”

Sañjaya replied: “So far only does it go. You know it completely.”

Hearing this, they thought to themselves: “If that is the case, it is useless to continue the holy life under him. We have gone forth from home to seek a teaching of deliverance, but under him we cannot find it. India is vast, and if we wander through villa...