Biography (12) Kisāgotamī Therī

(a) Her Past Aspiration

The future Kisāgotamī Therī was reborn into an unknown family in the city of

Haṃsāvatī, during the time of Buddha Padumuttara. When she was listening to a sermon by the Buddha, she saw a bhikkhunī being named as the foremost bhikkhunī in wearing coarse, inferior robes. She aspired to be like that bhikkhunī in wearing coarse, inferior robes. After making an extraordinary offering, she expressed that wish before the Buddha. The Buddha prophesied that her aspiration would be fulfilled during the time of Buddha Gotama.

Her Existence as a Daughter of King Kikī

The future Kisāgotamī Therī was reborn in the fortunate destinations, and never into miserable states, for a period of a hundred thousand world-cycles. During the time of Buddha Kassapa in the present world-cycle which was graced by five Buddhas, she was reborn as the fifth daughter of King Kikī of Bārāṇasī. She was named Dhammā. For the whole of her life span of twenty thousand years, she led a life of purity, observing the Ten Precepts.

(b) Becoming A Bhikkhunī in Her Last Existence

Princess Dhammā was reborn in the Tāvatiṃsa Deva realm. In her last existence, she was born into a rich man’s family, whose fortunes had dwindled and was in a state of poverty. Her original name was Gotamī but due to her lean and emaciated body she was called Kisāgotamī, “Gotamī the lean one.”

(How Kisāgotamī became the daughter-in-law of a rich man will now be narrated, as told in the Commentary on the Dhammapada.)

“Exhaustion of Good Kamma causes Extreme Poverty.”

Yadā kammakkhayo hoti, sabbametaṃ vinasati

“When good kamma is exhausted everything is lost.”

So has the Buddha said in the Nidhikaṇḍa Sutta. There was a rich man in Sāvatthi whose property were all strangely turned into charcoal due to the exhaustion of his good kamma. The man was in a despondent state. He lost his appetite and lay on a couch. A friend came to his house and gave him encouragement. He also gave a practical way out of the stark poverty of the once rich man.

His instruction was as follows:

“Friend, spread out a mat in front of your house as a bazaar seller would. For you are going to sell the heaps of charcoal that are now your only property. Passers-by will say: ‘Oh, other people sell oil, honey, molasses, etc. but you, rich man, are selling charcoal.’ Then you just said to them: ‘One sells what one owns. What’s wrong with it?’ These people are the ordinary people with no great past merit. “Someone will come and say to you: ‘Ah, other people sell oil, honey molasses, etc. but you, rich man, are selling gold and silver!’ To that person you should say: ‘Where are the gold and silver?’

“Then that person will point out to your heaps of charcoal and say: ‘There they are.’

“Then you should say: ‘Bring them to me,’ and receive with your hands what that person has brought (from your heaps of charcoal) to you in his or her hands. Since that person is one endowed with great past merit, all he or she had touched and delivered into your hands will be turned into gold and silver, as they originally had been.

“I must mention the stipulation. It is this, if the person who mention about your gold and silver (and turns them back to gold and silver) is a young woman, you must marry your son to her, entrust all your property with forty crores to her and let her, as your daughter-in-law, manage your household. If that person is a young man, you must marry your daughter to him, entrust all your property worth forty crores to him, as your son-in-law, and let him manage your household”

Kisāgotamī, The One With Great Past Merit

The ruined rich man took his friend’s advice. He sat as a bazaar seller in front of his house where every passer-by could see him sitting there selling his charcoal. People said to him: “Ah, other people sell oil, honey, molasses, etc., but you are selling charcoal.” To them he simply said: “One sells what one owns. What’s wrong with it?”

One day, Kisāgotamī herself, the daughter of another ruined rich man, happened to come along to the charcoal vendor. She said: “O father, other people sell oil, honey, molasses etc., but you are selling gold and silver!”

The ruined rich man said to her: “Where are the gold and silver?”

“Well, are you not dealing in them here?”

“Bring those gold and silver to me, little daughter!”

Kisāgotamī took a handful of the vendor’s ‘goods’ and handed it to him and to his amazement, all of them turned into gold and silver as they originally had been!

Kisāgotamī became The Daughter-in-law of The Rich Man

The rich man asked Kisāgotamī: “What is your family name?”

“It is called Kisāgotamī,” she replied. The rich man then knew her to be unmarried. He collected his riches from that place, took Kisāgotamī to his house and married his son to her. Then every of his former gold and silver items assumed its original form. (This is according to the Commentary to the Dhammapada.)

In due course, Kisāgotamī gave birth to a son. From that time onwards, she began to be treated with love and respect by her father-in-law’s family (for at first she was looked down by them as the daughter of a poor man). Just when her son could romp about, he died. Kisāgotamī, who had never suffered loss of a child, was overwhelmed with grief. She valued her son as the condition for her improved status and wellbeing. Her fortunes had improved with his birth. She could not think of her dead child being thrown away at the cemetery. So she held the dead child fondly in her arms, and muttering continuously: “O, let me have the medicine to bring back life to my son!” she roamed about from house to house.

As she behaved in that senseless though pitiable manner, people had no sympathy with her. They said jeeringly, flipping their fingers: “Where have you ever seen a medicine that restores life to the dead?” These unkind but truthful words failed to bring her sanity. A wise man then considered: “This young woman has lost her good senses due to the death of her son. The right medicine for her can only be dispensed by the Buddha,” and said to her: “Little daughter, the medicine that can bring back life to your son is known only to the

Buddha and to no one else. Indeed, there is the Buddha, the greatest person among devas and humans, residing at the Jetavana monastery. Go and ask him.”

