Sariputta

He was born in the brahmin village of Upatissa, near the ancient city of Rajagaha, perhaps a few years before Siddhartha Gautama. His given name was Upatissa, but the commentaries soon prefer the matronymic — Sāriputta, son of Rūpasārī. His mother was a wealthy and strong-willed brahmin matriarch who would oppose his ordination and remain a brahmanical householder for nearly forty-five years afterward. His best friend from childhood was Kolita, the son of another brahmin family in the neighboring village — the boy who would become Mahamoggallana.

The two friends went together, the Mahavagga of the Vinaya records, to the great festival on the hilltop near Rajagaha and watched the crowd. The same thought struck them both: every one of these people will be dead inside a century. They left the festival and went looking for a teacher. They tried Sañjaya Belaṭṭhiputta, one of the six famous teachers of the time, the agnostic who refused to commit to any metaphysical position, and they remained his students for some years without finding what they were looking for. They agreed: whichever of them found the deathless first would tell the other.

One morning Upatissa, walking through Rajagaha, saw a yellow-robed bhikkhu — Assaji, one of the original five from Sarnath — moving through the streets on his begging round. The composure of the man stopped him. He followed, waited until Assaji had finished his meal, and asked: "Who is your teacher? What does he teach?" Assaji said he was newly ordained and could only give the briefest summary. He gave it in four lines, preserved as the most famous verse in the canon outside the Dhammapada: "ye dhammā hetuppabhavā / tesaṃ hetuṃ tathāgato āha / tesañca yo nirodho / evaṃvādī mahāsamaṇo" — "Of those phenomena which arise from a cause, the Tathagata has stated the cause and also their cessation. This is the teaching of the great recluse." Upatissa entered the stream of the dhamma on the spot. He returned to Kolita; Kolita heard the verse and entered the stream as well. They went together, with their two hundred and fifty student-followers from Sañjaya's school, to the Bamboo Grove at Rajagaha. The Buddha saw them coming and said to the assembled bhikkhus: "These two will be my chief disciples." Within two weeks — for Mahamoggallana — and within a fortnight more — for Sariputta — both attained arahantship.

“He was born in the brahmin village of Upatissa, near the ancient city of Rajagaha, perhaps a few years before Siddhartha Gautama.”

Sariputta's arahantship is the subject of one of the most extraordinary suttas in the canon. The Anupada Sutta (MN 111) records that for two weeks after his ordination, while he was still in stream-entry, Sariputta entered the meditative absorptions one after the other — the four jhanas, the four formless attainments, and the cessation of perception and feeling — and in each one examined the mental factors as they arose, step by step, "anupadadhamma-vipassanā," insight into states one moment at a time. The Buddha describes the practice from the outside, with admiration that is rare in the canon: "Sariputta is the son truly born of my breast, born of my mouth, born of the dhamma." It is the description of a mind that can hold and examine the entire architecture of meditative attainment without losing the thread.

He became the Dhammasenapati, the Marshal of the Dhamma — the one who, when the Buddha was not present, gave the second teaching. The Mahahatthipadopama Sutta (MN 28), the Sammaditthi Sutta (MN 9), the Satipatthana-vibhanga, and large portions of the Abhidhamma matrices are attributed to him. He is the one the Buddha trusts with the higher analysis. He is also the kindest figure in the canon — the texts insistently record his patience with new bhikkhus, his daily care for the sick, his deference to Mahakassapa, his loyalty to Mahamoggallana. The Sariputta-Mahamoggallana Bandhujivaka Vatthu (Dhp-A 65) records the moment when a foolish bhikkhu insulted him; Sariputta said nothing and bowed, and the bhikkhu, repenting, asked his forgiveness.

He predeceased the Buddha by some months. Knowing his death was near, he asked permission to return to his birth village. He went to the room where he had been born, his eighty-year-old mother Rupasari still in the house, and over the night he taught her the dhamma. She had refused the dhamma all her life; on that final night she entered the stream. He died at dawn on the full-moon day of Kattika, in his birth chamber. His relics were brought back to the Buddha. The Cunda Sutta (SN 47.13) records the Buddha's response: he stayed silent for a long time, then said, "Where the sun has set, the world is darker." The Buddha placed the relics in the stupa at Sankisa. Mahamoggallana followed Sariputta into parinibbana within the fortnight. The Buddha's own death came less than a year later.