Daughter of Asoka and sister of
Mahinda.
She was born in Ujjeni and was married to
Aggibrahmā - who later joined the Order - and had by him a son, Sumana.
She was ordained in her eighteenth year together with Mahinda, her preceptor
being Dhammapālā and her teacher
Ayupālā. (Mhv.v.190 208; xiii.4, 11;
DPv.vi.17; vii.18, 19; xv.77, 90; xvii.20; xviii.11, 25; Sp.i.51).
After her ordination and attainment of arahantship she lived in
Pātaliputta, and, when
Anulā and other women of Devānampiyatissa's court
at Anurādhapura wished to enter the Order,
Devānampiyatissa, at Mahinda's
suggestion, sent an embassy, led by Arittha, to Asoka, asking that Sanghamittā
might be sent to Ceylon, and with her a branch of the Bodhi tree for
Anurādhapura. Asoka granted the request, and sent Sanghamittā, by sea, with
eleven other nuns, carrying a branch of the Bodhi tree. On the way, when Nāgas
surrounded the Bodhi tree, Sanghamittā frightened them away by assuming the form
of a Garuda. She landed at Jambukola, and,
after her arrival at Anurādhapura, ordained Anulā and her companions. She lived
at the Upāsikā-vihāra, and had twelve buildings erected there for the use of the
nuns. Later, the king built for her the
Hatthālhaka vihāra.

She died at the age of fifty nine, in the ninth year of the reign of King
Uttiya, and celebrations, lasting one whole week,
were held in her honour throughout Ceylon. Her body was cremated to the east of
the Thūpārāma near the (later) Cittasālā, in sight of the Bodhi tree, on a spot
indicated by the Therī herself before her death. Uttiya had a thūpa erected over
her ashes. Mhv.xviii.13f.; xix.5, 20, 53, 65, 68ff., 83f.; xx.48ff.; Sp.i.90f.

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