The Buddha did not have a wife, but the person who became the Buddha (Siddhartha) did.
Princess Yasodhara (Bimba Devi, aka Rāhulamātā)
Sid and Bimba agreed leaving would be good.
Rāhulamātā is the name, generally given in the ancient texts, of "Rāhula's mother" (e.g., Vin.i.82) was Prince Siddhattha Gotama's wife.
She is also called Bhaddakaccā* and, in later texts, Yasodharā (BuA., p.245; Dvy.253), which is a descriptive title not a name. Her name was Bimbā (J.ii.392f.; DA.ii.422), and "princess" is the human meaning of devī. She was probably also called Bimbāsundarī (J.vi.478 [12]), "Beautiful Bimba."
*For example, Bu.xxvi.15; Mhv.ii.24 calls her Bhaddakaccānā ("Lucky Kaccana"), but see Thomas, op. cit., 49; she is also called Subhaddakā, this being probably a variant of Bhaddakaccānā.
The Northern (Mahayana) texts seem to favor the name of Yasodharā, but they call her the daughter of Dandapānī. (See also Rockhill, op. cit., where various other names are given as well).
It is probable that the name of Gotama's wife was Bimbā, and that Bhaddakaccā, Subhaddakā, Yosadhāri, and other names were descriptive epithets applied to her, which later became regarded as additional names.
It is also possible that in Gotama's court there was also a Yasodharā, the daughter of Dandapānī, and that there was a later confusion of names.
The Commentarial explanation (e.g., AA.i.204), that she was called Bhaddakaccānā because her body was the color of burnished gold, is probably correct. To suggest (e.g., Thomas, op. cit., 49) that the name bears any reference to the Kaccānagotta seems to be wrong because the Kaccāna clan (gotta) was a Brahmin clan, and the Sākiyans (Scythians, Sakas) were not Brahmins but "nobles" (khattiyas, deemed "warrior caste" though they were not likely part of proto-India's caste system).
Rāhulamātā was born on the same day as the Bodhisatta (J.i.54; BuA. 106, 228). She married him (Prince Siddhattha Gotama) when they were both 16 years old. (The following account is taken chiefly from J.i.58ff). She was placed at the head of 40,000 women, given to Siddhattha by the Sākiyans after he had proved his manly prowess to their satisfaction.
Siddhartha Gotama renounced his riches and royal position and left the household life on the day of the birth of their son, Rāhula. (According to one account, referred to in the Jātaka Commentary, i.62, Rāhula was seven days old).
It is said that just before he left home, he took a last look at his wife from the door of her room, not daring to go nearer, lest he should inadvertently awake her.
When as the Buddha he returned and paid his first visit to the country/seasonal capital city of Kapilavatthu after his great enlightenment, on the second day of that visit, he walked for alms in the streets. This news of this quickly spread, and Rāhulamātā looked out of her window to see if it were true.
She saw the Buddha and was so struck by the beaming glory of his personality that she uttered eight verses in its praise.
These verses have been handed down under the name of Narasīha-gāthā; on that day, after the Buddha had finished his meal in the palace, which he took at the invitation of his father, King Suddhodana, all the ladies of the court, with the exception of Rāhulamātā, went to pay him honor.
She refused to go, saying that if she had any virtue in her the Buddha would come to her. The Buddha went to her with his two chief male disciples and gave orders that she should be allowed to greet him as she wished.
She fell at his feet, and clasping them with her hands, put her head on them. King Suddhodana related to the Buddha how, from the time he had left home, Rāhulamātā had herself abandoned all luxury and had lived in the same manner as she had heard that the Buddha lived:
wearing saffron robes,
eating only once a day,
sleeping on the ground,
and so on.
The Buddha then related the Candakinnara Jātaka, to show how, in the past, too, her loyalty had been supreme.
On the seventh day of the Buddha's visit, when he left the palace at the end of his meal, Rāhulamātā sent Rāhula to him saying: "That is your father. Go and ask him for your inheritance."
Prince Rāhula followed the Buddha and, at the Buddha's request, was ordained as a monk-in-training (samanera) by Ven. Sāriputta. The account of this event is given in Vin.i.82; this is probably the only passage in the Pitakas where Rāhulamātā, is mentioned by name.
Later, when the Buddha allowed women to join the Order, Rāhulamātā became a nun under Mahā Pajāpatī Gotamī (AA.i.198).
Buddhaghosa identifies (AA.i.204f) Rāhulamātā with Bhaddakaccānā who, in the Anguttara Nikāya (A.i.25), is mentioned as chief among nuns in the possession of supernormal powers (mahābhiññappattānam).
She was one of the four disciples of the Buddha who possessed such attainment, the others being Sāriputta, Moggallāna, and Bakkula. She had wished for this achievement ta the time of Padumuttara Buddha.
In this account Bhaddakaccānā is mentioned as the daughter of the Sākyan Suppabuddha and his wife Amitā.*
*Cf. Mhv.ii.21f. It is said (DhA.iii.44f) that Suppabuddha did not forgive the Buddha for leaving his daughter; Devadatta was Bhaddakaccanā's brother, and it has been suggested that Devadatta's enmity against the Buddha was for reasons similar to her father's.
