The Story of Thera Candabha

While residing at the Jetavana monastery, the Buddha uttered Verse (413) of this book, with reference to Thera Candabha.

Candabha had, in a previous existence, made offerings of sandalwood to a stupa where the relics of Kassapa Buddha were enshrined. For this good deed, he was reborn in a brahmin family in Savatthi. He was born with a distinguishing mark, viz., a circle of light radiating from around his navel. As this circle of light resembled the moon he came to be known as Candabha. Some brahmins, taking advantage of this unusual feature, put him on a cart and took him round the town for exhibition and only those who paid a hundred or a thousand were allowed to touch him. On one occasion, they stopped at a place between the town and the Jetavana monastery. To ariyas going to the Jetavana monastery, they said, 'What is the use of your going to the Buddha and listening to his discourses? There is no one who is as powerful as Candabha. One who touches him will get rich; why don't you come and see ?" The ariyas then said to them, "Only our teacher is powerful; he is unrivalled and matchless."

Then the brahmins took Candabha to the Jetavana monastery to compete with the Buddha. But when Candabha was in the presence of the Buddha, the ring of light went out by itself. When Candabha was taken out of sight of the Buddha, the ring of light returned automatically; it again disappeared when taken back to the presence of the Buddha. Candabha then asked the Buddha to give him the mantra (words of incantation) that would make the ring of light disappear from around his navel. The Buddha told him that the mantra could be given only to a member of his Order. Candabha told the brahmins that he was getting a mantra from the Buddha and that after mastering the mantra he would be the greatest person in the whole of Jambudipa. So the brahmins waited outside the monastery.

Meanwhile, Candabha became a bhikkhu. He was instructed to contemplate the body, i.e., to reflect on the repulsiveness and impurity of the thirty-two constituents of the body. Within a few days, Candabha attained arahatship. When the brahmins who were waiting outside the monastery came to enquire whether he had acquired the mantra, Candabha replied. "You people had better go back now; as for me I am no longer in a position to go along with you." Other bhikkhus, hearing him, went to the Buddha and said, "Candabha is falsely claiming that he has become an arahat." To them the Buddha replied, "Candabha speaks the truth; he has eradicated all moral intoxicants."

Then the Buddha spoke in verse as follows:

Verse 413: Him I call a brahmana, who, like the moon (in a cloudless sky), is pure, clear and serene, and in whom craving for existence is extinct.