The Buddha's sister: Sundarī-Nandā, Pt. 2

G. P. Malalasekera, Dictionary of Pali Proper Names; edited by Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

Abhirūpa-Nandā is Sundarī-Nandā

Brother, I'm so glad I became a nun!

Ven. Nandā Theri was born in Kapilavatthu (the Buddha's hometown/country, "Shakya Land," the Scythian region of Gandhara, modern Eastern Afghanistan/Pakistan called by the city's name Kapilavastu, which archeology indicates included three seasonal capitals Bamiyan on the rich Silk Road and Mes Aynak and Kabul).

She was the daughter of the chief of the Sākiyan (Scythian) Khemaka and was named Nandā (the long a denoting a female as distinguished from her brother Nanda).

Owing to her great beauty and charm, she became known as Abhirūpā-Nandā and, apparently, also Sundari-Nandā.

On the day appointed for her to select her husband, the Sākiyan (Scythian) youth on whom her choice was to have fallen died, and her parents made her leave the world (become a nun) against her will.

The Apadāna account (ii. 609) does not mention the suitor's death but states that many sought her hand and caused great trouble, so to avoid that her parents made her join the Buddhist Monastic Order [like many of her relatives].

First human representations of the Buddha

Even after she had entered the Monastic Order, she avoided going to see the Buddha, on account of being infatuated with her own beauty and fearing the Teacher's criticism.

In order to induce her to come to him, the Buddha directed Ven. Mahā Pajāpatī (the Buddha's foster mother, who became the world's first Buddhist nun) to see that ALL nuns come for instruction.

When Ven. Nandā's turn came, she sent another nun in her place. The Buddha refused to recognize the substitute, and Ven. Nandā was compelled to go herself.

As she listened to the Buddha teaching, he, by his magic power conjured up a beautiful woman and showed her becoming aged and fading, causing anguish to arise in conceited Ven. Nandā's heart.

• NOTE: This is exactly the strategy employed to snap Ven. Khema Theri, the Buddha's female disciple foremost in wisdom (the corollary of Ven. Sariputta), out of her attachment to her own great beauty, and she was awakened to full enlightenment by first the jealousy she felt in the presence of someone more beautiful than her then seeing that greater beauty rapidly decline with age and fall down dead, a hideous corpse, all a creation of the Buddha's psychic powers.

The Buddha, Central Asian king, Pakistan

At the opportune moment, the Buddha drove home the truth of the terrible impermanence of beauty. Meditating on this topic, this later became an arhat (ThigA.81f.; SnA.i.241-2).

The two verses taught to her by the Buddha, which she made the subject of her meditation, are given in the Psalms of the Sisters (Therīgāthā, vv.19, 20).

In the time of Vipassī Buddha, beautiful Nandā had been the daughter of a wealthy burgess in the Buddha's native town of Bandhumatī. Having heard the Buddha teach, she became his pious follower and, at his passing into final nirvana, made an offering of a golden umbrella (a symbol of royalty and great distinction) decked with jewels to the shrine built over his relics/ashes (Ap.ii.608).

Scythians between Europe and Asia

The verses quoted in the Therīgāthā Commentary, as having been taken from the Apadāna, really belong to loving-kindness (mettā) and are found in the Apadāna (ii. 515) ascribed to Ven. Ekapindadāyikā Theri.

The correct verses are found in the Apadāna under the name of Abhirūpa Nandā and agree with the story given in the text of the Therīgāthā Commentary.

• Handsome Nanda (half-brother of the Buddha)
• In an interesting sidenote, this would make their cousin's name, Ānanda (possibly the Buddha's first son through the harem dancer Mrgra, according to the texts of at least one Buddhist tradition), seem to mean "Not Nanda."

CONTINUED IN PART III