Vuḍḍhapabbajita Summna Theri
Known as Princess Sumanā, she was the daughter of the king of Kosala and sister of king Pasenadi. She is included among the eminent female lay supporters. She once visited the Buddha, with five hundred royal maidens in five hundred royal chariots, and questioned him regarding the efficacy of giving. The Commentary explains that these five hundred companions were born on the same day as herself.
She was seven years old when the Buddha paid his first visit to Sāvatthi, and she was present at the dedication of Jetavana with her five hundred companions, carrying vases, flowers, etc., as offering to the Buddha. After the Buddha’s discourse she became a Stream-entrant.
It is said that, in the time of Vipassī Buddha, she was born to a rich family. But her father who used to be the general of the king, passed away just in her childhood. When the people, obtained the king’s permission to offer dana to the Buddha and his monks, it was the general’s (senāpati) privilege to invite the Buddha to his house on the first day.
When Sumanā came back from playing, she found her mother in tears, and when asked the reason, her mother replied,
“If your father had been alive, we would have been able to offer dana to the Buddha today.”
Sumanā comforted her by saying that, that honor should yet be theirs. She filled a golden bowl with richly flavored milk-rice, covering it with another bowl. She then wrapped both vessels all round with jasmine flowers and left the house with her servants.
On the way to the present general’s house, she was stopped by his men, but she coaxed them to let her pass, and, as the Buddha approached, saying that she wished to offer him jasmine flowers, she put the two vessels into his alms bowl. She then made a wish that ‘in every subsequent birth she should be named Sumanā and that her body should smell the fragrance of jasmine.’
When the Buddha arrived in the general’s house and was served first with soup, he covered his bowl saying that he had already been given alms.
At the end of the meal the general made enquiries to find out who had offered a meal to the Buddha before him. When he found out what happened, full of admiration for Sumanā’s courage and wisdom, invited her to his house and made her his chief consort.
Ever after that she was known as Sumanā, and, wherever she was born, a shower of jasmine flowers fell knee deep on the day of her birth.
Sumanā wished to renounce the household life, but had to put off doing so in order to look after her grandmother as long as she lived. After the grandmother’s death, Sumanā went with King Pasenadi to the monastery, taking such things as rugs and carpets, which she offered to the Order.
The Buddha taught her and King Pasenadi the Dhamma and she became a Non-returner. She then sought ordination, and, at the conclusion of the stanza taught to her by the Buddha, attained Arahantship.
Selā (Āḷavikā) Theri
She was born in Āḷavī as daughter of the king of the state: therefore she was also called Āḷavikā. When she was still unmarried, the Buddha visited Āḷavī with Āḷavaka, the Yakkha who was tamed by the Buddha, carrying his begging bowl and robe.
On that occasion Sela went with her father to hear the Buddha teach. She became a lay disciple, but later, disenchanted with life, she joined the Order and became an Arahant.
After that, she lived in Sāvatthi.
One day, as she was resting in the Andhavana under a tree, and Māra, in the guise of a stranger, approached her and tried to tempt her. However, she refuted his statements regarding the attractions of lay life, and so Māra was defeated.
In the time of Padumuttara Buddha, Selā was born in the family of a clansman of Haṃsavatī and was given in marriage. After her husband’s death she devoted herself to the quest of good, and went from ārāma to ārāma and vihāra to vihāra, teaching the Dhamma to followers of the religion.
One day she came to the Bodhi tree of the Buddha and sat down there thinking,
‘If a Buddha is Incomparable among men, may this tree show the miracle of Enlightenment.’
Immediately the tree blazed forth, the branches appeared golden, and the sky was all shining. Inspired by the sight, she fell down and worshipped the tree, and sat there for seven days. On the seventh day she performed a great feast of offering and worshipped the Buddha.
Bhaddā Kāpilānī Theri
She was the daughter of a Kosiya Brahmin of Sāgala, in the Madda country. When the messengers sent by the parents of Pippali- māṇava (Mahā-Kassapa) were wandering about searching for a wife for him that resembles the golden statue they carried with them, they discovered Bhaddā and informed Pipphali’s parents. The parents arranged the marriage and Bhaddā went to Pipphali’s house. There, they lived together, but, by mutual consent, the marriage was never consummated.
