Nukes over Mohenjo-Daro (ancient India)

Scientists discovered a lost civilization in the desert that vaporized and turned to glass

(LifesBiggestQuestions) Sept. 12, 2024: In what is now Pakistan (born in 1947 at Partition from India), the ancient ruins of Mohenjo-daro (the City of the Dead) hint at an advanced civilization's mysterious demise.

Could their end have come about by a sudden catastrophe rather than gradual decline?

Evidence of vitrified (glass-ified) structures and skeletal remains suggests a powerful superheated force swept through this metropolis of the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC), which also included neighboring Harappa. Explore the theory: Was Mohenjo-Daro atomically vaporized, leaving melted nuclear ruins?

Uncover archeological clues like scattered skeletons of people who died on the spot, still holding hands and evacuating, and enigmatic "glass beads." What caused this devastation? A natural disaster? An ancient weapon mentioned in the Vedas?

Discover the unsettling possibilities surrounding this ancient city's destruction and history's first use of atomic weapons on a civilian population, even before the war crimes the USA committed in Japan, Bikini Atol, and the Nevada and underground test sites, which are still making people sick.

• US tests nuclear bombs as kids swim in public pool nearby: 33 truly fascinating photos from the '50s era (eBaum/MSN)
• Most recent update: Scientists discovered an object buried...

#MohenjoDaro #Archaeology #IndusValleyCivilization #AncientMysteries #Ancienthistory #Discovery #Pakistan #lifesbiggestquestions #lbq. For business inquiries, please contact lifesbiggestquestion@gmail.com. Life's Biggest Questions

Ancient Greeks converted to Buddhism

The Ancient Greeks who converted to Buddhism

(ReligionForBreakfast) Greece is far from the heartland of early Buddhism, which is in parts of modern Afghanistan and Pakistan [ancient Gandhara] and India [Magadha and Bihar].

The historical Buddha

But thanks to the Macedonian Alexander the Great, Hellenistic and Buddhist cultures came into contact in the 4th century BCE, creating a cultural synthesis known as Greco-Buddhism.

• 00:00 A Greco-Bactrian Buddhist inscription
• 1:41 The Hellenistic "Far East"
• 4:10 Pyrrho: a Buddhist for Greece?
• 7:42 Emperor Ashoka and his Dharma conquest
• 10:23 King Menander (Milinda): the most famous Greek Buddhist
• 13:26 Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara
• 15:23 Syncretism?
• 16:44 Nebula! Indie creators being awesome

Select imagery/video supplied by Getty Images and Reuters. Get Nebula using link for 40% off an annual subscription: go.nebula.tv/religionforbreakfast... Watch Archaeology Quest: nebula.tv/videos/realscience...

Join Patreon community: religionforbreakfast One-time donations: paypal.me/religionforbreakfast... Sign-up for mailing list to be notified of online classes: classes.religionforbreakfast....

• ReligionForBreakfast, May 10, 2024; Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

World's 1st university: Buddhist Nalanda (BBC)

BBC Reel, June 10, 2022; Bodhisattva; Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

How the world's oldest university was lost for 800 years (BBC)

(BBC Reel) Founded more than 1,500 years ago, India's ancient Nalanda [Buddhist monastic] University is thought to have been the world's first residential university.

The Buddha-to-be went to college at Taxila

Established more than 500 years before England's Oxford University, at its peak Nalanda hosted over 10,000 students from around the world.

It is considered by historians to be one of the great centers of learning of the ancient world.

• [Two other perhaps older universities were at Timbuktu, in Islamic Africa, and the school the Bodhisattva ("Buddha-to-be") attended along with Ananda in a previous life, Taxila/Takkasila, the capital of ancient Gandhara (modern Pakistan), which is mentioned in the Jataka Tales.]

Nalanda University was destroyed towards the end of the 12th Century AD. Its legendary library was burned to the ground, and much of its ancient knowledge was lost.

Now, 800 years later, it is being revived for the modern age.

Video by Mithun Pramanik. Commissioned by Dan John. #bbcnews #bbc #india #bbcreel #india #university #indian

Why did Muslims destroy it?

(Bodhisattva) Why Turko-Afghan mass murderer Muhammad Bakhtiyar Khalji burned down Nalanda Buddhist University and killed all of its resident monk teachers and monastic students: real reasons and firsthand accounts.

