• Mangala

• 1. Mangala

The third of the twenty four Buddhas.

He was born sixteen asankheyyas and one hundred thousand kappas ago in the Uttaramadhura Park, in the city of Uttara, his father being a khattiya named Uttara and his mother Uttarā. It is said that from the day of her conception, an aura shed its rays night and day from her body, to a distance of eighty hands -  hence his name. He surpassed other Buddhas in glory of body. In his last birth as a human being (corresponding to that of Vessantara in the case of Gotama) he lived with his family as an ascetic. A man eating yakkha, named Kharadāthika, took from him his two children and ate them in his presence, "crunching them as though they were yams," while the blood dripped from his mouth. (It is probably this incident, which is referred to at J. iv.13). The Bodhisatta stood firm in his resolve and repented not of his gift to the yakkha, but registered a desire that in future births his body should emit light as bright as the blood which flowed down the yakkha's face. In a previous birth, Mangala paid honour to the cetiya of a Buddha by wrapping his body in cloth drenched with oil, setting fire to it and walking round the cetiya throughout the night, carrying on his head a golden bowl filled with scented oil and lighted with one thousand wicks. Not a hair on his body suffered damage.

For nine thousand years Mangala lived in the household in three palaces, Yasavā, Sucimā and Sirimā, with his wife Yasavatī, by whom he had one son, Sīvala. He left the world on a horse and practised austerities for eight months. Just before his Enlightenment he ate a meal of milk rice given by a maiden, Uttarā, daughter of Uttarasetthi in Uttaragāma; an Ājīvaka, named Uttara, gave him grass for his seat. His Bodhi was a Nāga tree. After his Enlightenment he lived for ninety thousand years, and for all that time the aura from his body spread throughout the ten thousand world systems, shutting out sun, moon and stars. People knew the times and the seasons by the cries of the birds and the blooming of the flowers.

Mangala's first sermon was preached in the Sirivaruttama Grove, near Sirivaddha. His chief disciples among men were Sudeva and Dhammasena, and his chief nuns Sīvalā and Asokā. Pālita was his constant attendant (BuA.124 calls him Uttara). Nanda and Visākha were his chief patrons among lay men and Anulā and Sutanā among lay women. In Mangala's time the Bodhisatta was the brahmin Suruci (q.v.). Mangala's body was eighty cubits high; he held three assemblies: the first at the preaching of the Dhammacakka, the second at Cittanagara, when he preached to Sunanda, king of Surabhinagara, and his son Anurāja, and the third at Mekhala to Sudeva and Dhammasena who later became his chief disciples.

He died in the park of Vessara, and a cetiya, thirty leagues high, was erected over his ashes (Bu.iv.1ff.; BuA.115ff.; J. i.30 ff.; the particulars found in Mtu.i.248 50, are slightly different). It is said (Bu.iv.29) that all Mangala Buddha's personal disciples attained arahantship before their death.

2. Mangala. The Bodhisatta born as an ascetic in the time of Dhammadassī Buddha. J. i.40; but Bu.xvi.9 says he was then born as Sakka.

3. Mangala. The Bodhisatta born as an ascetic in the time of Siddhattha Buddha (Bu.xvii.8; M.T.62). He was a very rich brahmin of Surasena, and later gave away all his wealth and became an ascetic. On one occasion, by his iddhi power, he obtained fruit which grew on the jambu tree (which gave its name to Jambudīpa) and offered it at the Surasena vihāra to Siddhattha Buddha and ninety crores of monks. BuA.187.

4. Mangala Thera. An arahant. He was present at the Foundation-ceremony of the Mahā Thūpa (Dpv.xix.8). See Mahāmangala.

5. Mangala. A flood gate in the Parakkamasamudda from which branched off the Mangala Gangā. Cv.lxxix.45.

6. Mangala. A locality in South India mentioned in the account of the campaigns of Parakkamabāhu. Cv.lxxvi.297.

7. Mangala. A tribe of elephants, each of which had the strength of ten million men. MA.i.262; AA.ii.822; BuA.37, etc.

8. Mangala. A monk of Pagan, probably of the fourteenth century, author of a grammatical work called the Gandhatthi. Bode, op. cit., 26.

9. Mangala. A Thera of Ceylon, preceptor of Vedeha. P.L.C. 223.

10. Mangala. A young man in the time of Vipassī Buddha, who came from Tāvatimsa and held a mandārava flower over the Buddha as he sat meditating. Mangala was a previous birth of Ekamandāriya Thera. Ap.i.286.

11. Mangala. A Pacceka Buddha. M.iii.70.

12. Mangala. A monk of Khandasīmā and teacher of Vedeha (q.v.). 

13. Mangala. A palace occupied by Asoka. Ras.ii.93.