Mahakashyapa (Venerable)

The eldest of the Buddha's great disciples, who was foremost in ascetic practices, and first patriarch of the Meditation (Chan) School.

"Maha means great, many and victorious. The Sanskrit word

kasyapa means 'great turtle clan', because Mahakasyapa's ancestors saw the pattern on the back of a giant turtle and used it to cultivate the Way. Kasyapa also means 'light drinking clan', because his body shone with light which was so bright it seemed to drink up all other light.

"Why did his body shine? Seven Buddhas ago, in the time of the Buddha Vipasyin, there was a poor woman who decided to repair a ruined temple. The roof of the temple had been blown off and the images inside were exposed to the wind and rain. The woman went everywhere and asked for help, and when she had collected enough money she commissioned a goldsmith to regild the images. By the time he was finished, the goldsmith fell in love with her and said, 'You have attained great merit from this work, but we should share it. You may supply the gold and I will furnish the labor, free.' And so the temple was rebuilt and the images regilded. The goldsmith asked the woman to marry him, and in every life for ninety-one kalpas, they were husband and wife and their bodies shone with purple and golden light.

"Mahakashyapa was born in Magadha in India. When he was twenty, his father and mother wanted him to marry, but he said, 'The woman I marry must shine with golden light. Unless you find such a woman, I won't marry.' Eventually they found one, and they were married. As a result of their good karma their bodies shone with golden light, and they cultivated together and investigated the doctrines of the Way. When Mahakashyapa left home to become a Bhikshu, his wife became a Bhikshuni called Purple and Golden Light.

"Mahakashyapa's personal name was Pippala, because his parents prayed to the spirit of a pippala tree to grant them a son.

"As the first patriarch, Mahakashyapa holds an important position in Buddhism. When Shakyamuni Buddha spoke the Dharma, the Great Brahma Heaven King presented him with a golden lotus and Shakyamuni Buddha held up the flower before the assembly. At that time hundreds of thousands of gods and men were present, but no one responded except Mahakashyapa, who simply smiled. The Buddha said, 'I have the Right Dharma-Eye Treasury, the wondrous mind of Nirvana, the reality beyond appearance. The Dharma-door of mind to mind transmission has been entrusted to Kashyapa.' Thus Mahakashyapa received the transmission of Dharma and became the first Buddhist patriarch.

"The Venerable Mahakashyapa is still present in the world. When he left home under the Buddha, he was already one hundred sixty years old. At the time Shakyamuni Buddha had spoken Dharma for forty-nine years in over three hundred Dharma assemblies, Kashyapa was already over two hundred years old. After Shakyamuni Buddha entered Nirvana, Kashyapa went to Southwestern China, to Chicken Foot Mountain in Yunnan Province. It has been over three thousand years since the Buddha's nirvana, but Mahakashyapa is still sitting in samadhi in Chicken Foot Mountain waiting for Maitreya Buddha to appear in the world. At that time he will give Maitreya the bowl which the Four Heavenly Kings gave Shakyamuni Buddha and which Shakyamuni Buddha gave him, and his work in the world will be finished.

"When cultivators travel to Chicken Foot Mountain to worship the Patriarch Kashyapa, on the mountain there are always three kinds of light: Buddha-light, golden light, and silver light. Those with sincere hearts can hear a big bell ringing inside the mountain. It rings by itself, and although you can't see it, you can hear it for several hundred miles. It is an inconceivable experience." (AS 75-76)

In the Shurangama Sutra, Mahakashyapa explained the method he used to become enlightened:

I contemplated that the world's six sense-objects change and decay; they are but empty stillness. Based on this, I cultivated cessation. Now my body and mind can pass through hundreds of thousands of kalpas as though they were a finger-snap.

Based on the emptiness of dharmas, I became an Arhat. The World-Honored one says that I am foremost in dhuta practices. Wonderful Dharma brought me awakening and understanding, and I extinguished all outflows. The Buddha asks about perfect penetration. As I have been certified to it, dharmas are the superior means. (SS V 42-43)

Also in the Shurangama Sutra, the Buddha commented on Mahakashyapa's enlightened mind:

There is also Mahakashyapa in this assembly, dwelling in the samadhi of extinction, having obtained the stillness of a Sound-Hearer. He has long since extinguished the mind-organ, and yet he has a perfectly clear knowledge which is not due to the mental process of thinking. (SS IV 198)

In the Dharma Flower Sutra the Buddha bestowed upon Mahakashyapa the prediction of future Buddhahood:

My disciple, Mahakashyapa, in a future age will serve and behold three hundred billion Buddhas, World-Honored Ones, making offerings, paying reverence, venerating and praising them; he will broadly proclaim the limitless Great Dharma of all the Buddhas.

