{"collection":"Buddhism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/bud/pos/pos09.htm","path":"bud/pos/pos09.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/bud/pos/pos09.htm","text":"NOW she was born in the time of Padumuttara Buddha, in a clansman's house at Ha\u014bsavat\u012b. Come to years of discretion, she heard the Master preach, and saw him assign a Bhikkhun\u012b the first rank among those who could recall previous lives. Thereat she made her resolve, wishing that she, too, might acquire such a rank. Working merit all her life, she was reborn, when no Buddha had arisen, in a clansman's house at Benares, and in due course married.\nThen one day a quarrel arose between her and her sister-in-law. And the latter having given food to a Silent Buddha, Bhadd\u0101 thought, 'She will win glory for this,' and taking the bowl from his hand, she filled it with mud instead of food. The people said, 'Foolish woman! what has the Silent Buddha done to offend you?' And she, ashamed of herself, took back the bowl, emptied and scrubbed it with scented powder, filled it with the four sweet foods, and sprinkled it on the top with ghee of the colour of a lotus-calyx. Handing it back, shining, to the Silent Buddha, she registered a prayer: 'May I have a shining body like this bowl!'\nAfter many fortunate rebirths, she was reborn, in the time of Kassapa Buddha, at Benares, as the daughter of the wealthy treasurer. But by the fruition of her previous karma her body was of evil odour, and she was repulsive to others. Much troubled thereby, she had her ornaments made into an ingot of gold, and placed it in the Buddha's shrine, doing reverence with her hands full of lotuses. Thereby her body, even in that birth, became fragrant and sweet. As a beloved wife she did good all her life, was reborn in heaven to celestial joys, and at length took birth as the daughter of the King of Benares. There she lived gloriously, ministering to Silent Buddhas. When they passed away she was greatly troubled, and left the world for ascetic practices. Dwelling in groves, she practised Jhana, and was reborn in the Brahma heavens, and thence into the family of a brahmin of the Kosiya clan at S\u0101gala.185 Reared in great state, she was wedded to the young noble Pippali at the village of Mah\u0101-tittha. When he renounced the world she handed over her great wealth to her kinsfolk that she too might go forth; and she dwelt five years in the Sophists' Grove,186 after which she was ordained by Great Paj\u0101pat\u012b the Gotamid. Establishing insight, she soon won Arahantship.\nAnd she became an expert in knowledge of her past lives, through the surplus force of her resolve (made in past ages), and was herein ranked first by the Master when, seated in the Jeta Grove among the company of Ariyans,187 he classified the Bhikkhun\u012bs. One day she broke forth in a Psalm, recounting all that she had wrought, accompanied by a eulogy of the virtues of the great Elder Kassapa, 188 thus:\n 184 Dr. Neumann translates Kapil\u0101ni by 'the Blonde' (kapilo is auburn, reddish), as if in keeping with the soubriquet of the other Bhadd\u0101 (Ps. xlvi.). I have not done so because elsewhere a soubriquet is always explicitly accounted for in the Commentary, and here nothing is said. Moreover, and this is fairly conclusive, the Apad\u00e3na chronicle, quoted in the Commentary, makes Bhadd\u0101 'daughter of Kapil\u0101 the twice-born (brahmin).' Kapil\u0101n\u012b, therefore, refers to her family. and should be K\u0101pil\u0101n\u012b. The Phayre and Paris MSS. of the Ther\u012bg\u0101th\u0101 both read K\u0101pil\u0101ni, so does Vin., iv., 290, 292.\n \n 185 On the three S\u0101galas, see Rhys Davids, Buddhist India, p. 38. According to the Apad\u0101na this was the capital of the Maddas (cf. Ps. lii.). Mah\u0101tittha, the 'great ford,' was a brahmin village in Magadha.\n \n 186 Titthiy\u0101r\u0101ma, near the Jeta Grove at S\u0101vatthi.\n \n 187Defined in the Pitakas as meaning Buddhas, Silent Buddhas, and their disciples. This judgment is the subject of Ang. Nik., i. 23-26. \n \n 188 Mah\u0101-Kassapa became the leader of the Buddhist Order when the Buddha had passed away. According to the Apad\u0101na, Kassapa was identical with Pippali, her husband, and had been her husband in three former lives. Kassapa was either the family name or the personal name; Pippali either the personal or the local name. See Dialogues, i. 193. His story is fully told in the Commentary on the Psalms of the Brothers, and in that on Ang. Nik., i. 23.\n \n 189 The metaphor is not Buddhist. The Pali reads 'by these three wisdoms' (et\u0101hi t\u012bhi vijj\u0101hi). See Ps. xxii. 26. The case of Bhadd\u0101 is noteworthy as being the only one where wife and husband\u2013united for so many ages\u2013act in harmony up to the day when, having aided each other in donning the religious dress, they leave the world together, then part on their several ways to the Buddha, enjoying thereafter good comradeship in the Order. So she in the Apad\u0101na:\n 'Thereafter soon I won the rank of Arahant.\nAh! well for me who held the friendship wise and good\nOf glorious Kassapa.'","title":"Psalms of the Sisters: Canto IV. Psalms of Four Verses","type":"page"}