Moggallana

Moggallāna , Mahā Moggallāna (Faded) or Mahāmaudgalyāyana (Sanskrit), Kolita personal name, was the second in title of the disciples of the Bouddha, first for the supernatural capacities of Iddhi, and one of the tutors of its son Rahula. Born in a family Brahman, it was first of all with Sariputta, friend of childhood and first disciple, ascetic of the school paribbajaka directed by the skeptic Sanjaya Belatthiputta. A religious poem of the Theragata ( Khuddaka Nikaya ) is allotted to him. It is known in the current Mahayana primarily through the Sutra Ullambana which reports how it saved his mother of the hell.

In the areas Theravada, it is sometimes represented in the temples with the left of the Buddha, with Sariputta or Ananda on the right. The transcription of its name in Chinese is Móhē Mùjiànlián 摩訶目犍連, simplified in Mùlián 目連; Japanese: Mokuren, 目連 or Mokkenren 目建連.

Youth

It would have been born the same day as Sariputta in a borough close to Rajagaha (Magadha). His/her father, a Brahman, was chief of the borough and his mother, with whom it owes his usual name, was called Moggali or Moggallani, indication which its family claimed to descend from the Mugdala soothsayer. It is said that it draws his first name, Kolita, of the name of his native village, Kolitagama. It will be later called Maha (large) Moggallana to distinguish it from a less eminent homonym.

Its family and that of Sariputta were friendly, and it is together that two young people joined the sect paribbajaka. After some time, their Sanjaya Master having to them, of its own consent, exempted the integrality of its knowledge, they were convinced to join the community of Shakyamuni by Assaji (sk Asvajit), one of the first five companions of the Buddha before his illumination. Mogallana would have decided the first; Sariputta, eternally respectful towards its Masters, did not want first of all to give up Sanjaya and tried to convince it to follow them. In front of its been obstinated refusal, he resigned himself to leave. The two companions of asceticism thus presented themselves at Gautama with 250 or 500 disciples paribbajakas who would have followed them. The latter immediately became Arhat S after having heard the first sermon of the Buddha, but Moggallana reached this stage only one week after and Sariputta two weeks later, fact traditionally interpreted like signs of their higher potential, taking more time to mature.

Monk

The Buddha would have given them quickly after their ordination the title of chiefs of the disciples (aggasāvaka). To the other monks who disapproved this promotion of newcomers, Gautama explained why they deserved it to have made in a former life the wish reach this position, and to have practiced for this purpose the virtues during many existences.

Sariputra and Mogallana, friends of childhood according to the legend, maintained a privileged relation, illustrated in many anecdotes where the intuition of first is put in parallel with the supernatural capacities of the second. The Saccavibhanga Sutta compares Sariputta with the natural mother of the disciples, who brings them to conversion, and Moggallana with the feeder mother who educates them until the supernatural capacities of iddhi. As first disciples, they were also “executioners”. Thus they were charged to bring back the schismatics who had followed Devadatta and to excommunicate the recalcitrant monks of Kitagiri. This disciplinary function was worth some enmities to them. They were both tutors of Rahula, that Sariputta had ordered at the request of his/her father.

Supernatural capacities

Moggallana was recognized for its supernatural capacities of iddhi which it had with more at the point among the disciples of Gautama. Although this last generally discouraged employment of it, it would have made an exception for Moggallana whose wisdom was large. Many anecdotes report how it put its capacities at the service of its Master and the propagation of the doctrines. Thanks to them it could have the upper hand on supernatural Brahmans, kings, and beings like the demons and the Naga S, and also visit the other worlds to carry the word of the Buddha there and to bring back news of them. Here some of the most known anecdotes:

