BÄ«jaka
1. Bijaka.- The son of Sudinna Kalaṇá¸akaputta by the wife of his lay days. He was conceived after Sudinna had already been ordained. His wife came to him during her period and begged him to give her an offspring (bÄ«jaka). As the rule against unchastity had not then been promulgated, Sudinna yielded to her importunities, thus becoming guilty of the first PÄrÄjikÄ. The son was called BÄ«jaka, and so Sudinna came to be called BÄ«jakapitÄ and the mother BÄ«jakamÄtÄ. Both BÄ«jaka and his mother later left the world and became Arahants. Vin.iii.17 19; Sp.i.215f.
2. BÄ«jaka.- A slave of Videha, present when the ascetic Guna expounded his doctrine to King Angati, and it was approved by AlÄta. BÄ«jaka also agreed that Guṇa’s teaching accorded with his own experience. He remembered his previous life, when he had been born as BhÄvasetthi of SÄketa and had done many acts of virtue and piety. However, at present he was the son of a poor prostitute leading a wretched life. Even so, he always gave half his food to any who might desire it, kept the fast, and led, in every way, a virtuous life. However, virtue, he said, was useless; it bore no fruit. So saying, he wept. When RujÄ (q.v.) heard this, she said that BÄ«jaka’s sufferings were due to evil actions done in the past in earlier lives (J.vi.227, 228, 229, 233, 235).
The scholiast explains (J.vi.228) that in the time of Kassapa Buddha, while BÄ«jaka was seeking a lost ox, a monk enquired of him the way which he had lost. BÄ«jaka was angry and abused the monk, calling him a slave. His birth as BhÄvaseá¹hi was due to some earlier good done by him, but in this birth he became a slave.
BÄ«jaka is identified with MoggallÄna (J.vi.225).
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