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Updated: May 21, 2025
Upâli, who comes first, is called chief of the Vinaya but, so far as there was one head of the order, it seems to have been Kassapa. He is the Brahman ascetic of Uruvelâ whose conversion is recorded in the first book of the Mahâvagga and is said to have exchanged robes with the Buddha . He observed the Dhutângas and we may conjecture that his influence tended to promote asceticism.
Perhaps they are exaggerated by the Buddhist narrator, but they also reflect the irreverent exuberance of young thought. Pûraṇa Kassapa denies that there is any merit in virtue or harm in murder.
The only way to do that was to agree what had been the utterances of the master and this, in a country where the oral transmission of teaching was so well understood, amounted to laying the foundations of a canon. Kassapa cross-examined experts as to the Buddha's precepts.
In the older books of the Pitakas six Buddhas are mentioned as preceding Gotama , namely Vipassî, Sikhî, Vessabhû, Kakusandha, Konâgamana and Kassapa. The last three at least may have some historical character. Asoka erected a monument in honour of Konâgamana in Nepal with a dedicatory inscription which has been preserved.
The narratives are miraculous but have an ancient tone and probably represent the type of popular story current about the Buddha shortly after or even during his life. One of them is a not uncommon subject in Buddhist art. It relates how the chamber in which a Brahman called Kassapa kept his sacred fire was haunted by a fire-breathing magical serpent.
Thus he forbade his disciples to spend the season of the rains in a hollow tree, or in a place where dead bodies are kept, or to use an alms bowl made out of a skull. Now Kassapa had been a Brahman ascetic and it is probable that in tolerating the Dhutângas the Buddha merely intended to allow him and his followers to continue the practices to which they were accustomed.
The version given in the Cullavagga is abrupt and does not entirely agree with other narratives of what followed on the death of the Buddha . It seems to be a combination of two documents, for it opens as a narrative by Kassapa, but it soon turns into a narrative about him.
Accordingly five hundred monks met near this town and enquired into the authenticity of the various rules and suttas. They then went on to ask what the Buddha had meant by the lesser and minor precepts which might be abolished. Kassapa finally proposed that the Sangha should adopt without alteration or addition the rules made by the Buddha.
The statement in the Mahâ and Dîpa-vaṃsas is that Majjhima was sent to preach in the Himalaya accompanied by four assistants Kassapa, Mâlikâdeva, Dundhâbhinossa and Sahassadeva. A pillar has been discovered at Rummindei bearing an inscription which records the visit and the privileges granted to the village where "the Lord was born."
Thus he says to the ascetic Kassapa that though a man perform all manner of penances, yet if he has not attained the bliss which comes of good conduct, a good heart and good mind, he is far from being a true monk. But when he has the heart of love that knows no anger nor ill-will, when he has destroyed lust and become emancipated even before death, then he deserves the name of monk.
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