Where in the world is Timbuktu?

In its Golden Age, Timbuktu's numerous Islamic scholars and extensive trading network supported an important book trade, together with the campuses of Sankore Madrasa, an Islamic university.

This established Timbuktu as a scholarly center in Africa. Several notable historic writers, such as Shabeni and Leo Africanus, wrote about the city.

These stories fueled speculation in Europe, where the city's reputation shifted from being extremely rich to being mysterious. More

[So white Europeans destroyed it, took its knowledge, then denied it ever existed. This created the joke that "Timbuktu" is synonymous with "Podunk," a faraway or nonexistent place.]

History's richest man: Black Emperor Musa

Crystal Q., CC Liu, Sheldon S. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly Wikipedia edit

Black Emperor (Mansā) Mūsā (circa 1312–1337 [a]) was the ninth [3] emperor (mansa) of the Mali Empire, Africa, which reached its territorial peak during this king's reign.

Emperor Musa is known for his unimaginable wealth and has sometimes been called the wealthiest person in history, far richer than Mexico's Carlos Slim, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, or Elon Musk.

His riches came from the mining of gold and salt deposits in the Mali Empire, along with the slave and ivory trade [4, 5]. 

At the time of Musa's ascension to the throne, Mali in large part consisted of the territory of the former Ghana Empire, which Mali had conquered.

The Mali Empire consisted of land that is now part of Guinea, Senegal, Mauritania, The Gambia, and the modern state of Mali.

Musa was so rich that when he went on a Muslim pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca in 1324, traveling with an enormous entourage and a vast supply of gold, he disrupted economies.

En route, he spent time in Cairo, Egypt, where his lavish gift-giving is said to have noticeably affected the value of gold in Egypt and garnered the attention of the wider Muslim world.

Buddhist Nalanda: World's first university?

Emperor Musa expanded the borders of the Mali Empire, in particular incorporating the cities of Gao and Timbuktu (a great ancient center of learning and hope to possibly the oldest residential university in history, even older than the oldest known university, Buddhist Nalanda (regarded by scholars as the world's first residential university), which Buddhist records say came after a kind of university system in Taxila or Takkasila, Indo-Pakistan, where the Buddha as the Bodhisatta went to school in a past life (Jataka Tales)] into its territory. More

• ‎Naval: How to Get Rich: Every episode on Apple Podcasts
• Interfaith & Interspecies Sunday Services | Compassion Consortium

Emperor Musa of Mali is renowned for his wealth and generosity. Online articles in the 21st century have claimed that Mansa Musa was the richest person of all time [89].

This claim is often sourced to an article in CelebrityNetWorth [89], which claims that Musa's wealth was the equivalent of US $400 billion [90].

CelebrityNetWorth has been criticized for the unreliability of its estimates [91].

Historians such as Hadrien Collet have argued that Emperor Musa's wealth is impossible to accurately calculate [89, 85].

Contemporary Arabic sources may have been trying to express that Emperor Musa had more gold than they thought possible, rather than trying to give an exact number [92].

Furthermore, it is difficult to meaningfully compare the wealth of historical figures such as Mansa Musa, due to the difficulty of separating the personal wealth of a monarch from the wealth of the state and the difficulty of comparing wealth in highly different societies [93].

Emperor Musa may have brought as much as 18 tons of gold on his pilgrimage to Mecca [94], the center of Islam, equal in value to over US $957 million in 2022 [95].

Emperor Musa himself further promoted the appearance of having vast, inexhaustible wealth by spreading rumors that gold grew like a plant in his kingdom [96].

According to some Arabic writers, Emperor Musa's gift-giving caused a depreciation in the value of gold in Egypt.

Al-Umari said that, before Emperor Musa's arrival, a mithqal of gold was worth 25 silver dirhams, but that it dropped to less than 22 dirhams afterward and did not go above that number for at least 12 years [97].

