• 1. Bījaka

The son of Sudinna Kalandakaputta by the wife of his lay days. He was conceived after Sudinna had already been ordained. His wife came to him during her period and begged him to give her an offspring (bījaka). As the rule against unchastity had not then been promulgated, Sudinna yielded to her importunities, thus becoming guilty of the first Pārājikā. The son was called Bījaka, and so Sudinna came to be called Bījakapitā and the mother Bījakamātā. Both Bījaka and his mother later left the world and became arahants. Vin.iii.17 19; Sp.i.215f.

• 2. Bījaka

A slave of Videha, present when the ascetic Guna expounded his doctrine to King Angati, and it was approved by Alāta. Bījaka also agreed that Guna's teaching accorded with his own experience. He remembered his previous life, when he had been born as Bhāvasetthi of Sāketa and had done many acts of virtue and piety. But at present he was the son of a poor prostitute leading a wretched life. Even so, he always gave half his food to any who might desire it, kept the fast, and led, in every way, a virtuous life. But virtue, he said, was useless; it bore no fruit. So saying, he wept. When Rujā (q.v.) heard this, she said that Bījaka's sufferings were due to evil actions done in the past in earlier lives (J.vi.227, 228, 229, 233, 235).

The scholiast explains (J.vi.228) that in the time of Kassapa Buddha, while Bījaka was seeking a lost ox, a monk enquired of him the way which he had lost. Bījaka was angry and abused the monk, calling him a slave. His birth as Bhāvasetthi was due to some earlier good done by him, but in this birth he became a slave.

Bījaka is identified with Moggallāna (J.vi.225).