It was said that, she brought with her, on the day of her marriage, fifty thousand cartloads of wealth. When Pipphali desired to leave the household life, handing over to her all his wealth, she also wished to renounce like her husband, and together they left the house in the guise of recluses, their hair shaved. In the village, however, they were recognized by their demeanour, and the people fell down at their feet.
They granted freedom to all their servants, and set forth, Pipphali leading and Bhaddā following close behind. On coming to a fork in the road, they agreed that he should take the right and she the left.
In due course she came to the Tiṭṭhiyārāma (near Jetavana),
where she lived for five years, women not having yet been admitted to the Buddha’s Order. Later, when Pajāpatī Gotamī obtained bhikkhuni ordination, Bhaddā joined her and received ordination, attaining Arahantship not long after.
Later in the assembly, the Buddha declared her foremost of nuns who could recall past lives.
In the time of Padumuttara Buddha she was the wife of Videha, a millionaire of Haṃsavatī, and having heard a nun proclaimed in the first rank of those who could recall past lives, she wished to acquire a similar rank, while her husband (Mahā-Kassapa in this life) wished to be chief among those who practice austere vows (dhuṭavādinaṃ). Together they did many good deeds and were reborn in heaven.
In the time of Vipassī Buddha, the husband was the brahmin Ekasāṭaka and she was his wife. In his next birth he was king of Bārāṇasī and she his chief queen. Together theymade offerings to eight Pacceka Buddhas on a very lavish scale.
In the interval between the appearance in the world of Koṇāgamana Buddha and Kassapa Buddha, the husband was a clansman and she his wife. One day, a quarrel arose between her and her sister-in law.
The sister-in-law gave alms to a Pacceka Buddha and Bhaddā, thinking ‘She will win glory for this,’ took the bowl from her hand and filled it with mud. However, later she was filled with remorse, took back the bowl, emptied it, scrubbed it with scented powder and, having filled it with the four sweet foods (chatumadura), covered the top with a lotus flower. Handing it back to the Pacceka Buddha, she made a wish to herself ‘May I have a shining body like this offering.’
In a later birth, Bhaddā was born as the daughter of a wealthy treasurer of Bārāṇasī; she was given in marriage, but her body was of such bad odor that she was repulsive to all and was abandoned by several husbands. Much troubled, she had her gold jewellery made into a gold brick and placed it on the stupa of Kassapa Buddha, which was in the process of being built, and paid respect with her hands full of lotuses.
Her body immediately became fragrant and sweet, and she was married again to her first husband.
Later, she was the queen of Nanda, king of Bārāṇasī with whom she attended to five hundred Pacceka Buddhas.
When they passed away, she was greatly troubled and left the Household life to give herself up to ascetic practices. She dwelt in a grove, developed jhāna, and was reborn in the Brahma world.
Bhaddā Kuṇḍalakesā Theri
She was foremost among nuns, of swift realization.
She was born in the family of a treasurer of Rājagaha. On the same day, a son was born to the king’s chaplain under a constellation favorable to highwaymen, and was therefore called Sattuka. One day, through her lattice veranda, Bhaddā saw Sattuka being led by the city guards to execution on a charge of robbery. She fell in love with him at once, and refused to live without him. Her father, out of his love for her, bribed the guard to release Sattuka, let him be bathed in perfumed water, and brought him home, where Bhaddā, decked in jewels, waited upon him.
Very soon, Sattuka began to covet her jewels and told her that he had made a vow to the deity of the Robbers’ Cliff that, should he get freed from being executed, he would bring him an offering. She trusted him and, making ready an offering, went with him wearing all her jewellery.
On arriving at the top of the cliff, he told her of his real purpose of coming there, and she, all undaunted, begged of him to let her embrace him on all sides. He agreed to this, and then, pretending to embrace him from the back, she pushed him over the cliff.
The deity of the mountain praised her presence of mind saying that men were not in all cases wiser than women. Unwilling to return home after what had happened; she joined the Order of the white robed Nigaṇṭhā. As she wished to practice extreme austerities, they dragged out her hair with palmyra seeds. Her hair grew again in close curls, and so they called her ‘Kuṇḍalakesā’ (Curly-hair). Dissatisfied with the teaching of the Nigaṇṭhā, she left them, and going to various teachers, became very proficient in discussion and eager for debate.
She would enter a village and, making a heap of sand at the gate, set up the branch of a rose apple saying,
“Whoever wishes to enter into discussion with me, let him trample on this branch.”
