SUTTA 124

[^1167]: According to MA, Ven. Bakkula became a monk in his eightieth year, which would make him 160 at the time this sutta takes place. He was declared by the Buddha to be the foremost disciple with respect to good health.

[^1168]: MA says that the passages here enclosed in brackets were added by the elders who compiled the Dhamma.

[^1169]: This passage and those to follow show Ven. Bakkula as an observer of the ascetic practices. The kathina time is the period following the three-month rains residence when bhikkhus make new robes from the cloth they have received.

[^1170]: MA says that after he went forth, he was an ordinary man for seven days, but on the eighth day he attained arahantship together with the analytical knowledges (patisambhidā).

[^1171]: MA: Ven. Bakkula himself did not give the ordination (which would have been a violation of his mode of practice) but arranged for other bhikkhus to give it.

[^1172]: MA: Ven. Bakkula had considered that all his life he had never made himself a burden to the other bhikkhus, and he did not want his body to be a burden after his death. Thus he entered into meditation on the heat element and attained final Nibbāna by causing his entire body to be consumed by the blaze. Only the relics remained.

[^1173]: MA says that this sutta was recited at the second compilation of the Dhamma, held about a hundred years after the Buddha's passing away.