Buddha and Angulimala

Buddha and Angulimala

Buddha and Angulimal

• It was in the 20th year that the Buddha converted the notorious murdererAngulimāla.
• Ahimsaka (Innocent) was his original name. His father was chaplain to the King of Kosala.
• He received his education at Taxila, the famous educational centre in the olden days, and became the most illustrious and favourite pupil of his renowned teacher. 
• Unfortunately his colleagues grew jealous of him, concocted a false story, and succeeded in poisoning the teacher’s mind against him. 
• The enraged teacher, without any investigation, contrived to put an end to his life by ordering him to fetch a thousand human right-hand fingers as teacher’s honorarium. 
• In obedience to the teacher, though with great reluctance, he repaired to the Jalini forest, in Kosala, and started killing people to collect fingers for the necessary offering.
•  The fingers thus collected were hung on a tree, but as they were destroyed by crows and vultures he later wore a garland of those fingers to ascertain the exact number. 
• Hence he was known by the name Angulimāla (Finger wreathed). 
• When he had collected 999 fingers, so the books state, the Buddha appeared on the scene. 
• Overjoyed at the sight, because he thought that he could complete the required number by killing the great ascetic, he stalked the Buddha drawing his sword. 
• The Buddha by His psychic powers created obstacles on the way so that Angulimāla would not be able to get near Him although He walked at His usual pace.
• Angulirnāla ran as fast as he could but he could not over take the Buddha. 
• Panting and sweating, he stopped and cried: “Stop, ascetic.” The Buddha calmly said: “Though I walk, yet have I stopped. You too,Angulimāla stop.” The bandit thought– “These ascetics speak the truth, yet He says He has stopped, whereas it is I who have stopped. What does He mean?”
• Standing, he questioned Him:
• “Thou who art walking, friar, dost say: ‘Lo I have stopped!’ And me thou tellest, who have stopped, I have not stopped!
• I ask thee, friar, what is the meaning of thy words?
• How sayest thou that thou hast stopped but I have not?”
• The Buddha sweetly replied:

“Yea, I have stopped, Angulimāla, evermore.
Towards all living things renouncing violence;
Thou holdest not thy hand against thy fellowmen,
Therefore ‘tis I have stopped, but thou still goest on.”

• Angulimāla’s good Kamma rushed up to the surface. He thought that the great ascetic was none other but the Buddha Gotama who out of compassion had come to help him.
• Straightway he threw away his armour and sword and became a convert. Later, as requested by him he was admitted into the Noble Order by the Buddha with the mere utterance –‘Come, O Bhikkhu!’ (Ehi Bhikkhu).
• News spread that Angulimāla had become a Bhikkhu. The
• King of Kosala, in particular, was greatly relieved to hear of his conversion because he was a veritable source of danger to his subjects.
• But Venerable Angulimāla had no peace of mind, because even in his solitary meditation he used to recall memories of his past and the pathetic cries of his unfortunate victims. 
• As a result of his evil Kamma, while seeking alms in the streets he would become a target for stray stones and sticks and he would return to the monastery ‘with broken head and flowing blood, cut and crushed’ to be reminded by the Buddha that he was merely reaping the effects of his own Kamma.
• One day as he went on his round for alms he saw a woman in travail. Moved by compassion, he reported this pathetic woman’s suffering to the Buddha. 
• He then advised him to pronounce the following words of truth, which later came to be known as the Angulimāla Paritta.

“Sister, since my birth in the Arya clan (i.e. since his ordination) I know not that I consciously destroyed the life of anyliving being. By this truth may you be whole, and may your child be whole.”

• He studied this Paritta and, going to the presence of the suffering sister, sat on a seat separated from her by a screen, and uttered these words. Instantly she was delivered of the child with ease. 
• The efficacy of this Paritta persists to this day.
• In due course Venerable Angulimāla attained Arahantship.
• Referring to his memorable conversion by the Buddha, he says:

“Some creatures are subdued by force,

Some by the hook, and some by whips,

But I by such a One was tamed,

Who needed neither staff nor sword."