One day, Arahant Sāriputta, seeing the branch outside of Sāvatthi, ordered some children to trample on it. Bhaddā then went to Jetavana accompanied by a large crowd whom she had invited to be present at the discussion. Arahant Sāriputta suggested that Bhaddā should first ask him questions; to all of these he replied until she fell silent. It was then his turn, and he asked,
“One, what is that?”
She, unable to answer, asked him to be her teacher. However, Arahant Sāriputta sent her to the Buddha, who taught her that itwere better to know one single stanza bringing calm and peace than one thousand verses bringing no profit. At the end of this discourse, Bhaddā attained Arahantship, and the Buddha himself ordained her.
In the time of Padumuttara Buddha, she had heard him teach and place as foremost among nuns one whose realization was swift (khippābhiññā). She wished that this rank should one day be hers.
Later, during the Kassapa Buddha’s time, she was one of the seven daughters of Kikī, king of Bārāṇasī and was named Bhikkhadāyikā (Bhikkhudāsikā). For twenty thousand years she remained celibate and built a dwelling for the Order.
Patāchārā Theri
She was the daughter of a banker of Sāvatthi, and, when grown up, formed an intimate relationship with a servant. When her parents wished to marry her to a youth of her own rank, she ran away with her lover and lived in a village. After the time of labour of her first pregnancy came closer, she wished to return to her parents, but the husband, on various pretexts, put off the visit.
One day when he was out, she left a message with the neighbors and left for Sāvatthi. Her husband followed her, but on the way, she gave birth to a son, and they returned home.
The same happened when her second child was born, but soon after that birth a great storm broke, and her husband went to cut some sticks and grass in the jungle with which to make a shelter. He was bitten by a snake and died. The wife spent the night in misery, lying on the ground hugging her children. In the morning, she discovered her husband’s body, and started off to go to her parents.
On the way she had to cross a river, and, because it was in flood, she could not carry both her children across at the same time. She therefore left the younger one on some leaves on the bank and started wading across with the other.
In midstream she looked back and saw a hawk swoop down and carry away the baby. The older one thought she was calling him and came into the water and he was swept away by the flood.
Miserable, she went on towards Sāvatthi, but on the way she learnt that the house in which her parents and brother lived had collapsed on them in the night and that they had been burnt on one pyre.
Mad with grief, she wandered about in circles, and because, as she circled round, her skirt cloth fell from her, she was called Paṭācārā (cloak walker). People chased her away from their doors, until one day she arrived in Jetavana, where the Buddha was teaching. The people around him tried to stop her from approaching, but the Buddha called her to him and talked to her.
By the potency of his gentleness, she regained mindfulness.
A man threw her his outer robe, and she, wearing it, drew close to the Buddha, and worshipping at his feet, told him her story and begged for his help. The Buddha spoke to her words of consolation, making her realize the inevitability of death; he then taught her the Truth.
When he finished speaking, she became a Stream-winner and asked for ordination. Her request was granted, and one day, while washing her feet, she noticed how the water flowed, sometimes only to a short distance, sometimes further, and she pondered,
‘Even so do mortals die, either in childhood, in middle age, or in old age.’
The Buddha sent her a ray of glory and appeared before her, speaking and confirming her thoughts. When he had finished speaking, Paṭācārā attained Arahantship.
She later became a great teacher, and many women, stricken with grief, sought her guidance and her consolation.
She was declared by the Buddha to be the best among Therī’s who knew the Vinaya.
In the time of Padumuttara Buddha, she was born in a clansman’s family, and having heard the Buddha speak of a nun as first among those who knew the rules of the Order, she aspired to a similar rank for herself.
In the time of Kassapa Buddha, she became a Bhikkhuṇī, and was third of the seven daughters of Kikī, king of Bārāṇasī. She built a lodging for the Sangha and lived a celibate life for twenty thousand years.
Khemā Theri
An Arahant theri, chief of the Buddha’s bhikkuni disciples.
She was born in a ruling family at Sāgala in the Madda country, and her skin was of the color of gold. She became the chief consort of King Bimbisāra. She would not visit the Buddha who was at Veḷuvana, lest he should speak critically of her beauty with which she was infatuated. The king ordered poets to sing the glories of Veḷuvana and persuaded Khemā to go there. She was then brought face to face with the Buddha, and using psychic powers the Buddha created, for her to see, a woman like a celestial nymph who stood facing him.
