Last debt paid

The Venerable Sariputta then, accompanied by the bhikkhus, went up to the terrace of the house and entered his birth chamber. After seating himself, he asked the bhikkhus to go to their quarters. They had hardly left, when a grave illness, dysentery, fell upon the Elder, and he felt severe pains. When one pail was brought in, another was carried out. The brahman lady thought: "The news of my son is not good," and she stood leaning by the door of her own room.

Arahant Sariputta is a famous name in Buddhist literature among a few others: Moggallana, his colleague and Ananda, the Buddha’s chief assistant. Sariputta’s story starts in a village of brahmins, being born to Sari in Upatissa village. The brahmin priests named him after his hometown Upatissa.

Although Sariputta later became a monk followed by his siblings, his mother could never know the Buddha’s teachings.

Bhikkhu Nanamoli describes a full length picture of Arahant Sariputta according to the Pali Canons. Where the arahant converts his mother is named as ‘Last Debt Paid’. Excerpts:

During his journey the Venerable Sariputta spent one night wherever he stopped, and thus for one week he favored many people with a last sight of him. Reaching Nalaka village in the evening, he stopped near a banyan tree at the village gate. It happened that at the time a nephew of the elder, Uparevata by name, had gone outside the village and there he saw the Venerable Sariputta. He approached the elder, saluted him, and remained standing.

The Elder asked him: "Is your grand-aunt at home?"

"Yes, venerable sir," he replied.

"Then go and announce our coming," said the Elder. "And if she asks why I have come, tell her that I shall stay in the village for one day, and ask her to prepare my birth chamber and provide lodgings for five hundred bhikkhus."

Uparevata went to his grand-aunt and said: "Grandaunt, my uncle has come."

"Where is he now?" she asked.

"At the village gate."

"Is he alone, or has someone else come with him?"

"He has come with five hundred bhikkhus."

And when she asked him, "Why has he come?" he gave her the message the elder had entrusted to him. Then she thought: "Why does he ask me to provide lodgings for so many? After becoming a monk in his youth, does he want to be a layman again in his old age?" But she arranged the birth chamber for the Elder and lodgings for the bhikkhus, had torches lit and then sent for the Elder. The Venerable Sariputta then, accompanied by the bhikkhus, went up to the terrace of the house and entered his birth chamber. After seating himself, he asked the bhikkhus to go to their quarters. They had hardly left, when a grave illness, dysentery, fell upon the Elder, and he felt severe pains. When one pail was brought in, another was carried out. The brahman lady thought: "The news of my son is not good," and she stood leaning by the door of her own room. And then it happened, the text tells us, that the Four Great Divine Kings asked themselves: "Where may he now be dwelling, the Marshal of the Law?" And they perceived that he was at Nalaka, in his birth chamber, lying on the bed of his Final Passing Away. "Let us go for a last sight of him," they said.

When they reached the birth chamber, they saluted the Elder and remained standing.

"Who are you?" asked the Elder.

"We are the Great Divine Kings, venerable sir."

"Why have you come?"

"We want to attend on you during your illness."

"Let it be!" said the Venerable Sariputta. "There is an attendant here. You may go."

When they had left, there came in the same manner Sakka the king of the gods, and after him, Maha Brahma, and all of them the elder dismissed in the same way.

The brahman lady, seeing the coming and going of these deities, asked herself: "Who could they have been, who came and paid homage to my son, and then left?" And she went to the door of the elder's room and asked the Venerable Cunda for news about the Elder's condition. Cunda conveyed the inquiry to the Elder, telling him: "The Great Upasika (lay devotee) has come."

The Venerable Sariputta asked her: "Why have you come at this unusual hour?"

"To see you, dear," she replied. "Tell me, who were those who came first?"

"The Four Great Divine Kings, upasika."

"Are you, then, greater than they?" she asked. "They are like temple attendants," said the Elder. "Ever since our Master took rebirth they have stood guard over him with swords in hand."

"After they had left, who was it that came then, dear?"

"It was Sakka the king of the gods."

"Are you then, greater than the king of gods, dear?"

"He is like a novice who carries a bhikkhu's belongings," answered Sariputta. "When our Master returned from the heaven of the Thirty-three (Tavatimsa), Sakka took his bowl and robe and descended to earth together with him."

