Rahula

For the Master sri lankais author of works on the Theravada, to see Walpola Rahula

Rahula is the only son of the Bouddha and Yashodhara, and would have become disciple of its father. He is also called Rahula Thera (Rahula senior). Its name, identical in Faded and Sanskrit, can receive two interpretations. According to some it evokes Rahu, divinity responsible for the lunar eclipses. A legend of Jatakas (accounts of the life of the Buddha) reports that a predicted soothsayer with Yashodhara that his/her son is born with the image from a crescent of the moon on the hand. Another interpretation sees the direction of “obstacle there”, Siddharta Gautama having declared by learning the birth from his/her son who it was for him a fastener to be broken. Perhaps the two assumptions meet, the eclipse being able to be regarded as an obstacle with the light. Information relating to Rahula is sometimes contradictory and prone to guarantee, particularly those drawn from the Jataka S, clearly legendary.

Birth

History of the Buddha such as she is generally reported the fact of giving up her life of prince the evening even of the birth of Rahula, but there exists in Jatakas of the versions which claim that it hardly had just been conceived, and that his/her mother having decided to become she also ascetic, her pregnancy lasted six years. When it becomes obvious, Yashodhara was suspected of inaccuracy and had to resort to miracles to prove its innocence. Sometimes, of the magi are required and identify on the child to be born the marks which prove its filiation. Sometimes the Buddha confirms it itself on its return to Kapilavastu.

Entry in the sangha

An often treated topic is that of the first return of the Buddha to Kapilavastu. Rahula then has six or seven years. First of all, seeing Gautama outside the palate, Yoshadhara indicates it with his/her son by improvising a poem where it calls it “the lion among the men”. Then, it pushes it with going to claim its heritage (dāyajja) to him. The Buddha refuses to be described and turns over to the monastery of Nigrodharama. Rahula follows there. Gautama explains to him whereas the tangible properties are nothing and that it wishes to give him the Dharma in heritage. He asks Sariputra, his principal disciple, to order it monk.

According to certain versions, Shuddhodana, anxious that Rahula, its first heir, does not want to become monk like Gautama, ordered in Yashodhara under penalty of died to hide to him that the prestigious character which returns with a great escort of disciples is his father. This one finishes nevertheless by all acknowledging in front of the pressing curiosity of his/her son.

At all events, the taking the cloth of Rahula involves a great distress in the palate. The Buddha would then have asked that to the young people without the permisson their parents not be in the future any more ordered.

Monastic education

Sariputra taught in Rahula the dharma and Moggallana control (vinaya). In the Buddhist tradition, Rahula represents the ideal, studious and respectful beginner of the rules. It would have begun its days while throwing in the air every morning a handle of sand, saying that it would as many receive this day lesson as of grains of sand. Become Arahant whereas he was still a young monk, he slept by twice outside for not enfreindre the rule prohibiting a beginner from sleeping under the same roof as an experienced monk. He had in a case to face the threats of Mara transformed into black elephant. Later, his/her father proclaimed it before the assembly first of those which study with heat (sikkhākāmānam). The Buddha would have reported the Tipallatthamiga Jātaka and the Tittira Jātaka to attest that in its former lives already, Rahula was a model of obedience.

Gautama preached many Sutra S for the education of his/her son. Thus, he recited the Rahulovada Sutta to teach the importance to him never not to lie, the Rahula Samyutta and it (S) Rahula sutta (S) to make him become aware of the inexistence of self and the impermanency of the things, having noted that the eighteen years old young man became to trust of his physical appearance.

It is besides after having heard in company of one hundred thousand deva S the Cula Rahulavada Sutta preached by his/her father with Andhavana that it became arahant. These devas had made the wish become arahant at the same time as him at the era of the Padumuttara Buddha.

Rahula was called Rahulabhadda (Rahula the lucky one). It died out before his father and his two instructors. It is said that at the time of its death he had not slept any more for twelve years. Asoka would have made set up a Stupa with its memory to be used as place of devotion to the beginners.

Former lives

The Buddhist tradition considers that the exceptional religious destinies ask for several lives of practice and accumulation of perfections (parami), and also to have expressed the wish to become arahant, whose future realization is guaranteed by the Bouddha of the era in progress. At the time of the Buddha Padumuttara, Rahula and Ratthapala (one of principal the nuns of the time of Gautama) were in Hamsavati two men rich making charity. One day, Rahula accepted an ascetic who knew the king Naga Pathavindhara who lived in the magnificence. It expressed to thank its host the wish that it resembles to him one day. This sentence marked Rahula, which blow renaquit king Naga in his following existence. Nevertheless, in spite of the luxury it felt dissatisfied. Rattapala was in this life also his/her friend, under the name of Sakka. He advised to him to invite at his place the Padumuttara Buddha; this one came with his/her Uparevata son. By seeing it, Rahula strongly felt the desire to be one wire day of Buddha and the wish expressed some.

At the time of the Kassapa Buddha, Rahula was Pathavindhara, oldest son of the king of Bénarès Kiki. His/her seven sisters having done each one to build a housing for the monks persuade it to build five hundreds of them.

In many Jatakas he is the son of Gautama in various forms, including a tortoise. Once it is wire of Sariputra. Uppalavanna, one of principal the nuns of the time of the Buddha, often seems his/her brother.

Associated texts

Four verses are allotted to him in the Theragāthā and several in the Milinda . Eighteen sections of the Samyutta Nikāya constitute the Rāhula Samyutta , lessons given by the Buddha to his/her son on the impermanency of the things. Five texts bear the name of Rāhula Sutta . Their main themes are the absence of oneself clean, impermanency and the Skanda S, the importance not to lie and to choose its frequentations well.

See too

Random links: