Venerable Rāhula

On the day the news reached him, Prince Siddhattha was about to enter the city.

The Jātaka commentary relates that King Suddhodana, hearing that Rāhula's mother had given birth to a son, sent word saying: tell my son of my gladness.

The Bodhisatta heard the message and spoke one sentence.

"Rāhula is born, a fetter is born."

The messengers carried that word back. The king asked what his son had said, and when he heard it, he declared:

"From this day let my grandson be named Rāhulakumāra."

The grandfather took the words his son had uttered in that moment and made them the child's name exactly as they stood. So the prince bore from his first day a name that means a fetter, and it was his own father who had first spoken it.

That very night the Bodhisatta resolved to go forth. The commentary relates that after sending Channa to prepare the horse, he thought he would look at his son first; so he rose from his seat, went to the bedchamber of Rāhula's mother, and opened the door.

Inside, a lamp of scented oil was still burning. Rāhula's mother lay asleep with one hand resting on the head of her son, on a bed strewn with jasmine.

The Bodhisatta stood there with his foot on the threshold and did not step in. The commentary records his thought at that moment: if he were to lift the queen's hand away in order to take up his son, she would wake, and then an obstacle to his going would arise.

"Even after I have become a Buddha, I shall be able to come and see my son."

Having thought only this, he went down from the palace.

The same commentary also notes that the statement that Rāhulakumāra was seven days old that night is found in the Jātaka commentary but not in the others.

The prince knew nothing of what happened in his room that night. As for what his father resolved on the threshold, it would come true seven years later.

Six years passed in the search, and not long after the awakening the Blessed One, having stayed in Rājagaha as long as he wished, set out for Kapilavatthu, and on arriving dwelt at the Nigrodha monastery.

One morning he took his bowl and robe and went to the palace of Suddhodana the Sakyan, where he sat down on a seat that had been prepared for him.

In that palace was a boy of seven who had never yet seen his father.

The Vinaya records the mother's words in the shortest possible form.

"Rāhula, that ascetic is your father. Go and ask him for your inheritance."

Rāhulakumāra went in to the Blessed One as his mother had told him, stood before him, and spoke this first sentence:

"Ascetic, your shadow is pleasant."

The boy had been sent to ask for a kingdom, but the first thing he actually said, standing there in front of him, was praise for his shade.

The Vinaya does not record any reply. It says only that the Blessed One rose from his seat and departed.

The Blessed One left the palace, and Rāhulakumāra followed close behind him.

All along that road the boy said one thing only.

"Ascetic, give me my inheritance. Ascetic, give me my inheritance."

The commentary to the Ambalaṭṭhika-Rāhulovāda Sutta adds one detail to the same scene: that Rāhula was seven years old at the time, and that he was asking while holding on to the hem of the Blessed One's robe.

They went out past the palace grounds and along the road as far as the Nigrodha monastery, and the boy did not stop. Nobody was able to restrain him.

The Blessed One had not yet answered him with a single word.

When they reached the monastery, the Blessed One called for Venerable Sāriputta and gave one instruction.

"Sāriputta, in that case, give Rāhulakumāra the going forth."

That instruction obliged the General of the Dhamma to ask a question in return, for at that time there was no procedure for ordaining a child.

"How, venerable sir, am I to give Rāhulakumāra the going forth?"

The Blessed One gave a talk on the Dhamma concerning that matter and then said to the monks: I allow the going forth of a son of good family as a novice by the three refuges. He then laid down the whole procedure — having the hair and beard shaved, having him put on the ochre robes and arrange one over the shoulder, having him bow at the feet of the monks, sit on his heels and raise his joined palms — and then had him repeat:

Buddhaṃ saraṇaṃ gacchāmi — I go to the Buddha for refuge
Dhammaṃ saraṇaṃ gacchāmi — I go to the Dhamma for refuge
Saṅghaṃ saraṇaṃ gacchāmi — I go to the Saṅgha for refuge

Three times over.

The Vinaya closes the episode in one short sentence: then Venerable Sāriputta gave Rāhulakumāra the going forth.

The way of ordaining a novice that the whole dispensation has used ever since came into being that afternoon because a child followed asking for an inheritance — and that child was himself the first novice ordained by it.

The compiled biography explains the Buddha's reason: that the wealth Rāhulakumāra wanted was the kind that draws a being on through the round of rebirths, and so he gave him noble wealth instead.

