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Updated: June 5, 2025
They answered in the affirmative, saying that he was an Arhat. The king accordingly, when he died, buried him after the fashion of an Arhat, as the regular rules prescribed. Four or five li east from the vihâra there was reared a great pile of firewood, which might be more than thirty cubits square, and the same in height. Near the top were laid sandal, aloe, and other kinds of fragrant wood.
His name in Pali is Angulimala. That he did become an Arhat is clear from his autobiographical poem in the "Songs of the Theras." Sakyamuni made this place his favourite residence for many years. See chapter xvii. See chapter xiii.
Only three questions in the Kathâ-vatthu are directed against them but this probably means not that they were unimportant but that they did not differ much from the Vibhajjavâdins. The special views attributed to them are that everything really exists, that an arhat can fall from arhatship, and that continuity of thought constitutes Samâdhi or meditation.
These are the Śrâvakayâna, the vehicle of the ordinary Bhikshu who hopes to become an Arhat, the Pratyekabuddhayâna for the rare beings who are able to become Buddhas but do not preach the law to others, and in contrast to both of these the Mahayana or vehicle of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. As a rule these three Vehicles are not regarded as hostile or even incompatible.
Therefore at last understanding he emptied his soul of all desire, and of fear that is the shadow of desire, and being enlightened relinquished all burdens. So was it also with His Majesty. In peace he dwelt, and becoming a great Arhat, in peace he departed to that Uttermost Joy where is the Blessed One made manifest in Pure Light.
Its ideas and precepts are Hinayanist: the Arhat is held up as the ideal and in a remarkable passage where the degrees of sanctity are graded and compared no mention is made of Bodhisattvas. This first translation was followed by a long series of others, principally from the Sûtra-Piṭaka, for very little of the Vinaya was translated before the fifth century.
"Alas!" said they, "we are immortal only for suffering. We get poor food. We have only sand to sleep on. But in the night hours spirits appear to us and tell us not to kill ourselves, for an Arhat will come from the East to deliver us. With him there is a disciple, the Great Holy One, the Equal of Heaven, most powerful and tender-hearted.
Going on from this to the south, for eight yojanas, the travellers came to the city of Sravasti in the kingdom of Kosala, in which the inhabitants were few and far between, amounting in all only to a few more than two hundred families; the city where king Prasenajit ruled, and the place of the old vihâra of Maha-prajâpati; of the well and walls of the house of the Vaisya head Sudatta; and where the Angulimâlya became an Arhat, and his body was afterwards burned on his attaining to pari-nirvâna.
We have a manual for those who would follow this path, in the Bodhicaryâvatâra of Śântideva, which in its humility, sweetness and fervent piety has been rightly compared with the De Imitatione Christi. In many respects the virtues of the Bodhisattva are those of the Arhat.
A monk called Subhadda, who was not a believer, also came and Ânanda tried to turn him away but the Buddha overhearing said "Do not keep out Subhadda. Whatever he may ask of me he will ask from a desire for knowledge and not to annoy me and he will quickly understand my replies." He was the last disciple whom the Buddha converted, and he straightway became an Arhat.
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