She joined the Order of Nuns under Pajāpatī Gotamī in the company of Janapada-kalyānī (the "Belle of the Land," the Buddha's half-sister Sundari Nandā).
In the Nuns' Order she was known as Bhaddakaccānā ("Lucky Kaccana") Therī ("senior nun"). Later, she developed insight and became an arahant (fully enlightened). She could, with one effort, recall one asankheyya (indeterminate kappa or kalpa) and 100,000 ordinary kappas (AA.i.205).
In the Therī Apadāna (Ap.ii.584ff) an account is found of a therī (senior nun), Yasodharā by name, who is evidently to be identified as Rāhulamātā because she speaks of herself (vvs. 10, 11) as the Buddha's pajāpatī before he left the household (agāra) and says that she was the chief (pāmokkhā sabbaissarā) of 90,000 women.
In the time of Dīpankara Buddha, when the Bodhisatta was born as Sumedha, she was a Brahmin maiden, Sumittā by name, and gave eight handfuls of lotuses to Sumedha, which he, in turn, offered to the Buddha. Dīpankara, in declaring that Sumedha would ultimately become the Buddha, added that Sumittā would be his companion in several lives.
The Apadāna account (vvs. 1ff) mentions how, just before her passing into final nirvana, at the age of 78, she took leave of the Buddha and performed various miracles. It also states (Ap.ii.592f) that 18,000 arahant nuns, companions of Yasodharā, also passed on the same day. More: Rāhulamātā
The Eyebrow Lady? Isn't she Che Guevara's divine consort?
We prefer to think of her as the Unibrow Goddess, thank you. What is a "divine consort"?
Y'know, like, Goddesses are always paired with Gods. There's Krishna and Radha, Shiva and Parvati, the Buddha and Kwan Yin, the Jesus and Mary [Magdelene] Chain, Muhammad and Khadija, and now Che and Frida.
Oh, yeah, something like that -- iconic -- but the Buddha did not have a wife. Prince Siddhartha (who later became the Buddha) did, and here name was Bimba (though the world remembers her as Yasodhara, which is a description, and by many other names).
BBC: Becoming Frida Kahlo
A divine couple, Frida and Che (modern art)
There are many myths that surround the passionate, radical Mexican painterFrida Kahlo (Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón, 1907–1954), the most famous female artist of the 20th century.
This compelling art documentary attempts to set the record straight. It reveals how politics, love, and art shaped Frida as an individual and as an artist. And it shows how she ultimately strived to be free from the control and influence of men.
When an accident changes Frida’s life, she channels pain and heartache into painting. Frida Kahlo was a rebel from the outset, challenging norms from an early age. As a young woman, she met Mexican Diego Rivera, a superstar artist who would go on to change her. But a tragic accident thwarted Frida’s plans. Left facing a life of pain and injury, she channeled this tragedy and used it as the catalyst for her artistic career.
Now married and living in 1930s America, Frida witnesses the ugly side of capitalism.
Frida Kahlo traveled to America alongside her lover Diego Rivera, who’d been commissioned to produce an important mural. But Frida was determined to succeed in her own right. She was shocked by the vast gap between rich and poor in America. Then after losing a child to miscarriage and her mother to illness, she produced some of her most visceral and devastating works.
Episode 3: "The Final Years"
Dangerous politics and turbulent [bisexual] love distort and devastate Frida Kahlo’s world.
After a short affair with Leon Trotsky, Frida finally achieved her own solo exhibition in Europe. But all does not go according to plan. She learns that husband Diego Rivera wants a divorce. Pouring her pain into her work, she creates her masterpiece: The Two Fridas. Her last years are spent in agony, while creating some of her most enduring images. Source
Hellmuth Hecker, Buddhist Women at the Time of the Buddha(translated from German by Sister Khema, 1994); Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Jen Bradford (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
Boys Only Club: The Buddha with relatives Rahula and Ananda, no sister Sundari Nanda, brother Nanda, or wife/baby mom Bimba/Yasodhara/Bhaddakacca in patriarchal Thai artist's rendering.
Sundari (Beautiful) Nanda, the Buddha's half-sister he grew up with, who became a nun
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Sundari Nanda, the Buddha's beautiful sister
I can renounce anything but my self.
When she was born, Sundari Nanda was lovingly welcomed by her parents — the father of the Buddha [King Suddhodana] and his second wife [Queen Pajapati, the younger sister of the Buddha's deceased biological mother, Queen Maya].
Her name Nanda means "joy, contentment, pleasure," and was given when parents were especially joyful about the arrival of a baby.
Nanda was extremely well-bred, full of grace and beauty.
To distinguish her from others [particularly her brother Nanda] by the same name, she was later called Rupa Nanda, "one of delightful form," and Sundari Nanda, "Beautiful Nanda."
In due course many members of her [Scythian/Shakyian/Indo-Saka] family — the royal house of the Sakyans — left the household life for the left-home life [of renunciation enlightenment and liberation from all suffering], influenced by the amazing fact that one of their clan [Prince Siddhartha Gautama known as the "Sage of the Scythians" or Shakyamuni] had become a supremely-enlightened teacher [samma-sam-buddha].