Even as Khemā gazed on the nymph, whose extraordinary beauty far excelled her own, she saw her pass gradually from youth to extreme old age, and so fall down in the swoon of death. Seeing that Khemā was filled with dismay at the sight, the Buddha taught her on the vanity of lust, and at that moment she attained Arahantship.
With the consent of king Bimbisāra she entered the Order, and was ranked by the Buddha foremost among his ordained women disciples with great wisdom.
In the time of Padumuttara Buddha she was a slave, and having seen the Buddha’s chief disciple, Sujāta, offered three cakes, and that same day she sold her hair and gave alms.
Once when Khemā was at Toraṇavatthu, between Sāvatthi and Sāketa, King Pasenadi, who happened to spend one night there, heard of her presence and went to see her.
He questioned her as to whether or not the Buddha existed after death. She explained the matter to him in various ways, and king Pasenadi, delighted with her exposition, related it to the Buddha.
In Kassapa Buddha’s time she became the eldest daughter of Kikī, king of Bārāṇasī, and was named Samaṇī. With her sisters she observed celibacy for twenty-thousand years and built a monastery for the Buddha.
She learnt the Mahānidāna Sutta, having heard the Buddha teach it.
In the time of Vipassī Buddha she became a renowned teacher of the Dhamma, and during the time of both Kakusandha Buddha and Koṇāgamana Buddha she had great monasteries built for the Buddha and his monks.
She is mentioned in several places as the highest ideal of womanhood worthy of imitation, and is described as the chief nun of excellence.
Mahāpajāpati Gotami Theri
An eminent Therī, she was born at Devadaha in the family of Suppabuddha as the younger sister of Mahāmāyā.
Daṇḍapāṇī and Suppabuddha were her brothers. At the birth of each sister, interpreters of bodily marks prophesied that their children would be world-turning monarchs (Cakkavatti).
King Suddhodana married both the sisters, and when Mahāmāyā died, seven days after the birth of prince Siddharta, Pajāpati looked after the prince and nursed him.
She was the mother of Nanda, but it is said that she gave her own son to nurses and herself nursed Prince Siddharta.
When king Suddhodana died, Pajāpatī decided to renounce the world, and waited for an opportunity to ask for permission from the Buddha. Pajāpatī was already a Stream-winner. She attained this eminence when the Buddha first visited his father’s palace and taught the Mahādhammapāla Jātaka.
Her opportunity came when the Buddha visited Kapilavatthu to settle the dispute between the Sākyā and the Koliyā as to the right to take water from the river Rohiṇī. When the dispute had been settled, the Buddha taught the Kalahavivāda Sutta, and five hundred young Sakyan men joined the Order.
Their wives, led by Pajāpatī, went to the Buddha and asked leave to be ordained as nuns. The Buddha refused, and he went on to Vesāli. However, Pajāpatī and her companions, nothing daunted, had barbers to cut off their hair, and donning yellow robes, followed the Buddha to Vesāli on foot. They arrived with wounded feet at the Buddha’s monastery and repeated their request. The Buddha again refused, but Ānanda mediated on their behalf and their request was granted, subject to eight strict conditions.
There was some question, which arose later as to the procedure of Pajāpatī’s ordination, which was not normal. When the nuns discovered this some of them refused to hold the uposatha with her.
However, the Buddha declared that he himself had ordained her and that all was in order. Her ordination (upasampadā) consisted in acquiescing in the eight conditions laid down for nuns.
After her ordination, Pajāpatī came to the Buddha and worshipped him. The Buddha taught her and gave her a subject for meditation. With this topic she developed insight and soon after attained Arahantship, while her five hundred companions attained to the same after listening to the Nandakovāda Sutta.
Later, at an assembly of monks and nuns in Jetavana, the Buddha declared Bhikkuni Pajāpatī chief of those who have been long ordained.
Not long after, while at Vesāli, she realized that her life had come to an end. She was one hundred and twenty years old; she took leave of the Buddha, performed various miracles, and attained final nibbana with her five hundred companions. It is said that the marvels which attended her cremation rites were second only to those of the Buddha.