"And when Sakka had gone, who was it that came after him, filling the room with his radiance?"

"Upasika, that was your own Lord and Master, the Great Brahma."

"Then are you greater, my son, even than my Lord, the Great Brahma?"

"Yes, Upasika. On the day when our Master was born, it is said that four Great Brahmas received the Great Being in a golden net." Upon hearing this, the brahman lady thought: "If my son's power is such as this, what must be the majestic power of my son's Master and Lord?" And while she was thinking this, suddenly the fivefold rapture arose in her, suffusing her entire body.

The Elder thought: "Rapture and joy have arisen in my mother. Now is the time to preach the Dhamma to her." And he said: "What was it you were thinking about, upasika?"

"I was thinking," she replied, "if my son has such virtue, what must be the virtue of his Master?"

The Venerable Sariputta answered: "At the moment of my Master's birth, at his Great Renunciation (of worldly life), on his attaining Enlightenment and at his first turning of the Dhamma Wheel — on all these occasions the ten thousand world-system quaked and shook. None is there who equals him in virtue, in concentration, in wisdom, in deliverance, and in the knowledge and vision of deliverance." And he then explained to her in detail the words of homage: "Such indeed is that Blessed One..." (Iti pi so Bhagava...). And thus he gave her an exposition of the Dhamma, basing it on the virtues of the Buddha.

When the Dhamma talk given by her beloved son had come to an end, the brahman lady was firmly established in the Fruition of stream-entry, and she said: "Oh, my dear Upatissa, why did you act like that? Why, during all these years, did you not bestow on me this ambrosia (the knowledge of the Deathless)?"

The Elder thought: "Now I have given my mother, the brahman lady Rupa-Sari, the nursing-fee for bringing me up. This should suffice." and he dismissed her with the words: "You may go now, upasika."

When she was gone, he asked: "What is the time now, Cunda?"

"Venerable sir, it is early dawn."

And the Elder said: "Let the community of bhikkhus assemble."

When the bhikkhus had assembled, he said to Cunda: "Lift me up to a sitting position, Cunda." And Cunda did so.

Then the Elder spoke to the bhikkhus, saying: "For forty-four years I have lived and traveled with you, my brethren. If any deed or word of mine was unpleasant to you, forgive me, brethren."

And they replied: "Venerable sir, not the least displeasure has ever come from you to us, who followed you inseparably like your shadow. But may you, venerable sir, grant forgiveness to us!"

After that the Elder gathered his large robe around him, covered his face and lay down on his right side. Then, just as the Master was to do at his Maha Parinibbana, he entered into the nine successive attainments of meditation, in forward and reverse order, and beginning again with the first absorption he led his meditation up to the fourth absorption. And at the moment after he had entered it, just as the crest of the rising sun appeared over the horizon, he utterly passed away into the Nibbana-element which is without any remnant of clinging. And it was the full-moon day of the month Kattika, which by the solar calendar is between October and November.

The brahman lady in her room thought: "How is my son? he does not say anything." She rose, and going into the Elder's room she massaged his legs. Then, seeing that he had passed away, she fell at his feet, loudly lamenting; "O my dear son! Before this, we did not know of your virtue. Because of that, we did not gain the good fortune to have seated in this house, and to feed, many a hundred bhikkhus! We did not gain the good fortune to have built many monasteries!" And she lamented thus up to sunrise.

As soon as the sun was up, she sent for goldsmiths and had the treasure room opened and had the pots full of gold weighed on a large scale. Then she gave the gold to the goldsmiths with the order to prepare funeral ornaments. Columns and arches were erected, and in the center of the village the upasika had a pavilion of heart-wood built. In the middle of the pavilion a large, gabled structure was raised, surrounded by a parapet wall of golden arches and columns. Then they began the sacred ceremony, in which men and deities mingled.

After the great assembly of people had celebrated the sacred rites for a full week, they made a pyre with many kinds of fragrant woods. They placed the body of the Venerable Sariputta on the pyre and kindled the wood with bundles of Usira roots. Throughout the night of the cremation the concourse listened to sermons on the Dhamma. After that the flames of the pyre were extinguished by the Elder Anuruddha with scented water. The Elder Cunda gathered together the relics and placed them in a filter cloth.