kanhadiipayana

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Kaṇhadīpāyana

1. Kaṇhadīpāyana.- An ascetic of great power. When the Andhakaveṇhudāsaputtā found themselves unable to capture Dvāravatī, because the city rose into the air when attacked, they sought the ascetic’s help. He told them that an ass wandered round the city and brayed at the sight of an enemy, when the city immediately rose up into the sky. They sought the ass and begged for his help. Acting on the ass’s advice, they tied eight great iron posts to the gates, thus preventing the city from rising. In this way they captured it (J.iv.83).

Later, their sons, wishing to test Kaṇhadipānyana’s powers of clairvoyance, played a practical joke on him. They tied a pillow to the belly of a young lad, and dressing him up as a woman, took him to the ascetic and asked when the baby would be born. The ascetic replied that on the seventh day the person before him would give birth to a knot of acacia wood which would destroy the race of Vāsudeva. The youths thereupon fell on him and killed him, but his prophecy came true (J.iv.87). This ascetic is evidently not the one mentioned in the Jātaka bearing his name, for there he is identified with the Bodhisatta, while in the story given above the Bodhisatta was the ascetic’s contemporary and was called Ghatapandita (q.v.)

The immolation of Kaṇhadīpāyana and its consequences are often referred to. e.g., J.v.114; 267, 273.

2. Kaṇhadīpāyana.- An ascetic; his story is given in the Kaṇhadīpāyana Jātaka.

Dictionary of Pāli Proper Names • G.P. Malalasekera