In his final body he will become a Buddha by the name of Light Brightness Thus Come One, One Worthy of Offerings, One of Proper and Universal Knowledge, One Perfect in Clarity and Practice, Well Gone One, Unsurpassed One Who Understands the World, Hero Who Subdues and Tames, Teacher of Gods and Humans, Buddha, World-Honored One.

His country will be called Light Virtue and his aeon will be called Great Adornment.

His lifespan as a Buddha will last for twelve minor aeons.

The proper Dharma will dwell there for twenty minor aeons. The Dharma Resemblance Age will also dwell there for twenty minor aeons.

His realm will be adorned and free of any filth or evil, tiles or stones, thorns or brambles, excrement or other impurities. The land will be flat, without high or low places, gullies or hills. The land will be made of lapis lazuli, and set about with rows of jewelled trees. The roads will be bordered with golden ropes. Precious flowers will be scattered about, purifying it entirely. The Bodhisattvas in that land will number in the limitless thousands of millions, the assembly of Sound-hearers will likewise be uncountable. No deeds of Mara will be done there, and although Mara and his subjects will exist there, they will all protect the Buddhadharma. (DFS VI 1104-1109)

In the Mahaparinirvana-sutra the Buddha stated:

Kashyapa will be a great source of reliance for you. Just as the Thus Come One is the place of reliance for living beings, so too will Mahakashyapa be the place of reliance for you. It is the way when a great king who rules many territories goes on a tour of inspection, he entrusts all affairs of state to a great minister. The Thus Come One, in the same way, has completely entrusted all his proper Dharma to Mahakashyapa. (NS, Ch 3)

(Source: Epstein, 2003: pp. 129 - 131)

----------

1) Chinese Mandarin: mo he jya she ; 2) Sanskrit: mahakasyapa; 3) Pali: mahakassapa.

See also: Chan School.

Buddhist Text Translation Society (http://www.BTTSonline.org) References: AS 75-80; DFS V 869-872; DFS VI 1105-1116; EDR I 220; SS IV 198, 202; SS V 39-43; VBS #165, Jan. 1984, p. 1.
 

you do

(1)The Venerable High Masters Kashyapa Matanga And Gobharana

ÄἯÄË´LªÌ¡CªÇªkÄõ´LªÌ

Kashyapa Matanga and Gobharana were two Dharma Masters from India who co-translated the Sutra In Forty-Two Sections, in the later Han dynasty. The Han Dynasty was divided into the Eastern Han and the Western Han, and the period referred to here is the Eastern Han. In the Eastern Han, during the third year of the Yung Ping reign period (62 AD.), Emperor had a dream. He dreamed of a golden man who had a halo of light which shone forth from the crown of his head and streamed out through empty space into the palace where the Emperor was sleeping. The next day he questioned his officials about the dream and an astrologer named Fu-i said to the Emperor, "I have heard that in India there was a holy one whom people called the Buddha. Your dream, Your Majesty, certainly is of the Buddha."


A scholar named Wang-Tsun also spoke to the Emperor: "In the Chou Dynasty, there was a book written which was called Records Of Strange Events. In that book it was stated:



When the Buddha was born, the creeks and rivers overflowed their banks,

the entire earth quaked, and a five-colored light pierced the heavens.

At that time there was an astrologer, also a diviner, named Su-Yu. He consulted the I Ching and got the hexagram "Ch'ien," "nine in the fifth place," "flying dragon the heavens," and knew from that, that a great Sage had been born in the West, in India. That Sage would transmit a teaching which after five hundred years would be transmitted to Chung Kuo (China).


At that time, the King of Chou ordered that the details of the event be carved in stone as a record and then buried at a certain spot south of the city to wait and see if the event would actually occur--to see if five hundred years hence, the Buddhadharma would actually be transmitted to Chung Kuo.