Though this has been described as having "wrecked" Egypt's economy [85], the historian Warren Schultz has argued that this was well within normal fluctuations in the value of gold in Mamluk Egypt [98]. More

Comedy: Me before and after DRUGS (video)

Christopher Lloyd ("Jim," Taxi); Seth Auberon, Sheldon S., Crystal Q., Wisdom Quarterly

Where shall I start? Let's start at the end, where I am now -- driving a cab in New York City without a license. But here I am trying to get one at the DMV with a little help from my friends. It wasn't always this way! I was once enrolled at Harvard. I was rich. I was brilliant. I had a smart and beautiful and kind girlfriend. We were going to get married and live the high life on the East Coast. Then it all went wrong. It started with a brownie. Gordon (Tom Hanks) didn't help. Heather, my girlfriend, was the source of the peer pressure that led me down a bad road. Later, I recovered, became a mad scientist, and went Back to the Future. Remember?

Best comedy on TV ends (video)

Jeremiah Johnson (video); Taxi (wiki); Seth Auberon, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Taxi is an American sitcom that originally aired on the ABC network from September 12, 1978 to May 6, 1982 and on NBC from Sept. 30, 1982 to June 15, 1983.

The show won 18 Emmy Awards, including three for Outstanding Comedy Series.

The show focuses on the everyday lives of a handful of New York City taxi drivers and their abusive dispatcher.

Taxi was produced by the John Charles Walters Company, in association with Paramount Network Television, and was created by James L. Brooks, Stan Daniels, David Davis, and Ed Weinberger.

The show focuses on the employees of the fictional Sunshine Cab Company, and its principal setting is the company's fleet garage in Manhattan.

Among the drivers, only Jewish mensch Alex Reiger (Judd Hirsh), who is disillusioned with life, considers cab driving his profession.

The others view it as a temporary job. Elaine Nardo (Marilu Henner) is a single mother working as a receptionist at an art gallery.

Tony Banta (Tony Danza) is a boxer with a losing record.

Bobby Wheeler (Jeff Conaway) is a struggling actor.

John Burns (written out of the show after the first season) is working his way through college.

All take pity on Reverend Jim "Iggy" Ignatowski (Christopher Lloyd), an aging hippie minister, who is burned out from drug abuse during the 1960s. So they help him become a cabbie.

The characters also include Latka Gravas (Andy Kaufman), their innocent, wide-eyed mechanic from an unnamed foreign country, and Louie De Palma (Danny DeVito), the despotic dispatcher. More

Oldest Buddhist texts come from Afghanistan

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly Wikipedia edit birch bark manuscript

Birch bark manuscripts are documents written on pieces of the inner layer of birch bark, which was commonly used for writing before the advent of mass production paper.

Evidence of birch bark for writing goes back many centuries in various cultures.

The oldest dated birch bark manuscripts are numerous Gandhāran Buddhist texts from approximately the 1st century CE, believed to have originated in Afghanistan, likely by the Dharmaguptaka sect.
 

Translations of the texts, mostly in Kharoṣṭhī, have produced the earliest known versions of significant Buddhist scriptures, including a Dhammapada, sutras of the Buddha that include the Rhinoceros Sutra, Avadanas, and [commentarial] Abhidharma texts.

• The Buddha was born in Afghanistan (RanajitPal.com)

Sanskrit birch bark manuscripts written with Brahmi script have been dated to the first few centuries CE. Several early Sanskrit writers such as Kālidāsa (circa 4th century CE), Sushruta (c. 3rd century CE), and Varāhamihira (6th century CE) mention the use of birch bark for manuscripts.

The bark of Betula utilis (Himalayan Birch) is still used today in India and Nepal for writing sacred mantras.

 

 
Gandhāran Buddhist manuscripts

Buddhist manuscripts written in the Gāndhārī language of Gandhara (northwest Indian frontier) are likely the oldest extant Indic texts, dating to approximately the 1st century CE.

The birch bark texts were stored in clay jars and acquired by the British Library in 1994.

They were written in Kharoṣṭhī and believed to be originally from Buddhist Afghanistan due to similar birch bark manuscripts that were discovered in eastern Afghanistan.^[1] 

Since 1994, a similar collection of Gāndhārī texts from the same era, called the Senior Collection, has also surfaced.^[2]

The British Library birch bark manuscripts were in the form of scrolls, which were very fragile and already damaged. They were five to nine inches wide and consisted of 12 to 18 inch long overlapping rolls that had been glued together to form longer scrolls.

A thread sewn through the edges also helped hold them together. (They were kept in baskets, or pitakas, which gave rise to the collection of Buddhist texts collectively referred to as the Tripitaka or "Three Baskets," the discourses or sutras, the Disciplinary Code or Vinaya, and the "Higher Teachings" or Abhidharma).