The Tipiṭaka itself gives no explanation at all. It gives one instruction and its immediate result.

The news reached the palace the same day.

Suddhodana the Sakyan went to the Blessed One, paid homage, sat down to one side, and asked for a boon.

The Blessed One replied that Tathāgatas are beyond the granting of boons.

The king said that the boon he asked for was proper and blameless.

Given leave to speak, the king said what he had been holding in his heart for years.

"When the Blessed One went forth, overwhelming sorrow arose in me; so it was when Nanda went forth; and when Rāhula was given the going forth, the sorrow was greater still, venerable sir. Love for a son cuts through the skin, and having cut the skin it cuts the hide, cuts the flesh, cuts the sinews, cuts the bone, and comes to rest touching the marrow."

Then he asked for the boon.

"I ask this favour, venerable sir: let the venerable ones not give the going forth to a son whose mother and father have not permitted it."

The Blessed One instructed, roused, gladdened and encouraged the king with a talk on the Dhamma; the king rose, paid homage, circumambulated him and went away. The Blessed One then laid down the rule that a monk should not give the going forth to a son of good family whose mother and father have not permitted it.

The boon a grandfather asked for because he had lost his grandson became the safeguard of every household from that day on.

Two smaller matters followed on account of this novice. The first was that a supporting family sent a boy to Venerable Sāriputta to be given the going forth, and the elder considered: the Blessed One has laid down that a single monk is not to have two novices attending on him, and I already have the novice Rāhula — how then should I proceed? So the Blessed One allowed a monk who is competent and capable to take on as many novices as he is able to advise and instruct.

The second was that the novices wondered how many training rules were theirs and in what they were to train. So the Blessed One allowed the ten training rules for novices.

The first novice thus received both a preceptor and a body of training to keep, at an age when he did not yet know what training was.

The commentary relates that after the ordination the Blessed One considered: young boys speak what is fitting and what is not fitting; I shall give Rāhula an admonition. He called him and told him that a novice should not speak the talk of beasts, and that when he does speak, he should speak in this way.

Then he set out ten questions for him to memorise, counting from one to ten, each answered by a heading of the Dhamma belonging to that number.

What is one? All beings subsist by nutriment
What is two? Name and form
What is three? The three feelings
What is four? The four noble truths
What is five? The five aggregates of clinging
What is six? The six internal sense bases
What is seven? The seven factors of awakening
What is eight? The noble eightfold path
What is nine? The nine abodes of beings
What is ten? One endowed with ten factors is called an arahant

The Tipiṭaka places this passage in the Khuddakapāṭha under the title Sāmaṇera-pañhā, the novice's questions.

The method he chose for a seven-year-old was not a prohibition on speaking, but the gift of something worth saying instead — and something countable, recitable, and easy to check against oneself at the end of a day.

Later the Blessed One was staying at the Bamboo Grove near Rājagaha, while Venerable Rāhula was living at the lodging called Ambalaṭṭhikā — the commentary explains that it was a small building put up at the far end of the Bamboo Grove for those who wanted seclusion — and at that time the novice Rāhula was seven years old.

One evening the Blessed One came out of seclusion and went to that lodging.

Venerable Rāhula saw him coming from a distance and prepared a seat and set out water for washing the feet. The commentary records a small detail here: a seat was already spread there as a matter of course, but Rāhula dusted it before setting it out.

The Blessed One sat down on the seat and washed his feet. Venerable Rāhula paid homage and sat down to one side.

He did not pour the remaining water away. He left a little water in the vessel and asked:

"Rāhula, do you see this little water left in the water vessel?"
"Yes, venerable sir."
"Just so slight, Rāhula, is the asceticism of one who has no shame at telling a deliberate lie."

Then he threw that little water away and asked whether he saw the water that had been thrown away. When Rāhula said he did, he said that the asceticism of such a person is likewise thrown away.

Then he turned the vessel upside down and asked whether he saw the vessel turned over. When Rāhula said he did, he said that the asceticism of such a person is likewise turned over.

Then he set the vessel upright again.

"Rāhula, do you see this empty water vessel?"
"Yes, venerable sir."
"Just so empty, Rāhula, is the asceticism of one who has no shame at telling a deliberate lie."

