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| Black and Buddhist (Faith Adiele) |
therī (one who has gone forth for at least ten rains retreats).
She was deemed "foremost in swift intuition" among the nuns (comparable to Bahiya of the Barkcloth among the monks).
She was reborn in the family of a treasurer of wealthy Rājagaha, the royal city ringed by seven hills where the Buddha frequently stayed at Vulture's Peak.
On the same day as she was born, a son was born to the king's chaplain under an astrological constellation favorable to highway robbers, who was therefore called Sattuka.
One day, through her balcony lattice, beautiful Bhaddā saw Sattuka being led by the city guard to execution on a charge of robbery. She at once fell in love with him and refused to live without him.
Her father, out of his love for her, bribed the guard to release Sattuka. He ordered him bathed in perfumed water, and brought him home, where Bhaddā, decked in jewels, waited upon him.
Sattuka soon began to covet her expensive jewels and conceived of a lie to steal them. He told her that he had made a vow to the deity of Robbers' Cliff that, should he escape execution, he would bring the deity an offering in thanks.
She trusted him and, and putting together an offering, went with him arrayed in all her lovely ornaments. On arriving at the top of the cliff, he told her of his real purpose. She, undaunted, begged him to let her embrace him just one more time. He agreed to this. Then, pretending to embrace him from behind, she pushed him over the cliff.
The deity of the mountain praised her presence of mind, saying that men were not in all cases wiser than women.
Unwilling to return home after what had happened, she joined the Order of the White Clad Niganthas [Jains, as the founder Mahavira allowed female ascetics before the Buddha accepted nuns].
As she wished to practice extreme austerities (tapas) as penance, they yanked her hair out with a palmyra wood comb. Her hair grew back in close curls, so they called her Kundala-kesā ("Curly-hair").
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Unsatisfied with the doctrine (dharma) of the Niganthas, she left them, and going for guidance to various teachers, she became very proficient in philosophical discussion and eager to debate.
She would enter a village and, making a heap of sand at the gate, set up a tree branch of rose apple saying, "Whoever wishes to debate me, let him trample on this branch."
One day, Sāriputra -- the Buddha's chief disciple declared "foremost in wisdom" -- seeing the branch outside of Sāvatthi's gate, asked some children to trample it.
Bhaddā then went to Jetavana accompanied by a large crowd of spectators she invited to be present at the debate.
Sāriputra suggested that Bhaddā should first ask him questions. To all of these he replied skillfully until she fell silent.
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| Would that there were a teacher so wise as me. |
Unable to answer, she asked him to be her teacher. But Sāriputra sent her to the Buddha, who taught her. He added verses, stating that it were better to know one single stanza bringing calm and peace than 1,000 verses bringing no profit.
At the end of this sutra, Bhaddā attained full enlightenment, and the Buddha himself ordained her as a nun afterward.
In the time of Padumuttara Buddha, she had heard him teach and declare as foremost among nuns one whose intuition was swift (khippābhiññā). She vowed that this rank should one day be hers.
Later, when Kassapa was Buddha, she was one of the seven daughters of Kikī, King of Benares, and was named Bhikkhadāyikā (v.l. Bhikkhudāsikā).
For 20,000 years she remained celibate and built a dwelling for the Monastic Order (A.i.25; AA.i.200ff.; ThigA.99ff.; Ap.ii.560ff).
The DhA. account (ii. 217 ff.) differs in various details. There Bhaddā is shut up by her parents at the top of a seven storied building with only a single woman to wait on her, for "girls when young, burn for men!"
It was thus that she saw the robber.
In the "Verses of the Enlightened Nuns or Therīgāthā (Thig.vss.107-11) are included several verses spoken by her when she had been a wandering ascetic Jain nun for 50 years, wandering about in Anga, Magadha, Kāsi, and Kosala, living on the people's alms.
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