Island Against Floods
The Story of Culapanthaka
Chapter 2: Heedfulness • Verse 5
The Story of Culapanthaka
Chapter 2: Heedfulness • Verse 5
By effort and heedfulness, discipline and self-mastery, let the wise one make for himself an island which no flood can overwhelm.
While residing at the Veluvana Monastery, the Buddha spoke this verse with reference to Culapanthaka, a grandson of a banker of Rajagaha.
The banker had two grandsons, Mahapanthaka and Culapanthaka. Mahapanthaka, the elder, used to accompany his grandfather to religious discourses, later joined the Buddhist order, and soon became an arahat.
Culapanthaka followed his brother into the order but could not memorize even a single verse in four months.
About that time, Jivaka came to the monastery to invite the Buddha and the resident monks to his house for a meal. Mahapanthaka, who was in charge of assigning monks to meal invitations, left Culapanthaka off the list.
Learning of this, Culapanthaka felt deeply frustrated and decided to return to lay life. Knowing his intention, the Buddha brought him to sit in front of the Gandhakuti hall, gave him a clean white cloth, and told him to face east, rub the cloth with his hand, and repeat the word "Rajoharanam," meaning "taking off impurity." The Buddha then went to Jivaka's residence with the other monks.
Culapanthaka rubbed the cloth, muttering the word, until it soon became soiled. Seeing this change, he came to realize the impermanent nature of all conditioned things.
From Jivaka's house, the Buddha, through supernormal power, sensed Culapanthaka's progress and projected his radiant image so that he appeared to be sitting before him, saying, "It is not only the cloth that is soiled by dust; within oneself, too, there is dust. Only by removing that dirt can one attain one's goal." Culapanthaka grasped the message and attained arahatship.
At Jivaka's house, as water was about to be offered before the meal, the Buddha covered his bowl with his hand and asked if any monks remained at the monastery. Told there were none, he said there was one, and asked that Culapanthaka be fetched.
The messenger who went to the monastery found not one monk but a thousand identical monks, all created by Culapanthaka's newly gained supernormal powers, and returned baffled. Sent back a second time to summon "Culapanthaka," he was answered by a thousand voices all claiming that name, and returned baffled again.
Sent a third time and instructed to seize whichever monk first claimed the name, the messenger did so, and all the duplicates vanished. Culapanthaka then accompanied him to Jivaka's house, and after the meal, as the Buddha directed, delivered a religious discourse confidently and bravely, roaring like a young lion.
The Story of Culapanthaka
Chapter 2: Heedfulness • Verse 5
By effort and heedfulness, discipline and self-mastery, let the wise one make for himself an island which no flood can overwhelm.
While residing at the Veluvana Monastery, the Buddha spoke this verse with reference to Culapanthaka, a grandson of a banker of Rajagaha.
The banker had two grandsons, Mahapanthaka and Culapanthaka. Mahapanthaka, the elder, used to accompany his grandfather to religious discourses, later joined the Buddhist order, and soon became an arahat.
Culapanthaka followed his brother into the order but could not memorize even a single verse in four months.
About that time, Jivaka came to the monastery to invite the Buddha and the resident monks to his house for a meal. Mahapanthaka, who was in charge of assigning monks to meal invitations, left Culapanthaka off the list.
Learning of this, Culapanthaka felt deeply frustrated and decided to return to lay life. Knowing his intention, the Buddha brought him to sit in front of the Gandhakuti hall, gave him a clean white cloth, and told him to face east, rub the cloth with his hand, and repeat the word "Rajoharanam," meaning "taking off impurity." The Buddha then went to Jivaka's residence with the other monks.
Culapanthaka rubbed the cloth, muttering the word, until it soon became soiled. Seeing this change, he came to realize the impermanent nature of all conditioned things.
From Jivaka's house, the Buddha, through supernormal power, sensed Culapanthaka's progress and projected his radiant image so that he appeared to be sitting before him, saying, "It is not only the cloth that is soiled by dust; within oneself, too, there is dust. Only by removing that dirt can one attain one's goal." Culapanthaka grasped the message and attained arahatship.
At Jivaka's house, as water was about to be offered before the meal, the Buddha covered his bowl with his hand and asked if any monks remained at the monastery. Told there were none, he said there was one, and asked that Culapanthaka be fetched.
The messenger who went to the monastery found not one monk but a thousand identical monks, all created by Culapanthaka's newly gained supernormal powers, and returned baffled. Sent back a second time to summon "Culapanthaka," he was answered by a thousand voices all claiming that name, and returned baffled again.
Sent a third time and instructed to seize whichever monk first claimed the name, the messenger did so, and all the duplicates vanished. Culapanthaka then accompanied him to Jivaka's house, and after the meal, as the Buddha directed, delivered a religious discourse confidently and bravely, roaring like a young lion.