The commentary states the reason for the simile plainly: he considered that children tell lies in a charming way, saying of what they have not seen that they have seen it and of what they have seen that they have not — I shall give Rāhula an admonition; and he chose a method that could be understood simply by looking.

Everything he used that afternoon was a single dipper of water for washing the feet.

From the water vessel he turned to an image any child of a royal house would know: the war elephant.

"Rāhula, suppose there were a royal elephant with tusks as long as chariot poles, a splendid mount, of good breed, accustomed to battle."

When such an elephant enters battle it does its work with its forefeet and its hind feet, with the fore part of its body and the hinder part, with its head, with its ears, with its tusks, with its tail — but it still guards its trunk.

Seeing the elephant guard its trunk in that way, the mahout knows that this elephant has not yet given up its life.

But when the elephant does its work with the trunk as well, the mahout knows at once that the royal elephant has given up its life, and that now there is nothing it will not do.

"So too, Rāhula, I say that for one who has no shame at telling a deliberate lie there is no evil that he will not do."

Then he gave the boy the training to hold to.

"Therefore, Rāhula, you should train yourself thus: I will not tell a deliberate lie, not even in jest. Rāhula, thus should you train yourself."

That prohibition does not merely fence off lying to save oneself. It reaches the false word spoken for a laugh — which is the only kind a child of that age would in fact tell.

Having set the training down, he asked a question that appears to have nothing to do with what came before.

"What do you think, Rāhula? What is a mirror for?"
"For reflecting, venerable sir."
"So too, Rāhula, an action of body, speech or mind is to be done only after reflecting."

He then opened it out into a method of use covering bodily action, verbal action and mental action, each with the same three moments.

Before acting, one should reflect whether the action one wishes to do leads to one's own affliction, or to the affliction of others, or to the affliction of both. If it does, that action is not to be done at all. If it does not, it may be done.

While acting, one should reflect in exactly the same way. If one knows it leads to affliction, one should stop. If one knows it does not, one should continue.

Having acted, one should reflect once more. If one knows that the action led to affliction, one should confess it, reveal it and lay it open before the Teacher or before a wise companion in the holy life, and thereafter restrain oneself. If one knows that it did not, one should abide in joy and gladness, training day and night in wholesome states.

At the close of the discourse he drew the line that shows the method was not devised for one child.

"Rāhula, whatever ascetics and brahmins in the past purified their bodily action, their verbal action and their mental action, all of them did so by reflecting again and again in just this way."

The same holds for the future and for the present, and then he gave the conclusion to be held to.

"Therefore, Rāhula, you should train yourself thus: I will purify my bodily action, my verbal action and my mental action by reflecting again and again."

The discourse ends with Venerable Rāhula delighting in and rejoicing at what was said. He was seven years old.

Years later something happened at Āḷavī. On a night when the Dhamma was being heard until late, the senior elders went back to their own quarters while the newly ordained monks slept in the hall together with the lay followers, and they slept without composure, so that the lay followers found fault and complained.

When the Blessed One learned of it he laid down the training rule: whatever monk should lie down to sleep in the same dwelling with one who is not fully ordained commits an offence of expiation.

Later he travelled from Āḷavī to Kosambī and stayed at the Badarika monastery. There the monks said to the novice Rāhula:

"Friend Rāhula, the Blessed One has laid down a training rule: a monk should not lie down to sleep in the same dwelling with one who is not fully ordained. Friend Rāhula, find a place to sleep."

A novice is not a fully ordained monk. That meant there was no hut left that he could enter to sleep.

The Vinaya records what he did that night in a single sentence.

"That day the novice Rāhula, finding no place to sleep, lay down to sleep in the privy."

He did not reproach anyone. He did not go and complain. He did not wake anyone to help him.

Towards dawn the Blessed One rose and went to the privy, and having come there he cleared his throat as a signal.

From inside came an answering cough.

"Who is in the privy?"
"It is I, Rāhula, venerable sir."
"Rāhula, why are you lying down here?"

The novice told him the whole matter.

That morning the Blessed One gave a talk on the Dhamma and then said to the monks: I allow lying down in the same dwelling with one who is not fully ordained for two or three nights. He then reformulated the rule: whatever monk should lie down to sleep in the same dwelling with one who is not fully ordained for more than two or three nights commits an offence of expiation.

That rule was relaxed because a child was willing to sleep in a privy without a word of complaint.