Buddhist Pakistan, stupa stamp

The script was written in black ink. The manuscripts were written on both sides of the scrolls, beginning at the top on one side, continuing with the scroll turned over and upside down, so that the text concluded at the top and back of the scroll. The longest intact scroll from the British Library collection is 84 inches long.^[1]

.

Street scene, Taxila, A.D. 260

The texts were likely compiled by the Dharmaguptaka sect and probably "represent a random but reasonably representative fraction of what was probably a much larger set of texts preserved in the library of a monastery of the Dharmaguptaka sect in Nagarāhāra," according to leading scholar Richard Salomon.^[3] 

The collection includes a variety of known commentaries and sutras, including a Dhammapada, discourses of the Buddha that include the Rhinoceros Sutra, Avadānas, and Abhidharma texts.^[4]

The condition of the scrolls indicates that they were already in poor condition and fragments by the time they were stored in the clay jars. Scholars concluded that the fragmented scrolls were given a ritual interment, much like Jewish texts stored in a genizah.^[1]

  
Sanskrit and Brāhmī manuscripts

Himalayan birch bark has been used for centuries in India for writing scriptures and texts in various scripts.

Its use was especially prevalent in historical Kashmir.

Use of bark as paper has been mentioned by early Sanskrit writers. In Kashmir, early scholars recounted that all of their books were written on Himalayan birch bark until the 16th century.^[5]

A fragment of a birch bark scroll in Sanskrit, using Brāhmī script, was part of the British Library Gandhara scroll collection. It is presumed to be from North India, dating to sometime during the first few centuries CE.^[6] 

Birch bark manuscripts in Brāhmī script were discovered in an ancient Buddhist monastery in Jaulian, near Taxila (Takkasila, the ancient capital of Gandhara) in the Punjab in Pakistan, dated to the 5th century CE.^[7]

Jaulian silver Buddhist reliquary, with gold contents (British Museum/wiki)

 

Bower Manuscript on birch bark (c. 450 CE)

The Bakhshali manuscript consists of 70 birch bark fragments written in Sanskrit and Prakrit [Pali-Sanskrit hybrid language], using Śāradā script.

Based on the language and content, it is estimated to be from the 2nd to 3rd century CE. The text discusses various mathematical techniques.^[8][9]

 

A large collection of birch bark scrolls were discovered in Afghanistan during the civil war in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, possible from the Bamiyan Caves [at the foothills of the Himalayan range known as the Hindu Kush next to the world's largest Buddha statues].

The approximately 3,000 scroll fragments are in Sanskrit or Buddhist Sanskrit, using Brāhmī script, and date to a period from the 2nd to 8th century CE.^[6] More
 

FOOTNOTES

1. Salomon, Richard (April 1, 1997). "A preliminary survey of some early Buddhist manuscripts recently acquired by the British Library". The Journal of the American Oriental Society (American Oriental Society).
2. Richard Salomon; Andrew Glass (2000). A Gāndhārī Version of the Rhinoceros Sūtra: British Library Kharoṣṭhī Fragment 5B. University of Washington Press. p. xi.
3. Richard Salomon. Ancient Buddhist Scrolls from Gandhāra: The British Library Kharosthī Fragments, with contributions by Raymond Allchin and Mark Barnard. Seattle: University of Washington Press; London: The British Library, 1999. pg 181
4. Salomon, Richard (1999). Ancient Buddhist Scrolls from Gandhāra. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
5. Müller, Friedrich Max (1881). Selected essays on language, mythology and religion, Volume 2. Longmans, Green, and Co. pp. 335–336fn.
6. Patrick Olivelle (13 July 2006). Between the Empires: Society in India 300 Bce to 400 Ce. Oxford University Press. pp. 356–7.
7. Kurt A. Behrendt (2003). Handbuch Der Orientalistik: India. The Buddhist architecture of Gandhāra. BRILL. pp. 35–36.
8. John Newsome Crossley, Anthony Wah-Cheung Lun, Kangshen Shen, Shen Kangsheng (1999). The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art: Companion and Commentary. Oxford Univ. Press.

9. "The Bakhshali Manuscript". Treasures of the Bodleian. Univ. of Oxford Bodleian Library.

