From Ubiquity to Immaculacy

• Khema the Arahant Bhikkhuni, foremost in wisdom is an outstanding example
   
• Traversing the earth and heavens again for an entire Buddha epoch, in Gautama Buddha’s time she was born to a royal family in Sagala City

The ultimate transcendental state of Arahanthood is of such rarity that its accomplishment is almost always preceded by ‘Nekkhamma’ – going from home to homelessness, a process to be cultivated through a numberless rounds of births. Every norm in the world though has it exception, and so it is with this rule as well. Buddhist literature counts just a handful of instances where laymen and women reached that exalted state, rendered all the more sensational by their paucity. Their achievements are remarkable considering the fact that the obstacles they have to surmount in their lay state are far more formidable than of those gone forth.`  

Khema the Arahant Bhikkhuni, foremost in wisdom is an outstanding example. Her narrative as in others of similar tenor originates in the era of Piyamathura Buddha when she was born a slave girl. On seeing Piyamathura Buddha’s First Chief Disciple Sujathā on his alms - begging round offered him three sweetmeats. The same day she sold her only possession in the world, her lock of hair to buy the Great Arahant’s mid-day meal. While offering it to him she made a prayer that some day she too become a wise one like him. Thenceforth transmitting between human and deva worlds a hundred thousand eons she became one of seven daughters of the Kasi King Kiki in Kashyapa Buddha’s dispensation. Her name was Samani. All seven sisters remained unmarried for twenty thousand years, came together to build a dwelling place for the use of Kashyapa Buddha.  

Traversing the earth and heavens again for an entire Buddha epoch, in Gautama Buddha’s time she was born to a royal family in Sagala City known for its beautiful maidens and was named Khema, whose complexion was a golden hue. Her six other siblings became Arahant bhikkhunis Uppalawanna, Patachara, Prajapathi Gothami, Dhammadinna, Baddha Kundalakesi and the sowan attainee Visakha.  

Their achievements are remarkable considering the fact that the obstacles they have in their lay state are far more formidable than of those gone forth

Come of age, Khema was sent to the palace of King Bimbisara of Rajagaha as his queen. Intoxicated with her own beauty, she never did visit Lord Buddha lest he speaks demeaningly of her good looks, as He always did in respect of superficial appearance.   

King Bimbisara reflected, ‘the chief carer, the Arya Srawaka’s wife never visits the Lord, and it is not to my liking’, so he arranged for royal musicians to sing the praises of Weluwana park to be heard by the queen. When she finally expressed her desire to pay a visit, the king hinted she may have to meet the Blessed one living there. She ignored the remark.   

When she was getting ready to leave the park without visiting Buddha the royal guards directed her towards Him on the monarch’s orders. When she came close enough Buddha created the stunning image of a celestial nymph fanning Him from behind, to be visible only to her. ‘I am finished, such heavenly creatures are attending on the great figure, I am not fit to be their maid. I am finished by my foul thoughts’ she told herself. While she stood transfixed by the fascinating spectacle unfolding before her, Buddha made the divine creature progressively reach middle age and finally become an old woman with grey hair and broken, dislodged teeth. In front of dumbfounded Khema she dropped on the floor with the fan still in her hand. Driven by her previous blessings she contemplated on her own future if the fate of the superlative being was this. At that moment the Blessed One uttered the verse found in Dhammapada,  

Come of age, Khema was sent to the palace of King Bimbisara of Rajagaha as his queen. Intoxicated with her own beauty, she never did visit Lord Buddha lest he speaks demeaningly of her good looks, as He always did in respect of superficial appearance. 

“The spider perishes in the web it weaves, the ‘greedy’ one perishes in the web of Samsara. With jettisoned expectations and sense desires one lives the holy life of sainthood”.  