Among them was her brother Nanda, her [Scythian] cousins, and finally her mother [the world's first Buddhist nun, Maha Pajapati or "Great Pajapati"], together with many other Scythian/Sakyan ladies.
Thereupon Beautiful Nanda also took this step, but it is recorded that she did not do it out of confidence [saddha, faith, conviction] in the teacher [the Buddha] and the teachings [the Dharma], but out of love for her family and a feeling of belonging with them.
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One can only imagine the respect and exalted treatment accorded to the graceful sister or half-sister of the Buddha and how touched people were by the sight of the beautiful royal Scythain daughter [nearly as beautiful as the Buddha himself, and Brother Nanda, cousin Ananda, son Rahula, and wife variously called Bimba Devi, Princess Yasodhara, Rahula Mata, Bhadda Kacca, Bhadda Kaccana], so near in family ties to the Blessed One, wandering among them in the saffron ascetic garb of a wandering ascetic nun.
But it soon became obvious that this was not a good basis for a nun's life. Sundari Nanda's thoughts were mainly directed towards her own beauty and her popularity with people, traits which were karmic resultants [vipaka] of former good actions.
These resultant fruits [phala] now became dangers to her, since she forgot to reinforce them with new actions. She felt that she was not living up to the high ideals people envisioned for her. She felt she was far from the goal for which so many nobly-born members of the Scythian family clan had gone into the left-home life. She was sure that the Blessed One would censure her on account of this. Therefore, she managed to avoid and evade him for a long time.
One day the Buddha requested all the nuns to come to him, one by one, to receive a teaching, but Sundaria Nanda did not comply. The Teacher let her be called specially, and then she appeared before him, ashamed and anxious by her demeanor.
The Buddha addressed her and appealed to all her positive qualities so that she listened to him willingly and delighted in his words. When the Blessed One knew that the talk had uplifted her, had made her joyful and receptive to his teaching, he did not immediately explain ultimate reality to her, as is often mentioned in other accounts of the "gradual instruction," frequently resulting in noble attainment of awakening/enlightenment to his listener.
How Sundari Nanda became enlightened
The Buddha awakens his chief female disciple, foremost in wisdom, beautiful and vain Khema, in the same way as his sister, Sundari Nanda: psychic conjuring a vision of aging, sickness, and death.
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Because Sundari Nanda was so taken with her own physical beauty, the Buddha used his psychic powers to conjure up the vision of an even more beautiful woman, who then aged visibly and relentlessly before her very eyes.
Thereby Sundari Nanda could see, compressed within a few moments, what otherwise one can only notice in people through decades — and often because of proximity and habit one does not even fully comprehend: the fading away of youth and beauty, the decay, the appearance of wrinkles and gray hair.
The vision affected Nanda deeply; she was shaken to the center of her being.
After having shown her this graphic imagery, the Buddha explained the law of impermanence to her in such a way that she penetrated the truth of it completely, thereby attaining knowledge of future liberation: stream-entry, the first stage of enlightenment.
As a meditation subject the Buddha gave her the contemplation of the impermanence and the foulness of the body. She persevered for a long time with this practice "faithful and courageous day and night"(Thig 84) as she described in her verses in the "Verses of the Enlightened Nuns" (Therigatha):
Sick, impure, and foul as well,
[Sundari] Nanda, see this congeries
With the unlovely,* develop mind
Well-composed to singleness.
As is that, thus will this likewise be.
Exhaling foulness, evil smells,
A thing it is enjoyed** by fools.
Diligently considering it,
By day and night thus seeing it,
With my own wisdom having seen,
I turned away, dispassionate.
With my diligence, carefully
I examined the body
And saw this as it really is —
Both within and without.
Unlusting and dispassionate
Within this body then was I:
By diligence from fetters freed,
Peaceful was I and quite cool.
— Therigatha 82-86
*The meditations on seeing the body as unattractive, either as parts, or after it is dead and beginning to bloat and decompose. See Bag of Bones (Wheel 271/272), BPS.lk.
**This is a play on her own name, Nanda or Joy and "abhinanditam."
Because Sundari Nanda had been so infatuated with her physical appearance, it had been necessary for her to apply the extreme of meditations on bodily unattractiveness as a counter-measure to find equanimous balance between the two opposites. For beauty and ugliness are just two kinds of impermanence. Nothing can disturb the cool, peaceful heart ever again.
Later the Buddha raised his half-sister as being the foremost amongst nuns who practiced meditative absorption or jhana.* This meant that she not only followed the analytical way of insight (vipassana), but put emphasis on the experience of tranquility (samatha).
*Jhana: total mental absorption in meditation [right mindfulness].
Enjoying this pure well-being, she no longer needed any lower [sensual] enjoyments and soon found indestructible peace [i.e., nirvana].
Although she had adopted the left-home life because of attachment to her relatives, she became totally free and equal to the Blessed One she venerated.
Sources: A I, 24; Thig 82-86; AP II, No.25 (54 verses).
NOTE: Wisdom Quarterly refers to Sundari Nanda as the Buddha's sister rather than half-sister, as she was the daughter of the same father and of the Buddha's biological mother's sister, which makes her closer, but English does not seem to have a fractional word for it. Moreover, they grew up together.