• Buddhist pilgrimage to Afghanistan...
• Mes Aynak
• Buddhas of Bamiyan, Afghanistan
• Buddhism in Iran 
• Buddhism in Pakistan 

"India" (IVC) before the Buddha (video)

Dhr. Seven and Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly

First human representations of the historical Shakyamuni Buddha from Scythia, Gandhara, Indo-Sakastan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, once part of ancient Greece in Central Asia (WQ).

Portions of ancient "Shakya Land"

In the "Rebirth Tales" (Jatakas) the Buddha recounts a tiny fraction of his past lives, prior to being reborn as Prince Siddhartha Gautama of the Shakya Clan in what is today Afghanistan, near the ancient Indus Valley Civilization (IVC), northwest of what today regard as "India." In one such tale he recounts being reborn along with Ananda, who in his final rebirth was the Buddha's trusted cousin and attendant, in modern Taxila (Takkasila), Gandhara, where there existed a great university.

• The Buddha wasn't from Nepal? (ranajitpal.com)

The Buddha (Taxila Museum)

That this university existed was possible due to the previous IVC that flourished in northwest India in the foothills of the Himalayas in what are now Afghanistan, Gandhara, Sakastan (collectively parts of formerly Hellenistic Bactria), Seistan and Baluchistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kashmir, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Tibet, and the great Hindu Kush in general. What was this IVC like of which so little is known? Excavations and archeological explorations of the last five decades are revealing much of the antiquity of proto-India and the culture that gave rise to that followed by the Shakya Clan and 100 million Hindus (formerly followers of Vedantic Brahmanism) and Jains, a wandering-ascetic (shramanic/non-Vedic) tradition most similar to Buddhism.

There once was a ruler from the area of Shakya Land/Scythia named King Pukkusati.

Who were the ancient Scythians or Shakyians, living along the Silk Road in Afghanistan?

Would the Buddha have loved books?

Ashley Wells, Sheldon, Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Crystal Quintero, Wisdom Quarterly

"Lisa, everyone knows dragons do not attack cars. Geez, pick up a book." "I pick up book like you pick up beers!" "Then you have a serious reading problem" ("The Simpsons, FOX TV).

Little Lisa Simpson is an American Buddhist (Samye Ling/dunehypnotherapy.co.uk)

.

Tea time reading is fascinating! Princes love it!

Long before the Bodhisattva became the Buddha, he read. He read and read.

Even in the final rebirth, the Bodhisattva read. Then as the Shakyan prince of Shakya Land (ancient Scythia in Central Asia including modern Afghanistan) just west of what is now called "India" and what was then loosely affiliated kingdoms and clan territories called janapadas he was given the greatest education possible.

He was raised full of worldly knowledge to rule and general instruction from his royal tutors and instructors. In a famous previous life in the same general area, the Bodhisattva and the being who became Ven. Ananda together attended university in Taxila (Takkasila), once the capital of Gandhara, in what is now Pakistan in the region of the once famous Indus Valley.

Bodhisattvas read! (literatureismyutopia.tumblr)

In the past due to the caste system only Brahmins, the elites, were regularly afforded a rigorous education. (The same was true the U.S. when only "Boston Brahmins" got to go to our country's great early universities).

 

But royals, training for leadership, could be taught by Brahmin teachers. They almost certainly, however, would not have been taught Brahmanism, the religion of the Vedas inherited by Hinduism. So it is quite mistaken to say that Prince Siddhartha, who later became the Buddha, was born a Hindu. There was no Hinduism at that time, and his clan were more shaman and Central Asian with influences from the former Indus Valley Civilization.

Making it to Doughnut Heaven

As the Buddha began teaching in "India," more technically in states like Magadha, Bihar, and Savatthi (only returning to Shakya Land, with one of its seasonal capitals at Kapilavastu, possibly modern Bamiyan, seven years later), he would have taught in terms Brahmins could understand.

As the elites, Brahmins were the trendsetters. So those influenced by Brahmanism, the Brahmin religion worshiping Brahman and Brahma as supreme, would have understood these Vedic ideas as well.

To be wiser than Lisa, Homer meditates.