In the Sutta Nipāta there is a short discourse called the Rāhula Sutta, which opens with a question the Blessed One put to him.

"Do you not despise the wise one because you live with him constantly? Is he who holds up the torch for mankind honoured by you?"

The commentary explains that the wise one here means Venerable Sāriputta, and that the reason for the question was that this boy was of exalted birth and might grow conceited on account of birth, clan, family and complexion.

Venerable Rāhula answered:

"I do not despise the wise one because I live with him constantly. He who holds up the torch for mankind is constantly honoured by me."

The Blessed One then gave a series of practices: to abandon the five strands of sensual pleasure that are dear and delightful; to keep company with good friends; to resort to secluded lodgings free of noise; to know moderation in eating; to form no craving for robes, almsfood, lodging and requisites; to be restrained in the Pātimokkha and in the faculties; to be mindful with regard to the body; to avoid the sign of the beautiful that gives rise to lust; to steady the mind in the meditation on the unattractive — and then the last item.

"Abandon the underlying tendency to conceit; thereafter, having abandoned conceit, you shall live at peace."

The line that Venerable Ānanda recorded at the end of the discourse states something that is not in the verses themselves.

"In this way, it is said, the Blessed One instructed Venerable Rāhula with these verses again and again."

That is: it was not said once and finished with. It was said over and over.

What he himself did as a daily practice in the same period is recorded by the commentaries in two forms.

The commentary to the Etadagga chapter relates that from the day of his ordination the elder rose at first light, took up a handful of sand, and made this wish:

"May it be so — may I receive today from the Ten-Powered One and from my preceptor and teachers as much admonition and instruction as this."

The commentary to the Mahārāhulovāda Sutta tells the same thing with a different picture: that at first light he would scatter about a bowlful of sand around the Fragrant Chamber, thinking, today may I receive this much advice and this much correction from the Perfectly Awakened One and from my preceptor.

The two versions agree in one thing: he counted what he wanted in grains of sand, not in items.

The commentary also records the effect of that habit: that Venerable Rāhula was skilled in method, so that when the Blessed One said this is not to be done, he penetrated a hundred and a thousand implications of what is to be done and what is not — and it was the same when the Blessed One said this is to be done.

One who asks each morning for as much instruction as there are grains of sand will hear a hundred meanings in a single teaching.

One morning at Jetavana near Sāvatthī the Blessed One took his bowl and robe and entered the city for alms. Venerable Rāhula took his bowl and robe and followed close behind him. He was then a novice of eighteen.

The commentary describes the two of them walking together at great length: it likens the Blessed One to a magnificent elephant and Rāhula to the calf following behind, likens him to a lion king leaving his cave and Rāhula to the lion cub going after him, likens him to a golden royal swan flying down from the mountain and Rāhula to the cygnet flying after. Both were born in the same royal line, both renounced a kingdom, and both had complexions like gold.

At that moment Venerable Rāhula looked at the Tathāgata from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head.

The commentary relates that, having seen that beauty, he then looked over himself as well and thought: I too am handsome; if the Blessed One had ruled as a wheel-turning monarch and given me the office of chief adviser, this Rose-Apple Land would be splendid indeed. And so a delight based on his own person arose in him on that road.

The Blessed One, walking ahead, knew that thought. The commentary says he saw Rāhula's mind as one sees a fish in clear water, and considered that it must not be ignored — as the master of a great ship laden with jewels cannot stand idle even for a moment when water is coming in through a broken plank.

So he stopped, and turned his whole body around. The commentary likens the movement to a golden image turning about.

The Tipiṭaka records the words he spoke on that road.

"Rāhula, any kind of form whatever — past, future or present, internal or external, gross or subtle, inferior or superior, far or near — all form should be seen as it actually is with right wisdom thus: this is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self."

Venerable Rāhula asked at once:

"Only form, Blessed One? Only form, Sublime One?"
"Form, Rāhula, and feeling, and perception, and formations, and consciousness."

The commentary points out that the question itself shows how skilled in method he was: hearing about form, he immediately thought further about how one should proceed with feeling and the rest.

Having been admonished in the road like that, Venerable Rāhula had a thought.

"Who, having been admonished by the Blessed One with an admonition face to face, would go into the village for alms today?"

So he turned back from that place and did not enter the village for alms that day. He sat down cross-legged at the foot of a tree, holding his body erect and establishing mindfulness before him.