It was in the time of Padumuttara Buddha that Pajāpatī made the wish for her eminence. She then belonged to a clansman’s family in Haṃsavatī, and, hearing the Buddha assign the foremost place in being long ordained to a certain nun, wished for similar recognition herself, doing many good deeds in that life.
After many births, she was born once more at Bārāṇasī, forewoman among five hundred slave girls in a village. When the rains season drew near, five Pacceka Buddhas came from Nandamūlaka to Isipatana seeking lodgings. Pajāpatī saw them after the king had refused them any assistance, and, after consultation with her fellow villagers, they persuaded their husbands to build five huts for the Pacceka Buddhas during the rainy season and they provided them with all requisites.
At the end of the rains, they offered complete set of robes to each Pacceka Buddha.
After that she was born in a weaver’s village near Bārāṇasī, and again ministered, this time to five hundred Pacceka Buddhas.
It is said that once queen Pajāpatī made a robe for the Buddha of wonderful material and marvelously elaborate. However, when it came to be offered to the Buddha he refused it, and suggested it should be given to the Order as a whole. Pajāpatī was greatly disappointed, and Ānanda intervened. However, the Buddha explained that his suggestion was for the greater good of Pajāpatī, and also as an example to those who might wish to make similar offerings in the future.
This was the occasion for the teaching of the Dakkhiṇāvibhaṅga Sutta.
The Buddha had a great affection for Theri Pajāpatī, and when she lay ill, as there were no monks to visit her and teach her since it was against the monastic rules – the Buddha amended the rule and went himself to teach her.
Mahāpajāpatī was named so because, at her birth, astrologers prophesied that she would have a large following; Gotamī was her clan (gotta) name.
Kisāgotami Theri
She was declared chief among women disciples with respect to the wearing of coarse robes (lūkhacīvara-dharānam).
She came from a poor family in Sāvatthi. Gotamī was her name she was called Kisā because of her thinness. She was married into a rich family, by whom she was disdainfully treated; but as soon as she bore a son, she was shown respect. The boy, however, died when just old enough to run about; his mother, distraught with grief, fearful her child will be taken from her, went about with him on her hip, seeking medicine to revive his life.
People laughed at her, until one wise man, realizing her condition, directed her to the Buddha. The Buddha asked her to bring him a mustard seed from a house where no one had yet died. In the course of her search for the impossible she regained mindfulness, and having grasped the truth, she laid the child in the charnel ground, and returning to the Buddha begged admission to the Order.
She became a Stream-winner (sotāpanna), and soon after, when her insight was developed, the Buddha appeared before her in a blaze of radiance and, listening to his words, she became an Arahant.
In the time of Padumuttara Buddha she was a householder’s daughter in Hamsavatī, and having heard the Buddha assign to a bhikkhuṇī the foremost rank among wearers of coarse robes, she vowed that one day the same rank should be her’s.
In the time of Kassapa Buddha she was the fifth daughter of Kikī and her name was Dhammā. She lived a celibate life.
Uppalavannā Theri
One of the two chief women disciples of the Buddha.
She was born in Sāvatthi as the daughter of a banker, and she received the name of Uppalavaṇṇā because her skin was the color of the centre of the blue lotus. When she was come of age, kings and commoners from the whole of India sent messengers to her father, asking for her hand. He, not wishing to offend any of them, suggested that Uppalavaṇṇā should become ordained.
Because of her spiritual potential (upanissaya), she very willingly agreed and was ordained a nun. Soon it came to her turn to perform certain services in the uposatha-hall. Lighting the lamp, she swept the room. Taking the flame of the lamp as her visible object, she developed concentration on the fire-device (tejokasina) and, attaining to jhāna, became an Arahant possessed of the four kinds of Analytical Knowledge (Paṭisambhidā).
She became particularly versed in the mystic potency of transformation (iddhivikubbana). When the Buddha arrived at the Gandamba-tree to perform the Twin Miracle, Uppalavaṇṇā offered to perform certain miracles herself, if the Buddha would give his consent, but this he refused.
Later, at Jetavana, in the assembly of the Saṅgha, he declared her to be the chief of the bhikkhunis possessed of psychic power.
Once a young man named Nanda, who was her cousin and had been in love with her during her lay-life, hid himself in her hut in Andhavana and, in spite of her protestations, deprived her of her chastity. It is said that he was swallowed up by the fires of Avīci hell.