But the folkloric traditions familiar to them and not to the Brahmins were of startling diversity, and included the shramanic or "wandering ascetic" movement and popular ideas of karma (the power of intention), dharma (social duties and obligations, the intrinsic nature of things, etc.), and samsara (the round of rebirth and the fact that we live many, many lives) that the Brahmins would never have shared with non-Brahmins. Such beliefs the British later lumped together and dubbed "Indus-ism" (pronounced Hinduism), a catchall term for the many belief systems along the Indus river and valley, in north India and Central Asia from Burma to Iran.

 

And Brahmins read, memorized, and recited the sacred Knowledge Books, the Vedas. They would have read accounting, mathematical, medical, and other ancient literature as well. But the thrust would have been of an oral tradition handed down from teacher (guru) to pupil (chela), from master to apprentice, from instructor to learner.

Why did Lisa Simpson become a Buddhist?

Richard Gere, Springfield Buddhist Temple

Buddhism by being pro-education, pro-thinking, pro-wide learning appeals to Americans and Westerners who follow in the footsteps of the Indus Valley Civilization tradition with a shared Indo-European language family, the roots of which must have contributed to ancient Greek and Latin.

Like Prince Siddhartha, vegetarian animal-lover Lisa loves to read, which makes her the wisest and most compassionate of the whole Simpson clan.

So the real question is not whether the Buddha would have read books or scrolls, as if the All Wise One would have needed to with other means of knowing (psychic powers, witness-devas to inform him, the Akashic Records). No, the real question is whether he would have used headphones.

Two Enlightened Buddhist Kings

Dhr. Seven, Ven. Chandananda, Wisdom Quarterly based on G.P. Malalasekera (aimwell.org), Dictionary of Pāli Proper Names (Pukkusati); Bhikkhu Bodhi (audio); Wirajhana-eka (art)

The Buddha teaching in the superior space world of Tusita, Kushan Dynasty carving, Gandhara, Pakistan (wikicommons)

 

At the time of the Buddha, far to the west, there lived a king in Afghanistan named Pukkusati or Pushkarasarin.

 

At that time what is now known as Afghanistan and Pakistan were part of India's frontier lands. Gandhara was located on the grand northern main road (Uttarapatha) and was a center of international commerce. It was an important channel of merchandise and communication with ancient Iran and Central Asia.

Pukkusati's story begins much, much earlier when, together with Bahiya of the Bark Cloth, he strove to gain enlightenment under a previous buddha named Kassapa.

A wealthy king in Gandhara in the middle of the sixth century BC, Pukkusati was a contemporary of another more famous Buddhist king to the east, a great patron of the Buddha: King Bimbisara of Magadha.

• [Along with Dr. Ranajit Pal, Wisdom Quarterly contends that Shakyamuni Buddha ("the Sage of the Shakya clan") was from ancient Afghanistan. The capital was Kapilavastu, part the rich Shakyan people's territorial holdings, on ancient India's northwest frontier. Others in the region -- Gandharas, Kurus, Kambojas, and Bahlikas -- were cognate people, and all had Iranian affinities.^{[Note 20]} According to Dr. T.L. Shah, Gandhara and Kamboja were two neighboring provinces of one empire.^[21] Gandhara was often linked politically with the neighboring regions of Kashmir and Kamboja (Wiki).]

Spiritual Quest

Why do good sons and daughters set out from home-life to homelessness? (K8rry/flickr)

  

The young spiritual seeker had been King of Takkasilā (Taxila, formerly India, now part of Pakistan) when King Bimbisāra ruled Magadha from Rajgir (Rajagaha) -- the site of Vultures Peak, where the Buddha frequently stayed -- having left his home country as Siddhartha the spiritual seeker from the vicinity of Gandhara.

 

A friendly alliance was established between the two kings by merchants who traveled between the two territories to trade. In time, although they had never met in person, there grew up between them a deep bond of affection. 

King Pukkusāti once sent to King Bimbisāra a gift of eight priceless garments in lacquered caskets. This gift was accepted at a special meeting of the king's entire court. Bimbisāra, who was a stream enterer devoted to the Buddha and therefore not nearly as materialistic as he had once been, wanted to send something precious to Pukkusāti. But what could possibly demonstrate his affection for his friend?

He conceived of an idea. What if he acquainted Pukkusāti with the appearance in the world of the Three Jewels: Buddha, Dharma, and Saṅgha? 