Mother's Day in America in 12 comics from The New Yorker (newyorker.com)
The birth of Siddhartha with Mother Maya
The historical Buddha Prince Siddhartha Gautama had three mothers in his final rebirth when he made an end of all further rebirth and suffering.
Most people will have heard of Prince Siddhartha's second mother, his biological mother, Maha Maya Devi ("Great Queen Maya"). She was a queen among the Scythians/Shakyians, the first wife of his father [the rich Gandharan/Afghan chieftain] King Suddhodana, whose riches derived from the Silk Road Route through Kabul/Bamiyan that brought wealth, merchants, and spiritual travelers to the ancient faraway capital of Kapilavastu, the Buddha's hometown.
Birth mother: Queen Maha Maya Devi
Maya's beauty was like a "dream" or "magical illusion"; in fact, the name maya derives from the Sanskrit and Pali word for "illusion" (taken in Mahayana-Hinduism as māyā, two religions that so influenced one another as to be the same thing with different names for the same deities, one buddhas and the other avatars].
The Buddha goes up to Tavatimsa or the celestial World of the Thirty-Three to see his deceased mother, Maya, who descends with others from Tusita (the "Contented Heaven") to hear him teach.
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We had a son! - Now the drama really begins.
Any illusion, of course, is fleeting. Queen Maya passed away seven days after giving birth to her only son Prince Siddhartha. It was no accident. There are reasons given for this in the back story -- the most spiritual being that she only volunteered for a human birth to give birth to him.
That motherly task done, Maya Devi returned to a more comfortable existence in the Tusita World. She benefitted greatly for this act (karma) in the World of the Thirty-Three, where the Buddha went to preach to her until she and the other beings present were awakened and freed from suffering. The Buddha was able to repay her for her generosity and help. As it turns out, we enter life knowing, on some deeper level, those individuals who play the role of parents, partners, relatives, friends, and enemies. But this is a truth bigger than most of us can easily digest or would be willing to accept. So the drama (lila) goes on.
Buddhism reached the Maya of Mesoamerica.
The words"Maya" -- the Mexican Native Americans from Mesoamerica and Central America who crafted the Mayan Calendar -- and "Guatemala" both derive from the name of the Buddha's mother, whose surname is Gautama and mala (garland).
Mother Maya was reborn as a devaputra ("deva-offspring" or "reborn among devas") back in the Tusita World. Her former son, Prince Siddhartha, who years later became the Buddha, thanked and repaid her for her help in this very life by teaching her the liberating-Dharma, in the legendary narrative account of how the Abhidharma ("Higher Teaching") came to be.
Our parents do so much for us that, according to the Buddha, the only way we can ever repay them is by teaching or leading them to the ennobling Dharma.
The Other Mothers
Foster mother: Maha Pajapati Gotami
Many will also have heard of the Buddha's foster or stepmother related by blood, Queen Mahā Pajāpatī Gotami (Sanskrit Gautami). As Mother Number 3, she was Queen Maya's sister and co-wife. She is famous because she became the world's first Buddhist nun then an enlightened one.
Both sisters were married to King Suddhodana. Pajapati stepped forward to care for the newborn Siddhartha to the detriment of her own two children -- her son, Nanda, the Buddha's brother (who shared a father, with sister-mothers, who nursed and adopted Siddhartha at the age of 7 days, which would seem to make her a little more than a foster mother or Nanda and Sundari Nanda half-siblings) and daughter, the Buddha's rarely mentioned half-sister, Beautifuld (Sundari) Nanda.
Queen Pajapati was the mother of these two royals, but it is said she gave up primary care of her biological children to nurse, care for, and raise Prince Siddhartha (the future Buddha), the firstborn heir to the Scythian throne in Kapilavastu.
She is much more famous in this world than Maya because Pajapati (Sanskrit Prajapati) went on to become the first Buddhist nun. The Buddha's brother and sister also ordained and became enlightened.
This was in addition to Siddhartha's wife, Rahulamata ("Rahula's mother"), Princess Bimba Devi, much more popularly known asYasodhara.
Rahula, Bimba, and Siddhartha
What we are never told as we hear the story of the Buddha's life repeated is the fact that Prince Siddhartha did not "abandon" his family.
Far from becoming a deadbeat dad, taking up a good ol' time in the wilderness as an extreme ascetic, he actually saved his family the only way he could: He first had to go off in search of enlightenment then come back awakened with answers and a solution to the problem of suffering. Then he led and encouraged his
biological mother (Maya),
biological father (Suddhodana),
cousin-wife (Princess Yasodhara/Bimba Devi),
second-son (Rahula [Ananda being the first, as some Buddhist traditions record]),
half-brother (Nanda),
half-sister (Sundari Nanda),
foster mother (Pajapati),
cousins (Scythian relatives referred to as Shakyian princes),
extended family members (other Scythians in the palace compound of King Suddhodana) to liberation (moksha), to enlightenment or full awakening, and nirvana (complete freedom).
He remembered his biological mother and visited her where she was reborn. Such was the reverence of the Buddha for his parents, and many monastics followed suit. For example, there is the famous case of one of the Buddha's chief male disciples, the Brahmin Maha Moggallana, visiting his mother in hell to help her. The other chief male disciple, the Brahmin Ven. Sariputta, also had a whale of a time convincing his unbelieving mother who placed no faith in the Buddha.
