24.5 The Story about the Elder Khemā
Khemātherīvatthu

“Those who are impassioned,” [30.225] this Dhamma teaching was given by the Teacher while he was in residence at Veḷuvana with reference to Khemā, chief consort of King Bimbisāra.

Khemā, we are told, as the result of an aspiration which she made at the feet of the Buddha Padumuttara, was exceedingly beautiful and fair to look upon. But she had heard it said that the Teacher found fault with beauty of form, and therefore refrained from entering his presence. The king, knowing that she was drunk with the intoxication of her own beauty, caused songs to be composed in praise of Veḷuvana, and had these songs turned over to actors.

As Khemā listened to the songs sung by these singers, Veḷuvana seemed to her like a place she had never seen before or heard of before. “What grove are you singing about?” she asked the singers. “Your majesty, we are singing about your own grove Veḷuvana,” they replied. Forthwith she desired to go to the grove. The Teacher, knowing that she was coming, created, even as he sat in the midst of the assembly, teaching the Dhamma, a woman of surpassing beauty, standing at his side and fanning him with a palmyra fan.

When Queen Khemā entered and saw that woman, she thought to herself: “I have always been told that the Sambuddha finds fault with beauty of form. But here in his presence stands a woman fanning him. I {4.58} do not come even within a sixteenth part of her beauty. Indeed, I have never seen so beautiful a woman before. They misrepresent the Teacher, I doubt not.” And hearing not even the sound of the Teacher’s voice as he taught the Dhamma, she stood there, her gaze riveted on that woman.

The Teacher, noticing how much she thought of this apparition, transformed the apparition from a woman of youth and beauty into a decrepit old woman, in the manner related above, showing her finally as a mere bag of bones. Khemā, seeing her, reflected: “In but a moment a form even so beautiful as this has attained decay and death. Verily there is no essence in this [30.226] material form!” The Teacher perceived the course of her thoughts and said to her: “Khemā, you falsely think: ‘There is an essence in beauty of form.’ Behold now the lack of essence!” So saying, he pronounced the following verse:

Diseased, impure, stinking,
see, Khemā, this body,
overflowing, trickling,
desired only by fools.

At the conclusion of the verse Khemā was established in the fruition of Stream-entry. Then the Teacher said to her: “Khemā, living beings here in the world, dyed with lust, corrupted with hatred, deluded with delusion, cannot cross the stream of their own craving, but stick fast therein.” And teaching the Dhamma, he pronounced the following verse:

347. Ye rāgarattānupatanti sotaṁ
sayaṁkataṁ makkaṭako va jālaṁ,
etam-pi chetvāna vajanti dhīrā,
anapekkhino sabbadukkhaṁ pahāya.

Those who are impassioned follow the stream
like a spider a web made by itself,
having cut this away the wise proceed,
seeking nothing, abandoning suffering. {4.59}

At the end of the teaching Khemā was established in Arahatship, and many people also had benefit from the Dhamma teaching.

The Teacher said to the king: “Great king, Khemā ought either to go forth or pass into Parinibbāna.” The king replied: “Venerable Sir, let her go forth; enough of Parinibbāna!” She went forth and became one of the Teacher’s foremost female disciples. AJ: unfortunately Burlingame translated this as: “She retired from the world and became one of the Teacher’s foremost female lay disciples.” She was the bhikkhunī disciple who was declared foremost in wisdom.

last updated: August 2024