UP?LI

Up?li, a disciple of ??kyamuni Buddha, attained the enlightened status of an arhat, or saint. Renowned for his knowledge of monastic discipline, he recited the vinaya at the first Buddhist council in R?jag?ha.

Originally, Up?li had been a low-caste barber in the service of the ??kyan princes. When the princes leave in order to become monks, Up?li also decides to seek ordination. Up?li attains a higher status in the monastic community than the princes because he is ordained before them. There are different accounts of Up?li's ordination in Buddhist literature. According to the P?li vinaya, the high-caste ??kyan princes request that Up?li be ordained first so that they can learn to abandon their attachment to social status. In some Tibetan accounts, the arhat and disciple ??riputra encourages Up?li to seek ordination when Up?li hesitates to do so because of his caste status.

Up?li's mother is credited in the Sanskrit M?havastu (Great Story) with arranging her son's first meeting with the Buddha. All accounts emphasize that caste has no bearing on a person's status in the monastic community. Up?li appears in the literature of different Buddhist schools as an expert on monastic and bodhisattva discipline. Like other arhats, he was the focus of worship already in ancient and medieval India. He figures in different Buddhist schools as the patron saint of specialists in vinaya. In Burma (Myanmar), Up?li is one of a set of eight arhats propitiated in protective rituals.

See also:Councils, Buddhist; Disciples of the Buddha

Bibliography

Malalasekera, G. P. "Up?li Thera." In Dictionary of P?li Proper Names (1937–1938), 2 vols. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1995.

Strong, John S. The Legend and Cult of Upagupta. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992.

Susanne Mrozik