the king naga: One day that the Buddha in great escort was being gone from there to visit the Tavatimsa sky, it passed near the residence of the king naga Nandopananda who, disturbed, entered a black anger. It rolled up its immense body around the mount Sumeru and deployed its head of Naja in such a way that the world was darkened by it. The Buddha judged that of all its monks, only Moggallana could put it rightly. After having faced Nandopananda in various forms, the last being that of the Supanna eagle, Moggallanna overcame it and forced it to excuse itself.
the bridge: The borough of Sravasti gave one day a banquet for the ascetics of all the sects. To reach the places, they were to pass to ford a river, but found while arriving a course enlarged by the rains that it was impossible for them to cross to foot. Knowing that the Buddha approached, Moggallana, which was among them, changed into bridge. Whereas the ascetics crossed it, it disaggregated, the precipitant in water right in time so that Gautama can draw some, being the proof of its compassion and its capacities. They converted.
Mara : One day, one will mara will penetrate in the stomach of Moggallana, causing an enormous painful puffiness. The monk, who had itself be will mara at the time of a former existence and remembered some extremely well thanks to its capacities, was not likely to let themselves misuse and him enjoignit to give up. Uncovered, will mara it flees in the form of saliva.
Moggallana saves his/her mother: If one believes the tradition of it, the mothers Brahmans of the first two disciples of Gautama strongly déspprouvaient the choice of their sons. If that of Sariputta were finally converted, it is in hell that Moggallana would have found his, completely by chance, one day that it made a visit there. Moved, it went to find the Buddha which assure him that it had become famished spirit to have said evil of the Three Jewels, being of coléreuse and avid. Although he always insisted on the inescapable aspect of the karmic remuneration , the Buddha revealed to him that he could by his capacities to deliver his mother. It is the origin of the rites of Ullambana, which take place the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month, at the exit of the annual retirement monastic. Many a bonzes and nuns became arhats. It is possible to make them this day of the offerings so that they use together of their capacities to save the died parents, or to prolong their life if they are still of this world. This anecdote is reported prejudices the Sutra Ullambana , that its adequacy with the ideal of filial devotion made popular in the Chinese world; it was even suspected of being an apocryphal book. The tradition of Ullambana gave rise to the festivals of O-Good (Japan) and of Zhongyuan (China), still called “festival of the famished phantoms”.
moved Curiosity: Its capacities multiplying by ten its hearing, one day that Moggallana meditated, its concentration was disturbed - if one can say - by the clearly audible voice of the Buddha, which was however in a distant city. The curosity then pushed it to try an experiment to measure until which distance exactly the voice of a Bouddha carried. It went for this purpose in Buddhaksetra (ground of Buddha) of Lokesvarara. This one, having felt its presence and having guessed its reasons, pointed out to him curtly that the capacity of a Buddha is so immense near that it penetrates the whole universe, and distance at the same time; to seek to measure it is a sign of mental discrimination, therefore of insufficient wisdom. Moggallana was held it from now on for known as.
the victorious karma of the capacities: When king Vidudabha de Kosala made encircle Kapilavastu (capital Shakya S), the Buddha, which had before succeeded in untying for its tribe three crises, felt that this time itself could not anything, and that they would be caught up with by their karma (they water of Rohini would have formerly poisoned). But Mogallana could not be resigned. It locked up five hundred shakyas selected the most valorous pami in its bowl and left the city discreetly, hoping that they would constitute an army of reinforcement. However, when he discovered his bowl, all that he contained was blood.

End

The principle of the karmic remuneration in is again highlighted in the account of the circumstances of died of Moggallāna, which was violent. Its capacities and their persuasive effect had been worth to him the wild enmity of the other sects which lost their disciples. The niganthas would have engaged of the brigands to kill it. He thwarted their attempts six days of continuation, including once while escaping by the lock of its hut. But the seventh day, they succeeded in encircling it, coiled it blows and left it for death. Its capacities were just sufficient to enable him to arrive until the Buddha to pronounce last once its profession of faith and to obtain its authorization of to die out. One explains this end by the fact that it would have killed itself his parents in this way, encouraged by his wife, at the time of a former existence. The time spent then in hell would not have been enough to purify its karma completely. This is why, according to the oral tradition singhalaise, bluish funerary ashes (color that one lends to those of Moggallana) would testify to a recent stay in hell. He died during the month of katthina (October-November), one day of Uposatha of the New moon, fifteen days after dead Sariputta one day of full moon. The Buddha made him raise a Stupa in Veluvana.

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