The Blessed One saw him turn back but did not call to him. The commentary gives the reason: he considered that today Rāhula should first take the deathless food that is mindfulness of the body.

That morning Venerable Sāriputta went for alms after all the other monks, according to his own observance. The commentary relates that when he was staying with the Blessed One, the elder would wait for him to set out first, then go round the lodgings, sweeping what had not been swept, throwing out refuse that had not been thrown out, setting up drinking water where there was none, visiting the sick monks and asking what he might bring them, encouraging the young monks who had not yet completed a rains — and only then would he go for alms, last of all.

On the road that day he saw Rāhula sitting at the foot of a tree.

The elder did not ask what had happened, and he did not know that the Teacher had just given him a meditation subject on form. The commentary says he gave a meditation subject that suited the posture he saw, since Rāhula was sitting motionless and settled on his seat.

"Rāhula, develop mindfulness of breathing. Mindfulness of breathing, when developed and cultivated, is of great fruit and great benefit."

Venerable Rāhula sat like that until evening, then came out of seclusion, went to the Blessed One, paid homage, sat down to one side, and asked the question he had received from his preceptor that morning.

"Venerable sir, how is mindfulness of breathing developed and cultivated so as to be of great fruit and great benefit?"

The Blessed One did not answer about the breath at once. He began with the questioner's own body.

He took up the elements one by one. The earth element is what is solid: head hair, body hair, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, sinews, bones, marrow, down to the contents of the stomach and the bowels. The water element is what is fluid: bile, phlegm, pus, blood, sweat, tears, spittle, mucus, the fluid of the joints. The fire element is the heat by which one is warmed, by which one ages, and by which what is eaten and drunk is digested. The air element is the wind moving upwards, the wind moving downwards, the wind in the belly, the wind in the bowels, the in-and-out breath. And the space element is the openings of the ears, nostrils, mouth and throat.

Each of these five is both internal and external, and the internal element and the external element are simply the same element. So each of them ends in the same sentence.

"That element should be seen as it actually is with right wisdom thus: this is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self."

The body its owner had admired that morning as handsome was taken apart into earth, water, fire, air and space, of which not one piece belongs to anyone.

Then he turned from contemplation to the training of the mind.

"Rāhula, develop meditation that is like the earth. For when you develop meditation that is like the earth, arisen agreeable and disagreeable contacts will not invade your mind and remain."

The reason is in the simile: people throw clean things and unclean things on the earth, and the earth is not troubled, humiliated or disgusted by them.

So too with water: people wash clean things and unclean things in water, and the water does not object. So too with fire, which burns clean things and unclean things without objecting. So too with air, which blows upon clean things and unclean things without objecting.

For space he gave a different reason.

"Rāhula, just as space is not established anywhere, so develop meditation that is like space."

Before reaching the answer to the question that had been asked, he set out six more meditations, each named together with what it abandons.

Develop loving-kindness, Rāhula, for when you develop loving-kindness, ill will will be abandoned
Develop compassion, for when you develop compassion, cruelty will be abandoned
Develop appreciative joy, for when you develop appreciative joy, discontent will be abandoned
Develop equanimity, for when you develop equanimity, aversion will be abandoned
Develop the meditation on the unattractive, for when you develop it, lust will be abandoned
Develop the perception of impermanence, for when you develop it, the conceit "I am" will be abandoned

The last of these is the one that answers his thought of that morning most exactly, for the conceit "I am" is the root of the sentence "I too am handsome".

Then came mindfulness of breathing, set out in sixteen steps: knowing the long breath, knowing the short breath, experiencing the whole body of breath, calming the bodily formation, and so on through the feelings and through the mind, until the contemplation of impermanence, the contemplation of fading away, the contemplation of cessation, and the contemplation of relinquishment. Each step is done both breathing out and breathing in.

The closing sentence of the discourse is one nobody forgets.

"Rāhula, when mindfulness of breathing is developed and cultivated in this way, even the final in-and-out breaths cease with one's knowing them, not without one's knowing them."

A discourse that began because a young man had admired his own beauty in the morning ends at the last breath of a life.

Time passed until he was old enough for full ordination. Venerable Sāriputta, his preceptor, gave him the higher ordination, and Venerable Mahāmoggallāna served as his announcing teacher. The commentary places what follows at the time when he was a monk of half a rains.

