Kūṭāgārasālā untranslated

Kūṭāgārasālā. A hall in the Mahā Vana near Vesālī. The Buddha stayed there on several occasions, and in the books are found records of various eminent persons who visited him there and of his conversations with them. Among such visitors are mentioned several Licchavī chiefs, Mahāli Oṭṭhatthaddha (DN.i.150ff; SN.i.230f; iii.68f; AN.v.86f; several visits of Mahāli are mentioned; for details see Mahāli. Bv­a. p.3 mentions that the Buddha spent his sixth rainy season in the Kūṭāgārasālā), Nandaka (SN.v.389), Sunakkhatta (MN.ii.252), Bhaddiya (AN.ii.190f), Sāḷha and Abhaya (AN.ii.200), all attended by numerous retinues; their senāpati, Sīha, who went with five hundred chariots, having only decided after much hesitation to see the Buddha (A iii.38f; iv.79, 179ff); the Jaina Saccaka, whom the Buddha won only after much argumentation, as described in the Cūḷa Saccakasutta and the Mahā Saccakasutta (MN.i.227ff; 237ff; the Licchavī Dummukha is also mentioned, MN.i.234, as having been present when Saccaka argued with the Buddha); the householder Ugga of Vesālī, acclaimed by the Buddha for the possession of eight eminent qualities (AN.iii.49; iv.208f; SN.iv.109); the upāsaka Vāseṭṭha (AN.iv.258f), the two goddesses, daughters of Pajjunna, both known as Kokanadā (SN.i.29f); and the Brahmin Piṅgiyāni (AN.iii.237f).

The Licchavīs waited on the Buddha and ministered to him during his stay in the Kūṭāgārasālā, and it is said that they were of various hues: some blue, others yellow, etc. And Piṅgiyānī, seeing the Buddha shining in their midst, surpassing them all, once uttered the Buddha’s praises in verse, winning, as reward from the Licchavīs, five hundred upper garments, all of which, he, in turn, presented to the Buddha (AN.iii.239f). On one occasion, when the Buddha was preaching to the monks regarding the six spheres of sense contact, Māra arranged an earthquake to break the monks’ concentration, but failed to achieve his object (SN.i.112). Several Jātakas were related by the Buddha in the Kūṭāgārasālā: the Sigāla (Ja.ii.5), the Telovāda (Ja.ii.262), the Bāhiya (Ja.i.420), and the Ekapaṇṇa (Ja.i.504). It was here that the Buddha finally agreed to grant the request of the five hundred Sākyan women, led by Pajāpatī Gotamī, that they might be ordained as nuns. They had followed the Buddha hither from Kapilavatthu (AN.iv.274f; Vin.ii.253f; Ja.ii.392). The Buddha gave Pajāpatī Gotamī, at her special request, a summary of his doctrine (AN.iv.280). It was also at the Kūṭāgārasālā that the Buddha uttered his prophecy as to the ultimate downfall of the Licchavīs (SN.ii.267f).

It was customary for the Buddha, when staying at the Kūṭāgārasālā, to spend the noonday siesta in the woods outside the Mahā Vana, at the foot of a tree; visitors coming at that time would, if their desire to see him was insistent (see, e.g., DN.i.151; AN.iii.75), seek him there or be conducted to him. Sometimes he would express his desire to see no one during such a retreat, except the monk who brought him his food.

On one occasion the retreat lasted a fortnight, and on his return he found that a large number of monks had committed suicide as a result of a sermon he had preached to them before his retreat on the un-loveliness of the body. He then caused the monks to be assembled, and asked them to concentrate on breathing (SN.v.320f). Sometimes the Buddha would walk from the Kūṭāgārasālā to places of interest in the neighbourhood – e.g., the Sārandadacetiya (AN.iii.167) and the Cāpālacetiya (SN.v.258; AN.iv.308f). It was from the Cāpālacetiya, during one of these walks that he gazed for the last time on Vesālī. He then returned to the Kūṭāgārasālā, where he announced that his death would take place within three months (DN.ii.119f; SN.v.258ff).

According to Buddhaghosa (DN­a.i.310; MN­a.i.450), there was a monastery (saṅghārāma) built for the monks in the Mahā Vana. Part of it consisted of a storeyed house, with a hall below surrounded only by pillars. These pillars held the gabled room which formed the main part of the Buddha’s Gandhakuṭi there. The hall lay from north to south and faced east (DN­a.i.311), and from this hall the whole monastery came to be known as the Kūṭāgārasālā. There was a sick ward attached to the monastery, where the Buddha would often visit the patients and talk with them (e.g., SN.iv.210f; AN.iii.142).

The books also contain the names of others who stayed at the Kūṭāgārasālā when the Buddha was in residence – e.g., Ānanda, who was visited there by the Licchavīs Abhaya and Paṇḍitakumāra (AN.i.220); Anuruddha, who lived there in a forest hut (SN.iii.116; iv.380); Nāgita, the Buddha’s former attendant, and Nāgita’s nephew the novice Sīha (DN.i.151); also Cāla, Upacāla, Kakkaṭa, Kalimbha, Nikaṭa, and Kaṭissaha, all of whom left the Kūṭāgārasālā and retired to the Gosiṅgasālavana, when the visits of the Licchavīs to the Buddha became disturbing to their solitude (AN.v.133f).

In later times Yasa Kākaṇḍakaputta is mentioned as having stayed there (Vin-a.i.34; Mhv.iv.12; Dpv.v.29).

Eighteen thousand monks under Mahā Buddharakkhita went from the monastery in Mahā Vana in Vesālī to the foundation ceremony of the Mahā Thūpa (Mhv.xxix.33).

According to the Northern books (Divy.136, 200; AvS.8; Mvu.i.300), the Kūṭāgārasālā was on the banks of the lake Markaṭā (Markaṭahradatīre).