This sutta illustrates the potential of the Buddhist teachings to curtail humanity’s most horrific violent impulses and to transform even the most depraved of individuals into agents of non-violence.Įven as Angulimala joins the Buddha’s community of bhikkhus, a crowd of local villagers travel to King Pasenadi’s palace to plea for protection from Angulimala. The Buddha granted it, and Angulimala joined the community of those who have gone forth with saffron robes and shaven heads.Īngulimala can be read as the personification of brutal violence, indiscriminate and unrestrained by any concern for living beings. He hurled his weapons off a cliff and requested ordination from the Buddha on the spot.

Moved by the Buddha’s words, Angulimala determined to abandon violence. The Buddha replied, “I have stopped, Angulimala. Yet as he ran toward the Buddha, the Buddha “willed a feat of psychic power such that Angulimala, though running with all his might, could not catch up with the Blessed One walking at normal pace.” Amazed by this display of power, Angulimala called out, “Stop, contemplative! Stop!”

Resolutely, calmly, the Buddha walked in the direction of the killer’s lair.Īngulimala saw the lone monk pass by and gleefully determined to kill him. They urged the Buddha to turn back, but he did not. Local farmers, shepherds, and cowherds warned the Buddha that groups of even ten, twenty, thirty, and forty men had been ambushed and killed by Angulimala. The Buddha went into town for alms, and when he had finished his meal, he took his bowl and walked along the road to where Angulimala was staying.

“Brutal, bloody-handed, devoted to killing & slaying, showing no mercy to living beings, He turned villages into non-villages, towns into non-towns, settled countryside into unsettled countryside.”Īs the story goes, the Buddha was staying in the region where Angulimala was on the loose.

Terrorizing the realm of King Pasenadi, Angulimala was known for the garland of fingers that he severed from his victims and wore around his neck. The Angulimala Sutta is a riveting tale from the Buddhist scriptures of a blood-thirsty murderer who lived during the time that the Buddha walked the earth.

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