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Cullapindapātiya(°pātika)-Tissa
A monk mentioned in the Commentaries (E.g.,
MA.i.355) in explaining the term mutta-muttaka. A certain
lay-woman waited on him for twelve years. One day a fire broke out in the
village and burnt her house, together with those of others. The monks who were
fed at neighbouring houses went there to enquire whether anything had been
served, but Tissa did not arrive until the mealtime, and when given a meal which
the woman had prepared with great difficulty, ate it and went away without a
word. The woman, however, was not a whit disturbed by the taunts of her
neighbours.
This may be the Elder who, in the
Anguttara Commentary (AA.i.21f), is mentioned as
having resided in Gāmendavālavihāra in Rohana and ordained Milakkha-Tissa. The
same Commentary (i.367) mentions a Cullapindapātiya-Tissa of Girivihāra in
(Ceylon). He, with his divine eye, saw a Tamil gate-keeper of Madhuanganagāma
who, having been a fisherman for fifty years, lay dying. The Elder went to his
house and made him repeat the Refuges and the Precepts. The man could not repeat
beyond the first Precept, but he was born after death in the Cātummahārājika-world,
and came to tell the Elder about it.
The Visuddhi Magga (p.116) speaks of an
Elder of the same name who had three pupils. They came to him and said they were
prepared to do anything whatever for his sake, even to suffer torture and die.
He thought them "possible fellows" and preached to them, whereupon they became
arahants. The same Elder it may be who saw an elephant-corpse in Kāladīghavāpi
Lake and developed his meditation on the "wormful abomination (Ibid., p.191).

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