The Buddha's former wife became an enlightened Buddhist nun and famous disputant called by various names to disguise her greatness: Rahula-mata, Bhaddakaccānā, and so on. is not the Buddha's mother. How could she be the Buddha's mother? She was their son Ven. Rahula's mother.
The Buddha's "first mother," Nakulamata, is a strange story of rebirth. One day the Buddha was walking down a road with his monastic disciples when he passed an elderly couple. The man, Nakulapita, called out to him, "Son! Your mother and I have been missing you! It has been a long time since you visited us!"
The monastics thought this was very strange. Stranger still, the Buddha approached them and spoke to them in a very kindly way like a son full of gratitude. The monastics were confused.
Why is the teacher letting these strangers talk to him this way, addressing him as "son"?
The Buddha later explained that for 500 (which actually just means "many") lives this couple had indeed been his parents. Over and over, the karma of the three being such, they were born together. This woman raised him over and again. And here she was in his last life running into him apparently by chance but not really. This meeting was no accident; it was brought about by the force of karma.
The nuns and monks may have been surprised to hear who this couple was but, in fact, the Buddha taught something far more mindboggling:
So long is this "continued wandering on" through births and deaths called samsarathat it is difficult to ever meet anyone with whom one has not already shared all relationships.
Nakulamata ("Nakula's mother") was the wife of Nakulapitā ("Nakula's father"), householders from Suṁsumāragiri in the Bhagga country. When the Buddha visited their village and stayed at Bhesakalāvana (the forest grove nearby), they went to see him. They immediately fell at his feet, calling him “son,” asking why he had been away so long. It is said that they had been the Bodhisatta’s parents for 500 (which is figurative for "many") rebirths and his close relatives for many more. The Buddha taught them, and they became stream enters (the first stage of enlightenment, sotāpannas). The Buddha visited their village once more when they were old. They entertained him, speaking of their devotion to one another in this life and asking for a teaching to keep them likewise together (in a loving relationship) in the afterlife (in future lives). The Buddha referred to this in the assembly of the Monastic Saṅgha, declaring them to be the foremost in intimate companionship among his disciples. AN.i.26, AN.ii.61… (G.P. Malalasekera rom Pali Proper Names, edited by Wisdom Quarterly).
Look around; all those people have already been one's mother, father, and so on... How much gratitude do we have for them? How much do we owe them?
While this seems preposterous, it seems so only because we do not fathom or comprehend how long an aeon (kalpa) is, how many there have been, or how many times we have already been reborn, how many existences we have already lived and are yet to live, and how much we have already suffered as we yearn for more and more rebirth.
We have no idea what has been. For if we knew, we would not be so eager to continue to cycle and revolve in ignorance again and again.
In that final existence, the Bodhisattva (or Buddha-to-be) had taken rebirth in a special way to accomplish his goal of becoming a world-teacher, a Supremely Enlightened Teaching Buddha, and Maya had volunteered to serve this world-system in the capacity of giving birth to such a great being.
But here in the world, already existing, was the Bodhisattva's long-time mother, his mother many times over, and now she had again found him. Our mothers, even when they do not give birth to us this time, are all around (fathers, too).
Our nurturers are here, and still they nurture us -- sometimes they attack us perhaps due to their lack of understanding or our lack of gratitude -- and stranger still we, too, are former mothers and fathers of countless others. Such is the incomprehensible working out of karma (deeds), an imponderable (acinteyya) thing.
Happy Mother's Day to all the moms -- and we mean ALL of them including YOU, you dummy, from from Wisdom Quarterly. (You, yes you, male and female readers. We have all been a mom countless times!)
John D. Ireland, excerpt, Rahula Sutra (Sn 2.11); Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly
Young Prince Rahula,
prompted by his mother (Bimba Devi/Yasodhara) asks for his "inheritance." After renouncing the world, the Buddha came back to save his son, wife, family, relatives, friends, and the whole world by teaching the Path to Freedom he had discovered. The Buddha gives his son his inheritance by directing Ven. Sariputra to ordain the boy, giving him a spiritual
inheritance far better than the one he asked for.
All in the family: Rahula, the Buddha, Ananda
"Rahula, renouncing the five [captivating] pleasures of the senses that [trap,] entrance, and delight the
mind, and with confidence departing from home, become one to make an end of all
suffering!
"Associate with good friends, and choose remote lodgings, secluded,
free of noise. Eat but moderately. Robes, alms (food), medicinal remedies, and
a dwelling -- use without craving (clinging to) these things. Be not one who
returns to the world.*
*By being dragged back to the world by craving for these things (Commentary).
Rahula, when you see your father -- that's him in the front -- ask him for your inheritance.
Practice restraint according to the Discipline (monastic disciplinary code or vinaya), and exercise restraint of the five sense faculties.
"Practice mindfulness of the body to continually develop dispassion [towards it to gain freedom from it.] Avoid the sign of the beautiful (subha) that is connected with passion [and therefore with clinging]. By
meditating on the foul* aspects, cultivate a mind that is calm and collected (pure, concentrated, undistracted).
