8.10 The Story about the Elder Khāṇu Koṇḍañña
Khāṇukoṇḍaññattheravatthu
Dhp 111
Burlingame: The Monk and the Thieves
Elder Khāṇu Koṇḍañña, sitting in meditation, was unmoved when five hundred thieves piled up their stolen goods all over him at night; the thieves, impressed with his equanimity, converted and were ordained; the Buddha gave a teaching in a verse on that occasion.
Keywords: Thieves, Conversions, Amanussa
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“One might live for a hundred years,” this Dhamma teaching was given by the Teacher while he was in residence at Jetavana with reference to the Elder Khāṇu Koṇḍañña.
This elder, it appears, obtained a meditation subject from the Teacher, and while residing in the forest attained Arahatship. Desiring to inform the Teacher of his attainment, he set out to return from the forest. Growing tired by the way, he left the road, seated himself on a flat stone, and entered into a state of absorption. Now at that time a band of five hundred thieves plundered a village, packed up their spoils in sacks of sizes proportional to the strength of their several members, placed the sacks on their heads, and carried them for a long distance. Becoming weary, they said to themselves: “We have come a long distance; let us rest on the top of this flat rock.” So saying, they left the road, went to the rock, and mistook the elder for the stump of a tree. One of the thieves placed his sack on the elder’s head, and another placed his sack near his body. One after another, the five hundred thieves set their sacks in a circle about him and then lay down and went to sleep.
At dawn they woke up and took their sacks. Seeing the elder, and thinking he was an Amanussa, they started to run away. The elder said to them: “Lay disciples, have no fear; I am one gone forth.” Thereupon they prostrated themselves before his feet and begged his pardon, saying: “Pardon us, venerable Sir; we mistook you for the stump of a tree.” The ringleader of the thieves said: “I intend to go forth under the elder.”
Accompanied by those bhikkhus, he went to the Teacher. When the Teacher asked him: “Koṇḍañña, you have obtained pupils?” he told him what had happened. The Teacher asked: “Bhikkhus, is this true?” – “Yes, venerable Sir; we never saw such an exhibition of psychic power before and therefore we have become bhikkhus.”
The Teacher replied: “Bhikkhus, it were better for you to live but a single day in the exercise of the wisdom you have just acquired than to live for a hundred years committing such acts of foolishness.” And joining the connection and instructing them in the Dhamma, he pronounced the following verse:
111. Yo ca vassasataṁ jīve, duppañño asamāhito,
ekāhaṁ jīvitaṁ seyyo, paññavantassa jhāyino.
One might live for a hundred years,
lacking in wisdom, uncomposed,
but one day is better, for one
with wisdom and absorption.
At the end of the teaching those five hundred bhikkhus reached Arahatship together with the analytic knowledges, and those who had assembled also had benefit from the Dhamma teaching.