• Ghosa

1. Ghosa. The village in which Buddhaghosa was born. Sās.29.

2. Ghosa, Ghosaka. A devaputta, Kotūhalaka, in a previous birth. Unable to make a living in his own country, he left it and came with his wife and child to a herdsman's house, where, having eaten too heartily after a long period of starvation, he died and was born as a dog in the same house, because be had envied a bitch which lived there. When the dog grew up, it used to accompany the herdsman on a visit to a Pacceka Buddha, who had meals in his house. Sometimes, when the herdsman was unable to go himself, he would send the dog to summon the Pacceka Buddha. The road led through a forest and the dog would bark aloud to frighten away the wild beasts. One day, when the Pacceka Buddha went elsewhere, the dog died of a broken heart and was reborn in Tāvatimsa as the god Ghosa or Ghosaka.

He was later reborn as Ghosaka-setthi. DhA.i.169f; AA.i.227f; MA.i.539f; DA.i.317.