*The "foul" (asubha, unlovely) refers to contemplation of the body by bringing to mind the body as a corpse moving through various stages of decomposition and the contemplation
of the 32 parts of the body as it is now -- as a means of being able to let go and develop liberating
detachment from the body and dispassion toward its beautiful signs or aspects (subha-nimitta).
"Meditate on the signless.*
The marriage of Prince Siddhartha and Princess Bimba (Yasodhara) before birth of Rahula
*The signless (animitta) is one of the Three Liberations (vimokkha) by which beings are freed from the world (rebirth, samsara). The other two are desirelessness (appanihita) and emptiness (sunnata, the impersonal nature of all condition things). The signless is connected with the idea of impermanence of all conditioned things (cf. The Path of Purification, Visuddhi Magga, XXI 67f).
"And [thereby] get rid of the tendency toward conceit (mana, misconceiving). By thoroughly understanding and uprooting conceit one will live in the (highest, unmatched) peace."
"In this way the Buddha repeatedly advised his son, who became a Buddhist monk named Venerable Rahula."
Cool scene in the Tibetan movie Samsara where a wife chews out her husband for leaving home to become enlightened and wrongly cites the plight of Yasodhara and now nobody considers her story or what she went through. It is very beautiful, fierce, and feminist -- but it is just not true, not a historically accurate condemnation.
But Prince Siddhartha was. His wife's name was Bimba Devi, popularly known as Princess Yasodhara.
Like the words buddha and rahula, yasodharais not a name but a title. It means "Bearer of Glory" [from yaśas "glory, splendor" + dhara "bearing" from the verbal root dhri "to bear, support"].
She has been obscured from history -- her greatness hidden by diffusion -- through all of the different names she is given in the texts [possibly due to Indian sexism that later glorified men and all but erased females and the Order of Buddhist Nuns].
The name generally given to her in the texts is "Rāhula's Mother" (Rāhula-mātā, e.g., Vin.i.82) and Siddhartha Gautama's wife.
She is also spoken of as Bhaddakaccā* and, in later texts, Yasodharā (BuA., p.245; Dvy.253), Bimbā Devī (J.ii.392f.; DA.ii.422) and, probably, Bimbā Sundarī (J.vi.478 [12]).
*For example, Bu.xxvi.15; Mhv.ii.24 calls her Bhaddakaccānā. But see Thomas, op. cit., 49; she is also called Subhaddakā, this being probably a variant of Bhaddakaccānā.
[The Buddha had a sister and brother, or at least half-sister and half-brother, Sundari Nanda and Nanda, who also became enlightened monastics and lost in the shuffle of names. The Buddha got them to ordain on his return to his Scythian homeland, "Shakya Land," seven years after his enlightenment around the time his son, Rahula, was ordained as a Buddhist monk.]
The northern texts [of the Mahayana movement] seem to favor the name Yasodharā, but they also call her the "Daughter of Dandapānī." (See also Rockhill, op. cit., where various other names are given as well).
It is probable that the name of Prince Siddhartha Gautama's wife was actually Bimbā and that Bhaddakaccā, Subhaddakā, Yosadhāri, and all the other names [see below] were descriptive epithets applied to her, which later became regarded as additional names.
It is also possible that in Siddhartha Gautama's court there was also a Yasodharā, a daughter of Dandapānī, and that there was a later confusion of names.
The Commentarial explanation (AA.i.204) that she was called Bhaddakaccānā because her body was the color of burnished gold is probably correct.
To suggest (e.g., Thomas, op. cit., 49) that the name bears any reference to the Kaccāna gotra ["lineage, clan"] seems to be wrong because that was a Brahmin lineage, and the Sākiyans [Scythians, Sakas] were not Brahmins
[The Shakyians/Scythians, who were actually outside of the Vedic/Brahminical "Indian" caste system were considered kshatriyas, i.e., fierce warrior princes/princesses, nobles, nomads, soldiers, wanderers from the northwest frontier lands of Central Asia in what is now the Stans west of modern India].
Yasodhara/Bimba was born on the same day as Prince Siddhartha, the Bodhisattva or "Buddha-to-be" (J.i.54; BuA. 106, 228).
They were cousins (or members of the same clan) who married, as nobles/royals tend to do, when they were both 16. The following account is taken chiefly from J.i.58ff:
She was placed at the head of 40,000 females given to Prince Siddhartha by the Sākiyans/Scythians after he proved his manly prowess to their satisfaction.
Prince Siddhartha renounced the household life on the day of the birth of his son, Rāhula or "Bond, Fetter." (According to one account, referred to in the Rebirth Tales/Jātaka Commentary, i.62, Rāhula was seven days old at that time).
If I don't go now, I'll never be able to go.
It is said that just before he left the royal palace to become a wandering ascetic on his quest for enlightenment to save all beings (at least all of his Shakyian/Scythian subjects) from suffering, he took one last look at his wife and child from the door of her room, not daring to go nearer lest he should wake them.
After his enlightenment, when the Buddha paid his first visit to Kapilavastu [one of three seasonal capitals of the Shakyians/Scythians], he went about the streets for alms on the second day of that visit.
