12. Ven. Kisā Gotamī
Aspiration in the Past
The future Kisā Gotamī was reborn into an unknown family in the city of Haṁsavatī, during the time of Buddha Padumuttara. When she was listening to a discourse by the Buddha, she saw a nun being named as the foremost female monastic in wearing coarse, inferior robes. She aspired to be like that nun. After making an extraordinary offering, she expressed that wish before the Buddha. The Buddha predicted that her aspiration would be fulfilled during the time of Buddha Gotama.
A Daughter of King Kikī
The future Kisā Gotamī was reborn in the fortunate destinations, and never into lower worlds, for a period of 100,000 aeons. During the time of Buddha Kassapa in the present aeon 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 lifespan of 20,000 years, she led a life of purity, observing the ten precepts.
Ascetic Life in Her Final Existence
Princess Dhammā was reborn in the Tāvatiṁsa 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 Kisā Gotamī, “Gotamī the lean one.”
How Kisā Gotamī became the daughter-in-law of a rich man will now be narrated, as told in the commentary on the Dhamma Verses (Dhammapada, Dhp 114).
Kisā Gotamī, the One with Great Past Merit
The Buddha said this in the Discourse on the Amount of Savings (Nidhi-kaṇḍa-sutta, Khp 8.5):
Yadā puññakkhayo hoti, sabbam-etaṁ vinassati.
When merit is exhausted everything is lost.
There was a rich man in Sāvatthī whose property were all strangely turned into charcoal due to the exhaustion of his merit. 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 say to them: ‘One sells what one owns. What’s wrong with it?’ These people are the ordinary people with no great past merit.
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 touches and delivers 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 mentions 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 400 million 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 400 million to him, as your son-in-law, and let him manage your household.”
The ruined rich man took his friend’s advice. He sat as a bazaar 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, Kisā Gotamī herself, the daughter of another ruined rich man, happened to come along to the charcoal vendor. She said: “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, daughter!”
Kisā Gotamī 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!
The rich man asked Kisā Gotamī: “What is your family name?” – “I am known as Kisā Gotamī,” she replied. The rich man then knew her to be unmarried. He collected his riches from that place, took Kisā Gotamī to his house and married his son to her. Then every one of his former gold and silver items assumed its original form.
Kisā Gotamī’s Loss
In due course, Kisā Gotamī 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 – at first she had been looked down by them as the daughter of a poor man. Just when her son could romp about, he died. Kisā Gotamī, who had never suffered the loss of a child, was overwhelmed with grief. She valued her son as the condition for her improved status and well-being. Her fortunes had improved with his birth. She could not think of her dead child being thrown away in the cemetery. So she held the dead child fondly in her arms, and muttering continuously: “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 to her senses. A wise man then considered: “This young woman has lost her senses due to the death of her son. The right medicine for her can only be dispensed by the Buddha.”
He 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
Quelling Kisā Gotamī’s Sorrow
Kisā Gotamī had hope. 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 give his discourse when Kisā Gotamī 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 for attaining Awakening and said to her: “Gotamī, you have done the right thing in coming here to ask for the medicine to restore life to your dead child. Now you must go to the houses in Sāvatthī and ask for a small quantity of mustard oil from a house where no death has occurred, and bring it to me.”
Herein, the Buddha’s strategy is to be noted carefully. The Buddha merely says to Kisā Gotamī to bring him a small quantity of mustard oil from a house where no death had 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 realize the point that loss is not a unique experience but that everybody has suffered the same sorrow of the loss of a loved one.
Kisā Gotamī 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 have 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 mind. “There can be no family in this city where death has never occurred. Of course, the Buddha, the benefactor of the world, knew it.” A spiritual urgency 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 (Thi-ap 22, 27):
Na gāma-dhammo no nigamassa dhammo,
na cāpiyaṁ eka-kulassa dhammo.
Sabbassa lokassa sadevakassa,
eseva Dhammo yad-idaṁ 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 firm ground to stand upon, let me gain a foothold!”
The Buddha, spoke this verse to her (Dhp 287):
Gotamī, one who is intoxicated with children and wealth and is attached to possessions, old and new, is carried away by Death, just as a sleeping village is swept away by a huge flood.
At the end of the discourse, Kisā Gotamī was established in the fruition of Stream-entry knowledge. This is according to the commentary on the Collection of the Numerical Discourses (Aṅguttara-nikāya).
In the life story of Kisā Gotamī, when she came back from her search for the mustard oil,
Gotamī, even if one were to live 100 years without perceiving with insight the arising and perishing of mind and body, yet more worthwhile indeed is a single day’s life of one who perceives the arising and perishing of mind and body.
Gotamī, the impermanence of all conditioned things is not a peculiar phenomenon confined to any village, town, or family, but an inescapable fact that concerns all sentient beings including humans, Devas and Brahmas.
After hearing these two verses, Kisā Gotamī attained Stream-entry. Having been established in Stream-entry (Sotāpatti-phala), Kisā Gotamī requested the Buddha to be allowed to become a nun. The Buddha consented. Kisā Gotamī left the Buddha after going three rounds around him with him on her right. She went to the nunnery, and was admitted into the Saṅgha of female monastics. Then, she was known as Ven. Kisā Gotamī.
Attainment of Awakening
Ven. Kisā Gotamī worked diligently to gain insight. One day, it was her turn to look after lighting in and around the Assembly Hall. While watching a flame in a lamp, she had the perception of the flame as a series of rising and vanishings. 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 Kisā Gotamī’s mind came to the notice of the Buddha who was sitting in his private chamber at the Jetavana monastery, and he sent his Buddha-radiance 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 a living in vain for those who may live 100 years without realizing Nibbāna through path-knowledge and its fruition.” He made this point further in the following verse (Dhp 113):
Gotamī, even if one were to live 100 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, Ven. Kisā Gotamī became an Arahat, having extinguished all mental intoxicants.
Foremost Title Achieved
As aspired to in her previous existence, Ven. Kisā Gotamī devoted her entire monastic life to being content with inferior robes, robes made of inferior cloth, sewn in inferior thread, and dyed in an inferior colour. Therefore, on one occasion, when the Buddha was naming outstanding nuns during his residence at the Jetavana monastery, he declared:
Etad-aggaṁ bhikkhave mama sāvikānaṁ bhikkhunīnaṁ
lūkha-cīvara-dharānaṁ yad-idaṁ Kisā-gotamī.
Monastics, among my female monastic disciples who make do with inferior robes, Kisā Gotamī is the foremost (etad-agga).