Kisa Gotami

Kisa Gotami was the wife of a wealthy man of Savatthi. Her story is one of the more famous ones in Buddhism. After losing her only child, Kisa Gotami became desperate and asked if anyone can help her. Her sorrow was so great that many thought she had already lost her mind. An old man told her to meet Buddha. Buddha told her that before he could bring the child back to life, she should find white mustard seeds from a family where no one had died. She desperately went from house to house, but to her disappointment, she could not find a house that had not suffered the death of a family member. Finally the realization struck her that there is no house free from mortality. She returned to the Buddha, who comforted her and preached to her the truth. She was awakened and entered the first stage of Arhatship. Eventually, she became an Arhat.

The following Dhammapada verse (in Pali and English) is associated with her story:

Yo ca vassasatam jeeve apassam amatam padam Ekaaham jeevitam seyyo passato amatam padam

Though one should live a hundred years without seeing the Deathless State, yet better indeed, is a single day's life of one who sees the Deathless State.

In the "Gotami Sutta" (SN 5.3), Bhikkhuni Kisa Gotami declares:

I've gotten past the killing of [my] sons,

have made that the end

to [my search for] men.

I don't grieve,

I don't weep....

It's everywhere destroyed — delight.

The mass of darkness is shattered.

Having defeated the army of death,

free of fermentations I dwell.

The story is the source of the popular aphorism: "The living are few, but the dead are many".

A literary tradition has also evolved round the story of Kisa Gotami, much of it in oral form and in local plays in much of Asia. In the Therigatha (or "Verses of the Elder Nuns") from the Pali Canon, it is reported the original version of the Kisa's story, later taken back in a number of popularized alternative (yet all similar) versions .

More recently, a contemporary play on Kisa Gotami has been written in English by Raj Arumugam, 2010. Here is an extract:

Stall-owner: You are late this morning, Sujata. It is rare; it is not in character. Surely something unusual must have happened, Sujata, even so early in the morning.

Sujata: Something has happened, indeed. Something sad and tragic and that is the cause of my being late.

Stall-owner: Never have you been late, Sujata. Three years have you worked for me in this store and you have always been here right on time. What has happened, Sujata?

Sujata: It is Kisa Gotami.

Stall-owner: Kisa Gotami, your friend. Kisa Gotami the Thin One. Kisa Gotami the Frail One.

Sujata: Kisa Gotami, my friend. Kisa Gotami, my neighbor. And indeed, Kisa Gotami the Thin One. Kisa Gotami the Frail One. Early this morning, even before the first rays of the sun, there was a scream. And sobbing. Kisa Gotami, I learned later, woke up to find her only child dead beside her. Kisa Gotami’s only child, her son of six months, and dead of cholera. Kisa Gotami screams and cries. And her husband says: The child is dead. Kisa Gotami says: No. And her mother-in-law says: You are an orphan as you started – your son is dead. You have no one again - your son is dead. You came as an orphan, and you leave as an orphan. Your son is dead. Yet Kisa Gotami says: No. He is sick. He is not dead. And she screams and she beats herself and she scratches her face, and she picks up her dead son, holds him propped up against her on her hip as mothers of Savatthi may carry their children, and she runs out into the streets. Give my son some medicine, she screams. Cure him. People come out to see what the noise is all about. Give my son some medicine, Kisa Gotami screams still. He is dead, says one neighbor. No, she says. Cure him. Surely there must be some herbs to revive him. She sees me in the street. She runs to me. Give my son some medicine, Sujata, she says to me. I try to calm her. Listen to me, Kisa, I say. Listen, my dear friend. Calm down. Kisa Gotami beats her forehead. She screams. She shouts: My family will not help me. My neighbors will not help me. My friends will not help me. I will go to strangers who may. I begun my life as an orphan and here am I become an orphan again. To strangers must orphans go. And she runs away. And she runs carrying her child on her hip. She runs out of the neighborhood and she runs in her madness. And then I came here.

Stall-owner: And here she comes, Sujata. Look, here comes your friend Kisa Gotami with her dead child propped up against her on her hip as mothers of Savatthi may carry their children. O, she carries her child as if he were still alive.

- extract from Kisa Gotami, a mother's sorrow(2010)by Raj Arumugam

Bibliography

• Buddharakkhita, Acharya (1998). Sahassavagga: The Thousands (Dhp VIII). Available on-line at http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/dhp/dhp.08.budd.html.

• Thanissaro Bhikkhu (trans.) (1998). Gotami Sutta: Sister Gotami (SN 5.3). Available on-line at http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn05/sn05.003.than.html.

• Arumuagam, Raj (2010): Kisa Gotami: a mother's sorrow (a one-act play)Available at: http://www.amazon.com/Kisa-Gotami-mothers-Raj-Arumugam/dp/1450546137/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275195653&sr=1-1

• C. Rhys Davids and K. Norman: Poems of Early Buddhist Nuns, Pali Text Society, pp.88-9. Retaken at: http://mindfulnessmethod.wordpress.com/articles/kisa-gotami/

External links

• http://www.goldenlandpages.com/hotspots/buddhism/43.htm