The news of this spread, and Princess Yasodhara/Bimba Devi looked out of her window to see if it was true.
She saw the Buddha and was so struck by the glory of his personal beauty that she uttered eight verses in its praise. These verses have been handed down under the name of Narasīhagāthā.
On that day, after the Buddha finished his meal in the royal palace of his father, King Suddhodana, who had invited him, all of the ladies of the Shakyian court, with the exception of his former wife went to pay him obeisance as their former prince and future king.
The royals were once in love from the age of 16 on.
Yasodhara refused to go, saying that if she had any virtue in her the Buddha would come to visit her.
The Buddha went to her with his two chief male monastic disciples and gave instructions that she should be allowed to greet him as she wished.
Yasodhara fell at his feet and, clasping them with her hands, put her head on them.
King Suddhodana related to the Buddha how, from the time he had left home, Princess Yasodhara/Bimba had herself abandoned all luxury and had lived in the same manner as she had heard that he, her former husband the wandering ascetic, was living:
She had taken to wearing saffron robes of a spiritual wayfarer/wanderer rather than royal raiment, eating only once a day, sleeping on the ground rather than using a high and luxurious bed, and so on [things such as the 13 sane ascetic practices] as the ascetic Siddhartha took on additional austerities, some sane, some severe.
[This should pause to those who believe that Prince Siddhartha abandoned his family, left them behind, and had no consideration about their feelings. They knew where he was, why he left, and what he was doing. This means his former wife and the mother of his child knew. His father and mother, King Suddhodana and Queen Prajapati, the sister and co-wife of the Buddha's biological mother, Maya Devi, Queen Maya, who passed away seven days after his birth.]
[Though she was free to, she had also, it is said, rejected every offer and proposal to remarry, which came from the richest and most handsome royals around.]
[It may be that Prince Rahula was not his one and only child. Ananda may have been a son not a cousin, as the Mahavastu states" Ananda's mother's name was Mrigi ("little deer"), who is named in the Kanjur and Sanghabedavastu as one of Gautama's royal harem wives (prior to his renunciation). This points to the strong possibility that Ananda was in fact the Buddha's son (Wendy Garling, Stars at Dawn: Forgotten Stories of Women in the Buddha's Life, Shambhala Publications, 2016, pp. 94-106). In the 20th year of (20 being the minimum age when a male can take full ordination in the Buddhist Monastic Order) of the Buddha's ministry, Ananda became the Buddha's personal attendant, accompanying him on most of his wanderings and taking the part of Socratic interlocutor in many of the recorded dialogues or sutras/discourses.]
Life in one of the three palaces of the Shakyians' three royal palaces for the couple
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The Buddha then related the Candakinnara Jātaka to show how, in the past, too, Bimba/Yasodhara's loyalty had been supreme.
On the seventh day of the Buddha's visit, when he left the palace at the end of his meal, she sent Prince Rāhula -- their son and heir apparent -- to him saying: "That is your father, so go and ask him for your inheritance."
Prince Rāhula followed the Buddha and asked for his inheritance. The Buddha took great pity realizing all of the suffering inherent in ruling and living in the world. So he, with the highest welfare of Prince Rahula in mind, requested his chief male disciple foremost in wisdom, Ven. Sāriputra, to ordain him.
Royal family as monks: Rahula, the Buddha, Ananda
The account of this event is given in Vin.i.82 (the Vinaya or Monastic Disciplinary Code, which contains origin stories for each of monastic rule established by the Buddha).
This is probably the only passage in the Three Collections of Buddhist texts (Tri-pitaka) where Bimba/Yasodhara/Rāhulamātā is mentioned by name.
This child-ordination caused an uproar. The prince's mother, Yasodhara, was probably hoping for an inheritance of riches and title, passing down the right to rule the Shakyians/Scythians for her 7-year-old son.
King Suddhodana, moreover, was upset because he intended little Prince Rahula to eventually rule. Now the king, or local ruler of the Shakya clan (this particular band of Scythians), had no proper heir.
Cool! I get to go be with my dad and relatives!
They complained to the Buddha (who is, after all, Rahula's father returned to Shakya Land after a seven year absence), who instituted a new monastic rule on who could ordain.
Prince Siddhartha had gone away to find the way to the end of suffering for everyone, not least his own family and people. He was now called the muni ("sage") of the Scythians/Shakyas or Shakyamuni. They treated the Buddha, the Light of Asia and the World, as if he had returned to rule and lead a home life.
The new rule was that anyone who is not yet an adult (i.e., who is under 20, the age of majority at that time, which is equivalent to our 21 because in Asia people are born 1-year-old for the 10 lunar months they have spent on earth in the womb) should not be ordained by the monastics without parental consent.
The Buddha established that rule for all future Buddhist ordinations. But Prince Rahula, with the consent of his father, had already become the world's youngest novice Buddhist monk or little shraman trainee.
Princess Bimba (like mother Maya shown as a salabhanjika) giving birth to Rahula.
Together at home and wandering
Later, when the Buddha accepted females into the Buddhist Monastic Order, Yasodhara/Bimba became a Buddhist nun under the tutelage of the world's first Buddhist nun:
Who was the first Buddhist nun ordained by the Buddha? That would be his adoptive mother, who raised him from the time he was 7 days old, Queen Mahā Prajāpatī Gautamī, the sister of the Buddha's biological mother Queen Maya (AA.i.198) King Suddhodana's primary wife.