That day the Blessed One was staying at Jetavana. Having gone into seclusion, this thought arose in his mind:

"The states that ripen in liberation have matured in Rāhula. Suppose I were to lead Rāhula further to the destruction of the taints."

That morning he went for alms as usual, and after returning and finishing his meal he said to him:

"Take a sitting cloth, Rāhula. We shall go to the Blind Men's Grove to spend the day."

Venerable Rāhula assented, took a sitting cloth, and followed close behind him — as he had been following since he was seven.

The Tipiṭaka also records that many thousands of devas followed the Blessed One that day, knowing that today he would lead Venerable Rāhula further to the destruction of the taints.

Having reached the Blind Men's Grove, he sat down on a seat prepared for him at the foot of a tree. Venerable Rāhula paid homage and sat down to one side.

The questions asked that afternoon were a single set repeated for one thing after another, beginning with the eye.

"What do you think, Rāhula? Is the eye permanent or impermanent?"
"Impermanent, venerable sir."
"And is what is impermanent suffering or happiness?"
"Suffering, venerable sir."
"And is what is impermanent, suffering and subject to change fit to be regarded thus: this is mine, this I am, this is my self?"
"No, venerable sir."

He then asked the same of forms, of eye-consciousness, of eye-contact, and of the feeling, perception, formations and consciousness arisen with eye-contact as condition; and then he took up the ear, the nose, the tongue, the body and the mind with the same set of questions until all six were complete.

When they were complete he gave the conclusion: seeing thus, a well-taught noble disciple becomes disenchanted with the eye, with forms, with eye-consciousness, with eye-contact, and with the feeling, perception, formations and consciousness arisen with eye-contact as condition — and so through all six doors.

"Being disenchanted, he becomes dispassionate. Through dispassion he is liberated. When liberated, there comes the knowledge that he is liberated, and he understands: birth is destroyed, the holy life has been lived, what had to be done has been done, there is no more coming to any state of being."

While this exposition was being spoken, the mind of Venerable Rāhula was liberated from the taints through non-clinging.

And in those many thousands of devas who had come to listen, the dustless, stainless vision of the Dhamma arose: whatever is subject to arising is all subject to cessation.

The eye that the Blessed One took up first that afternoon was the same eye that had once looked up at the Tathāgata from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head and taken delight in its owner's own form.

In the Etadagga chapter the Blessed One placed him in a position.

"Monks, foremost among my monk disciples in the love of training is Rāhula."

The commentary explains the term sikkhākāmānaṃ as meaning those who love the threefold training, and gives one reason only: the handful of sand taken up every morning from the day he was ordained.

The commentary also records that he made his own lion's roar in the midst of the Saṅgha: that the King of Dhamma who was his father established him in the foremost place before the Saṅgha, praising him as foremost among the monks who love training; and that the King of Dhamma his father, and Sāriputta his preceptor, were all of them the teaching of the Conqueror.

And of the way the Teacher had guarded him from childhood he spoke this verse:

"The Tathāgata, wise and perfect in virtue, guarded me as the lapwing guards her eggs, as the yak guards its tail."

The verses he spoke in declaring his own attainment of arahantship begin with the name people called him by.

"People know me as Rāhula the Fortunate, complete in two respects: perfection of birth and perfection of practice — for I am the son of the Buddha, and I am one who has the wisdom that sees things as they are."

He goes on to say that beings are as though blind, not seeing the danger in sensual pleasures, covered by the net of craving, bound by Māra with the bond of negligence, like a fish in the mouth of a trap; and then he speaks of himself in the last line.

"That sensual desire I have uprooted; I have cut Māra's bond; I have pulled up craving with its root; I have become cool and quenched."

The one who spoke that verse is the one who received a name meaning a fetter on the first night of his life — and whom his father himself led out of every fetter there is.

The compiled biography relates his final days: that having sustained his life as long as was fitting, he attained final Nibbāna on the Paṇḍukambala stone in the Tāvatiṃsa heaven; and that his life was not a long one, since he passed away before the Blessed One his father, before Sāriputta his preceptor, and before Mahāmoggallāna his teacher.

Rāhula was thus among those who received the most instruction from the Buddha of anyone — from a single dipper of foot-washing water at the age of seven to one afternoon in the Blind Men's Grove — and he was the one who asked for another handful of it every morning of all that time.