Later, during the reign of King Mu, there was a massive earthquake which moved heaven and earth. A white rainbow with twelve rays arched through the sun. At that time there was another astrologer named Hu-to who also used the I Ching to reckon the hexagrams, and he figured out, "This is a great Sage from the West who has entered extinction. In India, earlier in the Chou Dynasty, this great Sage came into the world and now he has entered Nirvana." So, although when the Buddha entered the world and entered extinction he was very far from Chung Kuo, nonetheless, they knew about it in Chung Kuo. The Buddha's appearance in the world was no chance event.


When the Emperor Ming of Han had the dream about the Buddha, he commanded Ts'ai-yin, Ch'in-ching, Wang-tsun, and others to go to India to seek the Buddhadharma. In India they met Kashyapa Matanga and Gobharana, and these two monks returned to Chung Kuo with Ts'ai-yin, Ch'in-ching, and Wang-tsun arriving in Loyang in the tenth year of the Yung-p'ing reign period (69 A.D.). They came carrying the Sutras on a white horse, whereupon the Emperor of Han established white Horse Monastery. There they translated The Sutra In Forty-Two Sections Spoken By The Buddha, making it the first Sutra transmitted to Chung Kuo.


At that time Taoism flourished in Chung Kuo. When Buddhism arrived in Chung Kuo, the Taoist masters became jealous. By the fourteenth year of the Tung-p'ing reign period, they had had enough. On New Year's Day they met with the Emperor and told him that Buddhism was false, that it was a barbarian religion, not Chung Wen (Chinese). "You should abolish Buddhism," they urged. "If you will not abolish it, then you should at least have a contest in order to compare Buddhism with Taoism." They suggested that the texts be put together in a pile and then burned. Whichever texts did not burn would be the true ones.


On the fifteenth day of the new year, Taoist Master and leader Ch'u Shan-hsin, as well as five hundred other Taoist Masters, assembled at the southern gate of White Horse Monastery. They put the Taoist texts and the Buddhist texts together and then prayed to the Old Man of Mount T'ai, saying, "Divine Lord, Virtuous One of the Way, please grant us an efficacious response to insure that our Taoist texts will not burn and that the Buddhist Sutras will."


At that time there were many Taoist Masters with spiritual penetrations. They could mount the fog and ride the clouds. They could fly through the heavens and hide in the earth. They could vanish into thin air. They had used the charms and spells of the Taoist religion to gain spiritual powers. But when the fire was lit, guess what happened? The Buddhist Sutras did not burn. Instead, they emitted light. The shariras of the Buddha emitted a five-colored light as bright as the sun, illumining the whole world. The light shone into empty space and formed a great canopy which covered everyone in the Great Assembly. As soon as the Taoist texts were set on fire, they burned. And those who before could mount the clouds and ride the fog couldn't anymore. They didn't have nay more spiritual penetrations. Those who before could fly could no longer fly. Those who before could hide in the earth could no longer hide in the earth. Those who before could vanish could no longer vanish. When they spoke their charms, they were no longer efficacious. There wasn't any response. The Taoist texts burned to a crisp and the Taoist Masters Ch'u Shan-hsin and Fei Cheng-ch'ing just about died of rage. In the midst of the fury of the masters, two or three hundred of their disciples shaved their heads on the spot and became Buddhist monks. So the first time Taoism and Buddhism came to grips, the two Venerable Ones, Kashyapa Matanga and Gobharana, ascended into empty space and manifested the eighteen transformations of an Arhat. The Upper part of their bodies emitted water, the lower part of their bodies emitted fire; the upper part of their bodies emitted water; they walked about in empty space; they lay down and went to sleep in empty space, and so forth. Because of those manifestations, the Emperor and the people all came to believe in Buddhism.

Source: Records of High Sanghans, By Tripitaka Master Hsuan Hua, Translated Into English By Dharma Realm Buddhist University  and International Institute For The Translation Of Buddhist Texts (Buddhist Text Translation Society), http://online.sfsu.edu/~rone/Buddhism/BTTStexts/Records%20of%20High%20Sanghans.htm 

(NOTE: Numerous corrections and enhancements have been made under Shastra tradition and "Fair Use" by an Anonymous Buddhist Monk Redactor (Compiler) of this Online Buddhist Encyclopedia Compilation)