Ven. Buddhaghosa, the greatest Buddhist commentator, identifies (AA.i.204f) Yasodhara/Bimba (Rāhulamātā) with Ven. Bhaddakaccānā who, in the Collection of Numerical Discourses (Anguttara Nikāya, A.i.25) is mentioned as "chief among female monastic disciples in the possession of supernormal powers" (mahābhiññappattānam).
She was one of the four disciples of the Buddha who possessed such an attainment. The others were the chief male disciples Ven. Sāriputra and Ven. Maha Moggallāna, and Ven. Bakkula. She expressed her wish for this achievement in the time of Padumuttara Buddha.
Merit (wholesome and profitable karma) makes one wise and attractive life after life.
In this account Bhaddakaccānā is mentioned as the daughter of the Shākyian [Scythian] Suppabuddha and his wife Amitā.*
*Cf. Mhv.ii.21f. It is said (DhA.iii.44f) that Yasodhara's father, Suppabuddha, did not forgive Prince Siddhartha (now the Buddha) for leaving his daughter; Devadatta [the Buddhist "Judas"] was Bhaddakaccanā's [brother], and it has been suggested that Devadatta's enmity against the Buddha was for reasons similar to her father's.
Yasodhara/Bimba joined the Buddhist Female Monastic Order under Ven. Pajāpatī Gautamī in the company of Janapada Kalyānī (Nandā). And it also states that in the Order of Nuns she was known as Ven. Bhaddakaccānā Therī.
Later, she developed insight [vipassana] and became an arhat. She could, with one effort, recall one aeon of indeterminate length (asankheyya kalpa) and 100,000 [ordinary] kalpas (AA.i.205).
[The significance of this is that a kalpa (Pali kappa) may in this case refer to "an ordinary human lifespan" rather than a "great aeon." If that is the case then the time between the arising of buddhas is not enormous epochs, ages, and aeons but rather just many lives.]
In the "Stories of Nuns' Lives" or Therī Apadāna (Ap.ii.584ff ) an account is found of a therī [Buddhist "elder," a senior nun, meaning having been a nun for at least ten rains], Yasodharā by name, who is evidently to be identified with Yasodhara/Bimba because she speaks of herself (vvs. 10, 11) as the Buddha's pajāpatī before he left the household (agāra) and says that she was the chief (pāmokkhā sabbaissarā) of 90,000 women.
In the time of Dīpankara Buddha, when the Bodhisattva (future Buddha) was born as Sumedha, she was a Brahmin maiden named Sumittā who gave eight handfuls of lotuses to Sumedha, which he, in turn, offered to the Buddha.
Dīpankara Buddha, in declaring that Sumedha would ultimately become a buddha in the distant future, added that Sumittā [Yasodhara/Bimba] would be his companion in several lives/rebirths.
The Apadāna account (vvs. 1ff ) mentions how, just before her passing into final nirvana, at the age of 78, took leave of the Buddha and performed various miracles. It also states (Ap.ii.592f ) that 18,000 fully enlightened (arhat) nuns, companions of Ven. Bhaddakaccana (Yasodharā/Bimba), also passed into final nirvana on the same day.
The Abbhantara Jātaka* mentions that Ven. Bimbā (who was called the chief wife of Prince Siddhartha Gautama and is therefore evidently identical with Rāhula's mother/Rāhulamātā) was once, after becoming a nun, ill with indigestion.
The kind and swift witted Princess Bimba
When Ven. Rāhula came to visit his mother the nun Ven. Bhaddakaccana, as was his custom, he was told that he could not see her.
When she had suffered from the same trouble at home, she had been cured using fresh mango juice with raw sugar. Ven. Rāhula reported this matter to his monastic preceptor, Ven. Sāriputra [in charge of getting monks to stream entry, the first stage of enlightenment], who obtained mango juice from their royal supporter King Pasenadi.
When King Pasenadi learned why the mango juice had been needed, he arranged that from that day forward that it should be regularly supplied. The rebirth tale (jātaka) relates how in a past rebirth Sāriputra had also come to her rescue.
*J.ii.392f.; cf. the Supatta Jātaka, where Sāriputra, at Rāhula's request, obtained for her from Pasenadi rice with ghee flavored with [presumably savory/umami/fermented digestive aid] red fish. This was for abdominal pain (J.ii.433).
The great Yasodhara by other names
"Was I in the past? Who was I? Will I be in the future? Who will I be?" These four questions are foolish and lead not to liberation from rebirth. "What is suffering? What is the cause of suffering? What is the end of suffering? What is the way to the end of suffering?" These four questions are wise, for reflected on, they lead one out to enlightenment and liberation.
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Buddha as a Central Asian king
Numerous stories are found in the Commentary to the Jātaka [Birth Tales or Rebirth Fables of the Buddha]in which Yasodhara/Bimba is identified with one or other of the characters.
[This shows how she was connected to the Bodhisattva, the Buddha-to-be, from the distant past because we are all often reborn in cohorts due to our karma].
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