Bimbisara had a giant beaten golden plate. It was four cubits long and a span in breadth. Inscribed on it were descriptions of these Three Jewels and of various tenets of the Buddha’s teachings and meditation instructions such as the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, the Noble Eightfold Path, and the 37 Requisites of Enlightenment. 

The plate was placed in the innermost of several nested caskets made of various precious substances. It was taken in procession on the back of the state elephant to the frontier of Bimbisira’s kingdom. Similar honors were paid to it by the chiefs of other territories, through which lay the route to Takkasilā.

In the solitude of his chamber where by nature (owing to practice in past lives) he would resort to meditate in peace, Pukkusāti read the inscription on the plate. He was so filled with boundless joy that he decided to renounce the world. 

Like Prince Siddhartha before him, he cut off his hair, donned the saffron robes of a wandering ascetic, and left the palace alone amid his weeping subjects. He traveled the 192 leagues to the prosperous city of Sāvatthi, passing the gates of Jetavana. 

Having understood from Bimbisāra’s letter that the Buddha was at Rājagaha, he did not inquire about him in Jetavana. Instead he traveled on 45 leagues more to Rājagaha, only to find that the Buddha was all the time in Sāvatthi. 

It was evening, so he took lodging in the potter Bhaggava’s house. The Buddha, with his psychic eye, saw what was in store for Pukkusāti. So he traveled by foot from Sāvatthi and reached Bhaggava’s house at sundown. Waiting for his opportunity -- since Pukkusāti thought nothing of this young wanderer until he saw how well he meditated through the last watch of the night, far outstripping the king's advanced ability to attain absorption (jhana) -- the Buddha was silent.

Then when the fellow family clan member (kulaputta, M.iii.238; J.iv.180 and DhA.ii.35) Pukkusati was ready to listen and take it in, he taught him the CLASSIFICATION OF THE ELEMENTS.

• AUDIO: Dhātu-vibhanga Sutra (Bhikkhu Bodhi)

The wanderer Pukkusāti was already at Bhaggava's house occupying the guest quarters, the potter's shed or workshop. The Buddha asked to be allowed to share it, to which Pukkusāti agreed.

 

They sat together for some time meditating in silence. Only then did the Buddha teach the Dhātu-vibhaṅga Sutta, and it was only after it that Pukkusāti recognized the Buddha.

He begged pardon for not having paid him due honor; he then requested to have the higher ordination of a Buddhist monk conferred on him. 

The Buddha consented and sent him to procure a requisite alms bowl and robe. But like Bahiya of the Bark Cloth, on the way Pukkusāti was gored to death by a cow. [Cows do this and it frequently happens that they are protecting their young or possessed by some yakkha.]

• The cow is said to have been a yakkhinī who was a cow in one hundred rebirths. In her last birth as a cow, she also killed Bāhiya of the Bark Cloth, Tambadāthika, and Suppabuddha the leper (DhA.ii.35).

When this was reported to the Buddha, he explained that Pukkusāti was a non-returner (third stage of enlightenment) who had now been been reborn in the highest Pure Abode (aviha) never more to return (M.iii.237 47).

Commentarial literature

In his comments on the Dhātu-vibhaṅga Sutra, Buddhaghosa gives a long account of Pukkusāti (MA.ii.979 ff. Cp. the story of Tissa, King of Roruva, ThagA.i.199f.)

After his untimely death by cow, Pukkusāti was born in the Pure Abodes where, together with six others, he became fully enlightened right at the moment of his rebirth. (See S.i.35, 60 for the names of the others).

 

The commentary explains that Pukkhusāti was one of seven monks at the time of the former Buddha Kassapa who decided to abstain from eating until they attained enlightenment. To avoid being disturbed, they moved to the top of a mountain plateau and kicked down the ladder used to climb up.
 
The senior monk attained the final goal, the second became an non-returner, but the remaining five refused offerings of food from the two who attained, and they died of starvation. They were reborn in the space world known as Tusita, a superior Sense Sphere world.

In this age they became, respectively, Pukkusāti, Kumāra Kassapa, Bahiya Dārucīriya, Dabba Mallaputta, and Sabhiya (Ap.ii.473; DhA.ii.212; UdA.81; but see MA.i.335, where only three are mentioned Pukkusāti, Dārucīriya, and Kassapa).