MahÄkÄla
1. MahÄkÄla Thera.- He belonged to a merchant family of SetavyÄ, and, while on a journey to SÄvatthi with five hundred carts, he heard the Buddha teach at Jetavana and entered the Order. He lived in the charnel field meditating, and, one day, the crematrix KÄlÄ, noticing him, arranged the limbs of a recently cremated body near the Thera that he might gaze at them. With these as a topic of meditation, he soon became an Arahant.
Thag.vss.151f.; his story is given in much greater detail at DhA.i.66ff.; there he is said to have been the eldest of three brothers, of whom the others were MajjhimakÄla and CūḷakÄla. He went with the latter to SÄvatthi, where both of them joined the Order. After becoming an Arahant, MahÄkÄla went with the Buddha to SetavyÄ and dwelt in the SimsapÄ grove, CūḷakÄla accompanying him. CūḷakÄla’s wives invited the Buddha and the other monks to a meal, and he himself went on earlier to make arrangements. His wives disrobed him. At the end of the meal, MahÄkÄla was left behind by the Buddha to make the thanksgiving. His eight wives surrounded him and stripped him of his robes, but, knowing their intention, he disappeared through the air.
Ninety-one world-cycles ago, while wandering near the mountain Urugana, he saw the rag robe of an ascetic and offered three kinkiṇika flowers in its honour (ThagA.i.271f). He is probably identical with PaṃsukÅ«lapÅ«jaka Thera of the ApadÄna. Ap.ii.434; but see ThagA.i.79, where the same ApadÄna verses are quoted.
2. MahÄkÄla.- A lay disciple (upÄsaka) of Savatthi who was a sotÄpanna. One day he took the uposatha vows and, having listened throughout the night to the teaching, was washing his face in the pool near Jetavana early the next morning, when thieves who had broken into a house and were being pursued put their stolen goods near him and ran away. He, being taken for a thief, was beaten to death. When this was reported to the Buddha, he related a story of the past in which MahÄkÄla had been a forest guard of the king of Benares. One day he saw a man entering the forest road with his beautiful wife and, falling in love with the wife, invited them to his house. He then had a gem placed in the man’s cart, and the latter was beaten to death as a thief. DhA.iii.149ff.
3. MahÄkÄla.- A Naga king who dwelt in the Mañjerika NÄgabhavana. When the Buddha, after eating the meal given by SujÄtÄ, launched the bowl up stream, it travelled a short way and then stopped, having reached the NÄga’s abode under the NerañjarÄ, and then came into contact with the bowls similarly launched by the three previous Buddhas of this world-cycle. To the NÄga because of his long life it seemed that the previous Buddha had died only the preceding day, and he rejoiced to think that another had been born. He went therefore to the scene of the Buddha’s Enlightenment with his NÄga maidens and they sang the Buddha’s praises. J.i.70, 72; this incident is among those sculpturally represented in the Relic Chamber of the MahÄ ThÅ«pa (Mhv.xxxi.83); see also Dvy.392; Mtu.ii.265, 302, 304.
KÄla’s life span was one world-cycle; therefore he saw all the four Buddhas of this world-cycle, and when Asoka wished to see the form of the Buddha, he sent for MahÄkÄla, who created for him a beautiful figure of the Buddha, complete in every detail (Mhv.v.87f.; Sp.i.43, etc.).
When the Buddha’s relics, deposited at RÄmagÄma, were washed away, MahÄkÄla took the basket containing them into his abode and there did them honour till they were removed, against his will, by Sonuttara. Mhv.xxxi.25ff.
4. MahÄkÄla.- A householder of Bandhumati in the time of VipassÄ« Buddha. He was a previous birth of AññÄ-Koṇá¸añña. He and his brother CūḷakÄla gave the first fruits of their harvest, in nine stages of its growth, to the Buddha. AA.i.79ff.; ThagA.ii.1f.
5. MahÄkÄla. One of the seven mountains surrounding GandhamÄdana. SNA.i.66; J.v.38.
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