Uppalavannā

Uppalavannā (CH: Liánhūasè bǐqīuní 蓮花色比丘尼; ja: Rengeshiki bikuni 蓮華色比丘尼) is a disciple of the Bouddha, proclaimed by him second in the hierarchy of the moniales of the Communauté and first for the supernatural capacities of Iddhi. Poems of the Therigata are allotted to him.

Biography

It would have been born in Savatthi, capital of the state of Kosala on which the Shakya S depended, in the family of a financier. She owes her name, “color of the lotus”, with the dark color with bluish reflection of her skin, which is that of the heart of this flower. There exist two versions different from its existence before the entry in the orders: According to verse 69 of the Dhammapada , it was so beautiful that many applicants disputed his hand. Not to annoy anybody, and knowing that it had taste for the asceticism, his father proposed to him to become moniale, which it accepted with joy.

Another life much more romantic is sometimes allotted to him. It is then identified with the heroin of an oscillating account between the popular serial and the Greek tragedy, contained in the biography of the Gantatiriya monk. This woman, born into a family rich and married to a young merchant, would have fallen pregnant the day before from the departure of her husband for a long tour of businesses. When its pregnancy became obvious, his/her mother-in-law put herself at the harrasser unceasingly by claiming that the child was not his son. The young woman decided to leave to research her husband without waiting more, but finishes after a few months of wandering by being confined in a wood in a hut of fortune. Whereas it had gone to the close river to bathe, leaving the infant in the shelter, a hunter passed and seized some. She gave up the idea then to find her husband and took again her life of wandering. She was not long in meeting a robber who proposed the marriage to him. In spite of the little of attractions of this party, with end of expédients it accepted. She put at the world a girl, but the household went badly and, at the time of a violent argument, losing the head, she threw her daughter with ground; the cranium of the child started to bleed. Persuaded to have killed him, she flees and joined again with the wandering during several years, surviving thanks to menus work. One day that it collected wood, a man much younger than it, named Datta, noticed it (it was still beautiful) and the marriage proposed to him. All went well during a year, until the day when the husband brought back a youth like second wife. Uppalavanna was resigned to make warm welcome with its rival, going even a day until him to comb the hair. At this point in time she noticed a scar on her scalp. When the young woman told him in which circumstances it had obtained it, it realized with horror that it was his/her own daughter. To crown the whole, the husband proved to be his missing son. Under the shock, the trio took concert the monastic dress, the husband under the name of Gangatiriya.

Moniale

It reached the awakening by observing the flame of a candle (fire is one of the objects of the meditation Kasina) in the room of Uposatha. Being prepared during many existences and having made in front of the Buddha Padumuttara the wish become the second nun in title of a Buddha endowed with the capacities of iddhi, she arrived immediately at the comprehension of four analytical knowledge (patisambhidā) and obtained the supernatural capacities (iddhivikubbana). Although the Buddha generally discouraged the use of it, they were recognized like signs spiritual development. Uppalavanna was the first of the nuns in this field and Moggallana the first of the monks. As much of monks and moniales, she faced Mara successfully come to disturb her meditations.

One day that it remained in Andhavana, a wood in the south of Savatthi where the Buddhist monks and nuns were accustomed to going for solitary retirements, it was violated by old sighing, a Brahmane named Ananda (which would have immediately after summer devoured by the fire and finished in low of the hells, Avici). Consequently, it was from now on interdict with the nuns to go to Andhavana, and the Buddha obtained from the king Pasedani that it makes build for them monasteries in the cities or with their immediate proximity. This incident was also at the origin of a first discussion on the possibility of the persistence of the sexual desire at the arhats, subject which will be taken again at the time of councils; Gautama ensured that it was impossible with a arhat to be the prey of such a feeling.

It is Uppalavanna which ordered Anojā, woman of king de Kukkutavati Mahakappina, and his following. She often appears under various aspects in the Jataka the S, most famous of her former forms being Padumavati, woman of king de Bénarès. Several times, it is there the brother of Rahula.

See too

Mahaprajapati Gautami
Khema
Information on Uppalavanna with references in the gun faded
the family and disciples of the Buddha by Radhika Abeysekera

Category: Buddhist nun

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