Mahā Kāḷa untranslated

Mahā Kāḷa 01. Mahā Kāḷa Thera. He belonged to a merchant family of Setavyā, and, while on a journey to Sāvatthī with five hundred carts, he heard the Buddha preach at Jetavana and entered the Saṅgha. He lived in the charnel field meditating, and, one day, the crematrix Kāḷā, noticing him, arranged the limbs of a recently cremated body near the Thera that he might gaze at them. With these as a topic of meditation, he soon became an Arahant. Thag.vss.151f.; his story is given in much greater detail at Dhp­a.i.66ff.; there he is said to have been the eldest of three brothers, of whom the others were Majjhima Kāḷa and Cūḷa Kāḷa.

He went with the latter to Sāvatthī, where both of them joined the Saṅgha. After becoming an Arahant, Mahā Kāḷa went with the Buddha to Setavyā and dwelt in the Siṁsapā grove, Cūḷa Kāḷa accompanying him. Cūḷa Kāḷa’s wives invited the Buddha and the other monks to a meal, and he himself went on earlier to make arrangements. His wives disrobed him. At the end of the meal, Mahā Kāḷa was left behind by the Buddha to make the thanksgiving. His eight wives surrounded him and stripped him of his robes, but, knowing their intention, he disappeared through the air.

Ninety-one kappas ago, while wandering near the mountain Urugaṇa, he saw the rag robe of an ascetic and offered three kiṅkiṇika-flowers in its honour (Thag­a.i.271f). He is probably identical with Paṁsukūlapūjaka Thera of the Apadāna. Ap.ii.434; but see Thag­a.i.79, where the same Apadāna verses are quoted.

Mahā Kāḷa 02. An upāsaka of Sāvatthī who was a Sotāpanna. One day he took the uposatha vows and, having listened throughout the night to the preaching, was washing his face in the pool near Jetavana early the next morning, when thieves who had broken into a house and were being pursued put their stolen goods down near him and ran away. He, being taken for a thief, was beaten to death. When this was reported to the Buddha, he related a story of the past in which Mahā Kāḷa had been a forest guard of the king of Benares. One day he saw a man entering the forest road with his beautiful wife and, falling in love with the wife, invited them to his house. He then had a gem placed in the man’s cart, and the latter was beaten to death as a thief. Dhp­a.iii.149ff.

Mahā Kāḷa 03. A Nāga king who dwelt in the Mañjerika Nāgabhavana. When the Buddha, after eating the meal given by Sujātā, launched the bowl upstream, it travelled a short way and then stopped, having reached the Nāga’s abode under the Nerañjarā, and then came into contact with the bowls similarly launched by the three previous Buddhas of this kappa. To the Nāga because of his long life it seemed that the previous Buddha had died only the preceding day, and he rejoiced to think that another had been born. He went therefore to the scene of the Buddha’s Awakening with his Nāga maidens and they sang the Buddha’s praises. Ja.i.70, 72; this incident is among those sculpturally represented in the Relic Chamber of the Mahā Thūpa (Mhv.xxxi.83); see also Divy.392; Mhv.ii.265, 302, 304.

Kāḷa’s life-span was one kappa; therefore he saw all the four Buddhas of this kappa, and when Asoka wished to see the form of the Buddha, he sent for Mahā Kāḷa, who created for him a beautiful figure of the Buddha, complete in every detail (Mhv.v.87f.; Vin-a.i.43, etc.).

When the Buddha’s relics, deposited at Rāmagāma, were washed away, Mahā Kāḷa took the basket containing them into his abode and there did them honour till they were removed, against his will, by Soṇuttara. Mhv.xxxi.25ff.

Mahā Kāḷa 04. A householder of Bandhumatī in the time of Vipassī Buddha. He was a previous birth of Aññā Koṇḍañña. He and his brother Cūḷa Kāḷa gave the first fruits of their harvest, in nine stages of its growth, to the Buddha. AN­a.i.79ff.; Thag­a.ii.1f.

Mahā Kāḷa 05. One of the seven mountains surrounding Gandhamādana. Snp­a.i.66; Ja.v.38.