The Buddha’s Strategy to quell Kisāgotamī’s Sorrow

Kisāgotamī thought the man’s advice was a wise one. She went straight to the Buddha’s monastery, holding her dead child in her arms. The Buddha was seated on His throne amidst an audience and was about to make His discourse when Kisāgotamī shouted to the Buddha: “Venerable Sir, give me the medicine that will bring back life to my child!” The Buddha saw the sufficiency of her past merit in attaining Enlightenment and said to her: “O Gotamī, you have done the right thing in coming to this place to ask for the medicine to restore life to your dead child. Now go to every house in Sāvatthi and ask for a small quantity of mustard oil from the house whose family has no death occurred, and bring it to me.”

(Herein, the Buddha’s strategy is to be noted carefully. The Buddha merely says to Kisāgotamī to bring him a small quantity of mustard oil from the house whose family had no death occurred. He did not say that He would restore the dead child to life when she has got the oil. The Buddha’s objective is to let the demented mother realized the point that loss of a son is not a unique experience but that everybody has suffered the same sorrow of death.)

Kisāgotamī thought that if she obtained the mustard oil, her son would be restored to life. She went to the first house and said: “The Buddha asks me to get a small quantity of mustard oil for making a medicine to restore life to my dead son. Kindly give me some mustard oil.”

“Here it is,” the householder said and gave some mustard oil.

“But, Sir,” she said, “I must know one thing: has nobody died in this family?”

“What a question! Who can remember the number of people that died in this family?”

“In that case, I am not taking the oil,” she said and went to another house. She heard the same reply there. At the third house she also heard the same reply. Now truth dawned into her merit. There can be no family in this city where death never occurred. Of course, the Buddha, the benefactor of the world, knew it.” An emotional religious awakening arose in her. She went to the country and left her dead child there, saying: “Dear son, as a mother, I had thought quite wrongly that death came to you alone. But death is common to everybody.”

Then, muttering this soliloquy (the meaning of which will be given later), she went to see the Buddha:

Na gāmadhammo no nigamassa dhammo,
Na cāpiyaṃ ekakulassa dhammo.
Sabbassa lokassa sadevakassa,
Eseva dhammo yadidaṃ aniccatā.

She approached the Buddha who asked her: “Have you got the mustard oil?”

“I have no need for mustard oil, Venerable Sir, only give me the firm ground to stand upon, let me gain a foothold!”

The Buddha, spoke this verse to her: (translated below)

“Gotamī, one who is intoxicated with one’s children and wealth (lit. ‘herds of cattle’) and is attached to one’s possessions (old and new), is carried away by Death, just as a sleeping village is swept away by a huge flood.”

——Dhammapada, V. 287.——

At the end of the discourse, Kisāgotamī was established in the Fruition of Stream-Entry Knowledge.

(This is according to the Commentary on Aṅguttara Nikāya.)

In the life story of Kisāgotamī, when she came back from her search for the mustard oil, the Buddha spoke to her in two verses:

The first verse beginning with:

Yo ca vassasataṃ jīve, apassaṃ udayabbayaṃ

——Dhammapada verse 113——

the meaning of which has been given in the story of Paṭācārā and the second as follows:

“Gotamī, the impermanence of all conditioned things is not a peculiar phenomenon confined to any village, or town, or a family, but an inescapable fact that concerns all sentient beings including devas, humans and Brahmās.”

After hearing these two verses, Kisāgotamī attained Stream-Entry. This is the Life Story of Kisāgotamī Therī as told in the Apādāna Pāli.

Having been established in sotāpatti-phala, Kisāgotamī requested the Buddha that she be allowed to become a bhikkhunī. The Buddha consented. Kisāgotamī left the Buddha after going three rounds around Him with the Him on her right. She went to the ‘monastery’ of bhikkhunīs, and was admitted into the Order of Bhikkhunīs. Then, she acquired the name of Kisāgotamī Therī.

Attainment of Arahatship

Kisāgotamī Therī worked diligently to gain Insight. One day, it was her turn to look after lighting in and around the congregation hall. While watching a flame in a lamp, she had the perception of the flame as a phenomena of a series of rising and vanishings (i.e. perishing). Then she saw that all living beings are coming and going, that is, they are born only to die and that only those who attain Nibbāna do not come under this process of arising and falling.

The thoughts that were occurring in Kisāgotamī’s mind came to the notice of the Buddha who was sitting in His private chamber at the Jetavana monastery, and He sent His Buddharays to her, making her see Him sitting in front of her and said: “Gotamī, your thinking is right. All living beings rise and fall, just as the series of flames do. Only those who attain Nibbāna do not come under this process of arising and falling. It is living in vain for those who may live a hundred years without realizing Nibbāna through Path-Knowledge and its Fruition.”

He made this point further in the following verse:

“(Gotamī,) even if one were to live a hundred years without perceiving through Path-Knowledge, the Deathless (Nibbāna), yet more worthwhile indeed is a single day’s life of one who perceives through Path-Knowledge, the Deathless (Nibbāna).”

At the end of the discourse, Kisāgotamī Therī attained arahatship, having extinguished all mental intoxicants.

(c) Kisāgotamī as The Foremost Bhikkhunī

As aspired in her previous existence, Kisāgotamī devoted her entire bhikkhunī life to being contented with inferior robes, i.e. robes made of inferior cloth, sewn in inferior thread, and dyed in an inferior pale colour.

Therefore, on one occasion, when the Buddha was naming outstanding bhikkhunīs during His residence at the Jetavana monastery, He declared:

“Bhikkhus, among My bhikkhunī-disciples who make do with inferior robes, Bhikkhunī Kisāgotamī is the foremost (etadagga).”