page_title: Mahākāśyapa
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Mahākāśyapa / In early Buddhist texts / Early life
caption_attribution_description: Remains of Pipphali's house or the Pipphali Cave, where Maha Kassappa is recorded as having stayed. Located at Rajgir, Bihar, India.
context_page_description: Mahā Kāśyapa or Mahākāśyapa was one of the principal disciples of Gautama Buddha. He is regarded in Buddhism as an enlightened disciple, being foremost in ascetic practice. Mahākāśyapa assumed leadership of the monastic community following the paranirvāṇa of the Buddha, presiding over the First Buddhist Council. He was considered to be the first patriarch in a number of early Buddhist schools and continued to have an important role as patriarch in the Chan and Zen traditions. In Buddhist texts, he assumed many identities, that of a renunciant saint, a lawgiver, an anti-establishment figure, but also a "guarantor of future justice" in the time of Maitreya, the future Buddha—he has been described as "both the anchorite and the friend of mankind, even of the outcast".
  In canonical Buddhist texts in several traditions, Mahākāśyapa was born as Pippali in a brahmin caste family, and entered an arranged marriage with a woman named Bhadra-Kapilānī. Both of them aspired to lead a celibate life, however, and they decided not to consummate their marriage. Having grown weary of the agricultural profession and the damage it did, they both left the lay life behind to become mendicants.
context_section_description: Pāli accounts relate that Mahākāśyapa was born Pippali in a brahmin family in a village called Mahātittha, in the kingdom of Magadha, present-day India. His father was a wealthy landlord who in some sources is named Nyagrodha, and in other sources Kapila or Kosigotta; his mother was Sumanādevī. His body had some of the thirty-two characteristics of a Great Man (Sanskrit: Mahāpuruṣalakṣaṇa; Pali: Mahāpurissalakkhaṇa), which in Buddhism are seen as the characteristics of a future Buddha. From his youth onward, he was inclined toward living a spiritual life rather than marrying, but his father wanted him to wed. To send his father on a wild goose chase, he agreed to marry but then produced a perfect golden statue of a woman, and asked his father to find him a woman that matched the statue. Four copies of the image were taken throughout the country to find the right woman. A brahmin from Kapila had a daughter called Bhadra-Kapilānī (Pali: Bhaddā-kapilānī), who had no interest in a family life either. However, her parents wanted her to marry, and to please her mother, she agreed to pay her respects to a shrine of a goddess known for granting a marriage in a high-class family. When she approached the image, however, people noticed that the image appeared ugly compared to her. Her reputation of beauty spread, and soon after Pippali's family learned about her, she was offered in marriage to Pippali.
  Next, in the Pāli version of the story, the two exchanged letters to indicate their lack of interest, only to find their letters intercepted by their parents and being forced to marry anyway. In the Mūlasarvāstivāda version of the story, however, Pippali went to visit Bhadra, and without revealing his identity, told her that her future husband would be a bad choice for her, because he had no interest in sensual pleasures. She replied she also did not care for such matters, whereupon he revealed that he was her future husband. Both versions relate that the two agreed to marry and to live celibately, to the chagrin of Pippali's parents.
  Pippali is depicted in the Pāli version as very wealthy, using much perfume and possessing much land and chariots. Later, in the Pāli version, Pippali and Bhadra saw animals eating each other on the fertile fields as they were plowed by their workers. The sight brought pity and fear to them, and they determined to live a mendicant live instead, and leave the agricultural business behind. In the Mūlasarvāstivāda version, it was the pitiful sight of the workers instead which brought Pippali to leave his lay life. The two went their separate ways, as not to grow any attachment to each other, and to prevent gossip and disrepute.
caption: Pippala Cave in Rajgir, where Mahākāśyapa is recorded to have stayed.[9]
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