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Uppalavaṇṇā

Three of them had been uttered in anguish by a mother who had been unwittingly living as her daughter’s rival with the man who later became the monk Gangātīriya (q.v.) Uppalavaṇṇā repeated them to help her to reflect on the harm and vileness of sensual desires. Two others are utterances of joy on the distinctions she had won and another records a miracle she performed before the Buddha, with his consent. The rest contain a conversation between Uppalavaṇṇā and Māra (a conversation, more or less identical with the foregoing, is recorded in S.i.131f), wherein she tells him that she has passed completely beyond his power.

The books give several episodes connected with Uppalavaṇṇā. Once a young man named Ānanda, who was her cousin and had been in love with her during her lay-life, hid himself in her hut in Andhavana and, in spite of her protestations, deprived her of her chastity. It is said that he was swallowed up by the fires of Avīcī. From that time onwards, nuns were forbidden to live in Andhavana (DhA.ii.49f; the incident is referred to in Vin.iii.35). It is said (e.g., DhA.iv.166f) that this incident gave rise to the question whether even Arahants enjoyed the pleasures of love and wished to gratify their passions. Why should they not? For they are not trees nor ant-hills, but living creatures with moist flesh. The Buddha most emphatically declared that thoughts of lust never entered the hearts of the saints. On another occasion, Uppalavaṇṇā came across, in Andhavana, some meat left behind, obviously for her, by some kind-hearted thief; having cooked the meat, she took it to the Buddha at Veluvana. Finding him away on his alms-rounds, she left the meat with Udāyi, who was looking after the vihāra, to be given to the Buddha, but Udāyi insisted on Uppalavaṇṇā giving him her inner robe as a reward for his services (Vin.iii.208f).

According to the Dhammapada Commentary (iii.211), the miracle which Uppalavaṇṇā volunteered to perform at the Gandamba-tree, was the assumption of the form of a cakkavatti, with a retinue extending for thirty-six leagues and the paying of homage to the Buddha, with all the cakkavatti’s followers, in the presence of the multitude.

Mention is made of a pupil of Uppalavaṇṇā, who followed the Buddha for seven years, learning the Vinaya (Vin.ii.261).

The Buddha declares that Khemā and Uppalavaṇṇā are the measure of his women disciples, and that the believing nun, if she would aspire perfectly, should aspire to be like them (A.i.88; ii.164; S.ii.236).

In Padumuttara’s time Uppalavaṇṇā saw a woman disciple who was declared to be the best of those possessed of supernormal power, and wished for herself a similar rank in the dispensation of a future Buddha. In the time of Kassapa, she was one of the seven daughters of Kikī, king of Benares, and having done many good deeds, was born in heaven. Later, she was born in the world of men and had to work for her own living. One day she gave to a Pacceka Buddha, who had just risen from samādhi, a meal of fried rice in his bowl and covered it with a beautiful lotus; the meal had been prepared for herself. The lotus she afterwards took back but again replaced it, asking the Pacceka Buddha’s forgiveness. She expressed a wish that she should beget as many sons as there were grains of rice in her gift, and that lotuses should spring up under her feet as she walked. In her next birth she was born in a lotus. An ascetic adopted her as his daughter, but when she grew up, the king of Benares, hearing of her beauty, asked the ascetic for her hand and made her his chief queen, under the name of Padumavatī. The king’s other wives were jealous of her beauty, and when the king was away, quelling a rising of the border tribes, they concealed in caskets the five hundred sons, chief of whom was the prince Mahāpaduma (q.v.), that were born to Padumavatī, and told the king that Padumavatī was a non-human and had given birth to a log of wood. Padumavatī was sent away in disgrace, but later, through the instrumentality of Sakka, the trick was exposed, and Padumavatī regained all her former power and glory. (Her temporary downfall was due to her having withdrawn her gift of a lotus to the Pacceka Buddha.) Later, when Mahāpaduma and his brothers became Pacceka Buddhas, Padumavatī died of a broken heart and was born in a village outside Rājagaha. There some of the Pacceka Buddhas who had been her sons discovered her, and they all came to a meal at her house. At the conclusion of the meal she offered them blue lotuses, and expressed the wish that her complexion should be like the matrix of the blue lotus.

This account is a summary of the Therīgāthā Commentary, pp.182ff; AA.i.188ff; but see also DhA.ii.48f.

The Apadāna account of the past lives of Uppakavanna differs from the above in several details (ii.551. However, vv.1-15 quoted in the ThigA. differ from those in the Apadāna, and agree with the ThigA. account). According to this account, in Padumuttara’s time she was a Nāga maiden named Vimalā and was impressed by the psychic powers displayed by a nun, hence her wish for similar powers. The Apadāna also mentions Uppalavaṇṇā’s birth as the daughter of a banker of Benares, in the time of Vipassī. She gave great alms to the Buddha and the monks and made offerings of lotuses. She was the second daughter of Kikī and her name was Samannaguttā. In her next birth she became the ravishing daughter of Tirītavaccha of Aritthapura. In her last birth she became an Arahant within a fortnight of her ordination.

Uppalavaṇṇā’s name occurs several times in the Jātakas. In the Kharādiya Jātaka (J.i.160) she was a deer, the sister of the Bodhisatta; in the Tipallatthamiga Jātaka (J.i.164) she was the mother of Rāhula, then born as a stag. She is identified with the old woman, the foster-mother of Ayyakālaka (J.i.196), with the queen Mudulakkhanā (J.i.306), the brahminee in the Sārambha (J.i.375), the courtesan in the Kurudhamma (J.ii.381), the brahmin’s daughter (and sister of Rāhula) in the Dhonasākha (J.iii.168), Siridevī in the Sirikālakanni (J.iii.264), the goddess in the Bhisapuppha (J.iii.310), Manoja’s sister in the Manoja (J.iii.324), the ascetic’s daughter in the Kumbhakāra (J.iii.383), the deity in the Jāgarajā (J.iii.405), in the Sankha (J.iv.22), and in the Kiñchanda (J.v.11), the sister in the Bhisa (J.iv.314), Sutanā in the Rohantamiga (J.iv.423), the younger sister in the Jayaddisa (J.v.36), Kundalinī in the Tesakuna (J.v.125), Ummadantī in the Ummadantī (J.v.227), Hiridevatā in the Sudhābhojana (J.v.412), the goddess of the parasol in the Mūgapakkha (J.vi.29), the ocean spirit in the Mahājanaka (J.vi.68), the goddess in the Sāma (J.vi.95), Selā in the Khandahāla (J.vi.157), Accimukhī in the Bhūridatta (J.vi.219), Bherī in the Umaṅga (J.vi.478) and Kanhajinā in the Vessantara (J.vi.593).

It was Uppalavaṇṇā who ordained Anojā and her companions, by the express wish of the Buddha (AA.i.178).

Dictionary of Pāli Proper Names • G.P. Malalasekera