From that time onwards, nuns were forbidden to live in Andhavana. The Buddha declared that Khemā and Uppalavaṇṇā are the measure of his women disciples, and that the believing nun, if she would aspire perfectly, should aspire to be like them.
In the time of Padumuttara Buddha, Uppalavaṇṇā saw a woman disciple who was declared to be the best of those possessed of supernormal power, and wished for herself a similar rank in the dispensation of a future Buddha.
In the time of Buddha Kassapa, she was one of the seven daughters of Kikī, king of Bārāṇasī, and having done many good deeds, was born in heaven.
Later, she was born in the human world and had to work for her own living. One day she gave to a Pacceka Buddha, who had just risen from samādhi, a meal of fried rice in his bowl and covered it with a beautiful lotus; the meal had been prepared for herself. The lotus she afterwards took back but again replaced it, asking the Pacceka Buddha’s forgiveness. She expressed a wish that she should beget as many sons as there were grains of rice in her gift, and that lotuses should spring up under her feet as she walked.
In her next birth she was born in a lotus. An ascetic adopted her as his daughter, but when she grew up, the king
of Bārāṇasī, hearing of her beauty, asked the ascetic for her hand and made her his chief queen, under the name of Padumavatī.
The king’s other wives were jealous of her beauty, and when the king was away, supressing a rising of the border tribes, they hid in caskets the five hundred sons, chief of whom was the prince Mahāpaduma, that were born to Padumavatī, and told the king that Padumavatī was a non-human and had given birth to a log of wood. Padumavatī was sent away in disgrace, but later, through the instrumentality of Sakka, the trick was exposed, and Padumavatī regained all her former power and glory.
Later, when Mahāpaduma and his brothers became Pacceka Buddhas, Padumavatī died of a broken heart and was born in a village outside Rājagaha. There some of the Pacceka Buddhas who had been her sons discovered her, and they all came to a meal at her house. At the conclusion of the meal, she offered them blue lotuses, and expressed the wish that her complexion should be like the matrix of the blue lotus.
Ambapāli Theri
A courtesan of Vesāli. She is said to have come spontaneously into being at Vesāli in the gardens of the king. The gardener found her at the foot of a mango tree – hence her name (Ambapali)- and brought her to the city. She grew up so full of beauty and of grace that many young princes fought with each other for the honor of her hand. Finally, in order to end their strife, they appointed her courtesan.
Later she became a devout follower of the Buddha, and building a vihāra in her own garden, gave it to the Buddha and the Order. This was during the Buddha’s last visit to Vesāli shortly before his death.
It is said that when Ambapālī heard of the Buddha’s visit
to Koṭigāma near Vesāli she and her retinue drove out of the city in magnificent chariots to meet him, and, after hearing a discourse, invited him and the monks to a meal the next day.
The Buddha accepted this invitation and had, as a result, to refuse that of the Licchavis of Vesāli.
While returning from her visit to the Buddha, Ambapālī was so elated at the idea of having the Buddha to a meal the next day, that she refused to make way for the Licchavi princes who were on their way to the Buddha. The Licchavi princes asked her to pass them the invitation, but she refused to give up her invitation for anything in the world.
Ambapālī had a son, Vimala-Koṇḍañña, who was an eminent elder. Having heard him teach one day, she renounced the world and, working for insight by studying the law of impermanence as illustrated in her own aging body, she attained Arahantship.
In the time of Sikhī Buddha she had entered the Order. While yet a novice, she took part in a procession of Bhikkhuṇīs, and was doing homage at a shrine when an Arahant Therī in front of her hastily sneezed in the court of the shrine. Seeing the phlegm and not knowing who had done it, she said in reproof, “What prostitute has dirtied here?” It was owing to this remark that she was born as a courtesan even in her last birth.
The Apadāna gives some more details about her. She had been a daughter of a warrior (khattiya) family in the time of Phussa Buddha and had done many good deeds in order to be beautiful in later births. As a result of the abuse of the nun (referred to above) she had been born in hell and later had, for ten thousand lives, been a courtesan.
In Kassapa Buddha’s time she had practiced celibacy. It is said that she charged fifty kahāpaṇas a night from her patrons and that Vesāli became very prosperous through her. It was this that prompted Bimbisāra to get a courtesan for his own city of Rājagaha.
Among Ambapālī’s patrons was king Bimbisāra, and he was the father of her son, Vimala-Koṇḍañña.