Angulimala

Angulimala

By Purinpras Sriduangmaneechai M.5/16 No.2

Content

• Preface

• Introduction Story

• To profess Buddhism

• Virtues as good model for leading a life

• Reference

Preface

I got this topic as a part of moral study subject. Study topic is about
Angulimala, lead astray by his teacher he became a murderer and collector
of severed fingers. He was reformed by the Lord Buddha after he attempted
to murder him.

Story

The Buddhist scriptures relate that one day, after his meal, the
Buddha went out from the monastery where he was staying and walked
towards a great forest. Seeing him going in that direction, various people
working in their fields called out to him to warn him that in that forest dwelt
the dreaded Angulimala.

Little is known for certain about Angulimala but the usual account of
his life has him the son of a well-to-do family and at one time a brilliant
student at the University of Taxila, then the Oxbridge of India.

At Taxila, other students were jealous of him and succeeded in
poisoning their teacher's mind against him, with the result that the teacher
asked of him what he must have believed would be an impossible
honorarium, a thousand human right-hand little fingers. Unbelievably,
instead of giving up and quietly going home without graduating, the young
man set out to collect the fingers and pay the fee. Presumably, he quickly
discovered that people were reluctant to willingly give up their little fingers
and so he was forced to resort to violence and killing in order to obtain
them

Then he found he had nowhere to store these fingers. He tried
hanging them on a tree but the birds stole them so his solution was to string
them around his neck. For this gruesome and growing garland of bloody
fingers he was given the nickname Angulimala, which means 'finger garland'
or 'finger necklace'.

This was the man who, peering out from his lair, spotted the
Buddha coming towards him and who that day had round his neck 999 little
fingers. This powerful and athletic serial killer, who had already successfully
resisted several attempts to apprehend him, grabbed his weapons and
dashed out to murder the Buddha and complete his score.

Angulimala saw the lone monk pass by and gleefully determined to
kill him. Yet as he ran toward the Buddha, the Buddha “willed a feat of
psychic power such that Angulimala, though running with all his might,
could not catch up with the Blessed One walking at normal pace.” Amazed
by this display of power, Angulimala called out, “Stop, contemplative! Stop!”
The Buddha replied, “I have stopped, Angulimala. You stop.”
Angulimala asked, puzzled,
“While walking, contemplative,
you say, ‘I have stopped.’
But when I have stopped
you say I haven’t.
I ask you the meaning of this:
How have you stopped?
How haven’t I?”
The Buddha replied,
“I have stopped, Angulimala,
once & for all,
having cast off violence
toward all living beings.
You, though,
are unrestrained toward beings.
That’s how I’ve stopped
and you haven’t.”

Then the Buddha turned and with neither anger nor fear, speaking
quietly and directly, he told Angulimala that he, the Buddha, had already
stopped. He had stopped killing and harming and now it was time for him,
Angulimala, to do likewise. Angulimala was so struck by these words that
there and then he stopped; he threw away his weapons and followed the
Buddha back to the monastery where he became a monk.

Later, the king, ignorant of what had happened, came by leading his
troops out to arrest Angulimala. Being a very pious monarch, he called to
pay his respects to the Buddha and to inform him of what he was up to.
The Buddha asked the king what his reaction would be were he to discover
that amongst this assembly of monks sat Angulimala.

To the king it was utterly unbelievable that such a foul and evil
person could now be a Buddhist monk and seated amongst such exalted
company, but were it the case, he answered, he would certainly pay his
respects and make offerings. Then the Buddha stretched forth his right
hand and pointed to where sat Angulimala.

When he'd mastered his fear and recovered from the shock, the king,
having paid his respects, said to the Buddha how incredible it was that,
"What we have tried to do by force and with weapons you managed to do
without neither!" In the course of time, after a period of some trial to
himself, Angulimala did eventually succeed in purging his mind of all greed,
hatred and delusion and realised for himself the Buddhist goal of
Enlightenment.

To profess buddhism

Angulimala said that he had enlightened because of hearing Buddha’s teaching.

Although, what he did in the past is heavily wrong but can still be possible to enlighten.

Virtues as good model for leading a life

The story of Angulimala teaches us that the possibility of
Enlightenment may be awakened in the most extreme of circumstances,
that people can and do change and that people are best influenced by
persuasion and above all, by example.

Reference

http://angulimala.org.uk/the-story-of-angulimala

(Source: Bangkok Post, The story of Angulimala, 5/04/2011, Venerable
Ajahn Khemadhammo,

https://www.bangkokpost.com/learning/advanced/230472/the-story-of-
angulimala

https://blogs.icrc.org/religion-humanitarianprinciples/a-humanitarian-re-
reading-of-the-angulimala-sutta/
)