Upon these words Khema attained in the very place where she stood, the holiest of holy states along with the four supernormal faculties. A layman or woman on reaching Arahanthood either passes away the same day or enters the clerical order. Realizing her life span is yet unexhausted, she paid her worshipful respects to the Blessed One and returned to the palace but did not worship the king. The sharp king knew instinctively that she had reached the journey’s end. He addressed her, “Queen, did you see the Blessed One?” she replied the Sowan Attainer, “Great King, the Buddha I saw is quite unlike the mere glimpse you had of Him. May you approve of my admission to the Bhikkhuni order”  

The king had her conducted in a procession to a Bhikkhuni centre. The narrative in Anguttara Nikaya ends there. On a later date while at Jetawanaramaya Buddha designated Khema foremost amongst the wise in Bhikkhuni order, the culmination of her wish made many millions of years before.  

Baddha Kundalakesi episode is equally sensational. She too made a prayer before Piyamatura Buddha that she be the one who comprehends Dhamma the fastest before a future Buddha. She too was born a sister of Khema in Kashyapa Buddha’s dispensation, and in Gautama Buddha era she became a noblemans’ daughter. On seeing a notorious robber born on ‘hora nekatha’ being whipped through the streets on the way to the execution ground, she insisted on threat of suicide that her parents have the condemned man saved from the spike.   

The parents contrived to swap another man with the robber and have him married to the girl. True to his stars, being fed up with marriage in no time he lured her to the edge of a cliff on the pretext of performing a ritual to appease the mountain god, but to finish her off and vanish with her jewellery.  

She said to herself ‘Wisdom was not meant to be cooked and eaten but to be used in situations like this’, and finding a moment her husband was off guard flung him down the precipice. It is said the forest dwelling gods (wana devata) applauded the show of feminine skill. Unable to return to her parents thereafter, she entered a Nigantha hermitage, mastered their philosophy in no time and started roaming the country challenging anyone to a debate, when she met her match in Ven. Sariputta the first chief disciple. Having had all her arguments demolished and failing to answer the one question thrown at her by the utterly learned Bhikkhu, she pleaded pupillage under him. 

There is no purpose in following me, the First Person in the World is in the temple nearby, be a follower of His”. Accepting his advice in reverential gratitude she visited Buddha

The great monk replied, “There is no purpose in following me, the First Person in the World is in the temple nearby, be a follower of His”. Accepting his advice in reverential gratitude she visited Buddha in the evening during sermon – time, worshipped Him and stood to a side. No sooner Buddha pronounced the dictum “The single word that calms the mind, holds sway over a thousand verses of empty rhetoric” in consonance with her life of subdued desires, she attained in the very place she was as did Bhikkhuni Khema, the foremost state of spiritual and intellectual sublimity along with the four ultimate powers. Buddha accordingly designated her the one with ability to comprehend Dhamma in the quickest time among the Bhikkhuni order.  

Chief Minister Santhathi who attained Arahanthood while still in military regalia occupies a unique position in the canon by way of contradictions, in a sense. Unlike the Bhikkhunis above, his life came to an end the very day he reached Arahanthood. He was inebriated a whole week in celebration of his quelling an uprising that erupted in the provinces, but was devastated when the dancing girl assigned to him came to a sudden death. 

The liquor he consumed for seven days ‘evaporated like drops of water on a red-hot plate’. He went to Jetawanaramaya with an entire battalion to meet Buddha and beg help. Buddha explained he had come to the right person to uproot his sorrow and that the tears he had shed on account of this same woman is greater than the waters of the four oceans.   

On delivery of a short homily, the minister attained Arahanthood, still in his decorated uniform. Realizing his life had come to an end, the Arahant sought permission from Buddha to pass into parinirvana. On Buddha’s advice he rose to the sky to recount his Kamma for the benefit of the multitude of people gathered. He recalled how ninety one kalpas before in the era of Vipassi Buddha as a layman he roamed the streets of Bandumathie his entire life of eighty thousand years extolling the virtues of the Triple Gem. At the end of the fascinating narrative, imbibing the fire element Tthejo dathu), his body ignited and became a ball of fire while still in the air. The ashes that fell were enshrined in Stupas on the four main cross-roads of the city as directed by the Blessed one.  

The other noble personage who attained the exalted state was none other than the Great King Suddhodana himself. They all illumined the upasaka upasika sectors of Sri Gautama Buddha Sasana as did none other in the entirety of its twenty five century old 
glorious history.