CHAPTER OF POEMS WITH FOUR VERSES

Verses 63-66: Bhaddā Kāpilānī

[Declaration of arahantship:]

Kassapa, the Buddha’s [spiritual] son and an inheritor [of the Buddha’s teaching], who knows his past lives, who sees heaven and the plane of sub-human existence, has attained the destruction of birth. He is a sage who has achieved [the six] supernormal attainments. By the three final knowledges he is a Brahman master of threefold Vedic knowledge.

Likewise Bhaddā Kāpilānī is a master of the three final knowledges, and has abandoned death. She bears her last body having conquered Māra and his elephant.

Seeing the wretchedness of the world [of phenomena] we both went forth [into the ascetic life]. Our āsavas are destroyed, we are inwardly tamed, freed from inward distress, and have realised the Untroubled.

Putto buddhassa dāyādo kassapo susamāhito
Pubbenivāsaṃ yo vedi saggāpāyañca passati

Atho jātikkhayaṃ patto abhiññā vosito muni
Etāhi tīhi vijjāhi tevijjo hoti brāhmaṇo

Tatheva bhaddā kāpilānī tevijjā maccuhāyinī
Dhāreti antimaṃ dehaṃ jetvā māraṃ savāhanaṃ

Disvā ādīnavaṃ loke ubho pabbajitā mayaṃ
Tyāmhā khīṇāsavā dantā sītibhūtāmha nibbutā ti

COMMENT

Bhaddā Kāpilānī was the ex-wife of Venerable MahāKassapa. By mutual consent their marriage was unconsummated. They set off from home as ascetics, and initially walking together, but parting at the first road junction. Bhaddā became a bhikkhunī with Mahāpajāpatī, and foremost of bhikkhunīs with memory of past lives.

COMMENT

Buddhadāyādo: ‘an inheritor [of the Buddha’s teaching].’ See comment on verse 18.

COMMENT

Abhiññā: ‘[the six] supernormal attainments.’ MahāKassapa claimed me cha abhiññā (S.2.217).

COMMENT

Bhaddā calls Kassapa ‘a Brahman master of threefold Vedic knowledge.’ Capitalised Brahman means arahantship. The Buddha says likewise:

• By these three final knowledges one is a Brahman master of threefold Vedic knowledge. He is the [true] master of threefold Vedic knowledge, I declare, not the one who [merely] cites and recites.
Etāhi tīhi vijjāhi tevijjo hoti brāhmaṇo
Tamahaṃ vadāmi tevijjaṃ nāññaṃ lapitalāpanan ti
(A.1.168).