Pūraṇa Kassapa untranslated

Pūraṇa Kassapa. v.l. Purāṇa Kassapa. One of the six well-known teachers, contemporaneous with the Buddha. He is said to have taught the doctrine of non­action (akiriya), denying the result of good or bad actions (DN.i.52 f); probably the more correct description of Kassapa’s teaching would be niṣkriyavāda – i.e., an affirmation that the soul is passive, unaffected by the good or the bad done by us, the ultimate reality lying beyond good or evil.

Elsewhere (SN.iii.69; v.126), however, he is mentioned as an ahetuvādin, denying hetupaccaya (condition and cause – i.e., the efficacy of kamma), which teaching, in the Sāmaññaphalasutta, is attributed to Makkhali Gosāla (DN.i.53; see also AN.iii.383, where the teaching of Chaḷabhijātiyo is also attributed to Pūraṇa).

Buddhaghosa says that Pūraṇa Kassapa came by his name from the fact that as a result of his birth the number of slaves in a certain household reached one hundred (DN­a.i.142; he could not have been a slave. Kassapa is a Brahmin gotta. The Snp­a (372) calls him an ājīvaka). Owing to this fact he was never found fault with, even when he failed to do his work satisfactorily. But, in spite of this, he was dissatisfied and fled from his masters. He then had his clothes stolen by thieves and went about naked. He had a following of five hundred, among whom was the Devaputta Asama (SN.i.65, see also Ajātasattu). He was consulted by the Licchavīs Abhaya (SN.v.126) and Mahāli (SN.iii.68) and by the wanderer Vacchagotta (SN.iv.398). He claimed to be omniscient. (AN.iv.428; here we probably have a more correct explanation of his name, Pūraṇa i.e., in his claim to have attained perfect wisdom, pūraṇañāṇa).

A story in the Dhammapada Commentary states that when the heretics were unable to prevent the Buddha from performing the Twin Miracle under the Gaṇḍamba, they fled discomfited (Dhp­a.iii.208). Pūraṇa Kassapa was among them, and in the course of his flight, he came across one of his followers, a farmer, who was on his way to see him, carrying a vessel of broth and a rope. Pūraṇa took the vessel and the rope, and going to the banks of the river near Sāvatthī, tied the vessel round his neck and threw himself into the stream. There was a circle of bubbles on the water and Pūraṇa was reborn in Avīci. For a different version see Rockhill, 80. According to this legend, Kassapa must have died in the sixteenth year of the Buddha’s ministry. This is hardly reconcilable with the statement that Ajātasattu consulted him. The Milindapañha (p. 4 f) also mentions a Pūraṇa Kassapa, contemporary with Milinda. This perhaps refers to a teacher descended from the same school who is credited with the view that the earth rules or sustains the world.