Śāriputra (; Tibetan: ཤཱ་རིའི་བུ་, Pali: Sāriputta, lit. "the son of Śāri", born Upatiṣya, Pali: Upatissa) was one of the top disciples of the Buddha. He is considered the first of the Buddha's two chief male disciples, together with Maudgalyāyana (Pali: Moggallāna). Śāriputra had a key leadership role in the ministry of the Buddha and is considered in many Buddhist schools to have been important in the development of the Buddhist Abhidharma. He frequently appears in Mahayana sutras, and in some sutras, is used as a counterpoint to represent the Hinayana school of Buddhism.
Historians believe Śāriputra was born in the ancient Indian kingdom of Magadha around the 6th or 5th century BCE. Buddhist texts relate that Śāriputra and Maudgalyāyana were childhood friends who became spiritual wanderers in their youth. After having searched for spiritual truth with other contemporary teachers, they came into contact with the teachings of the Buddha and ordained as monks under him, after which the Buddha declared the friends his two chief disciples. Śāriputra was said to have attained enlightenment as an arhat two weeks after ordination. As chief disciple Śāriputra assumed a leadership role in the Sangha, doing tasks like looking after monks, assigning them objects of meditation, and clarifying points of doctrine. He was the first disciple the Buddha allowed to ordain other monks. Śāriputra died shortly before the Buddha in his hometown and was cremated. According to Buddhist texts, his relics were then enshrined at Jetavana Monastery. Archaeological findings from the 1800s suggest his relics may have been redistributed across the Indian subcontinent by subsequent kings.
Śāriputra is regarded as an important and wise disciple of the Buddha, particularly in Theravada Buddhism where he is given a status close to a second Buddha. In Buddhist art, he is often depicted alongside the Buddha, usually to his right. Śāriputra was known for his strict adherence to the Buddhist monastic rules, as well as for his wisdom and teaching ability, giving him the title "General of the Dharma" (Sanskrit: Dharmasenāpati; Pali: Dhammasenāpati). Śāriputra is considered the disciple of the Buddha who was foremost in wisdom. His female counterpart was Kṣemā (Pali: Khemā).
Background According to Buddhist texts, when a fully enlightened Buddha appears in the world, he always has a set of chief disciples. For the current Buddha, Gautama, his chief male disciples were Śāriputra and Maudgalyāyana, while his chief female disciples were Khema and Uppalavanna. According to the Buddhavaṃsa, all Buddhas of the past followed this pattern of selecting two chief male disciples and two chief female disciples. German Buddhist scholar and monk Nyanaponika Thera states that the reason Buddhas always select two chief disciples is to balance responsibilities according to each disciple's specific skills.
According to the Pāli Canon, in the distant past Śāriputra was born a wealthy person named Sarada who gave away his wealth to become an ascetic who developed a large following. At that time, Sarada and his followers were visited by the past Buddha, Anomadassi Buddha, and were given a sermon by Anomadassī Buddha and his chief disciples. Upon hearing the sermon from Anomadassī Buddha's first chief disciple Nisabha, Sarada became inspired and resolved to become the first chief disciple of a future Buddha. He then made this wish in front of Anomadassī Buddha, who looked into the future and then declared that his aspiration would come true. Upon hearing the prediction, Sarada went to his close friend Sirivaddhana and asked him to resolve to become the second chief disciple of the same Buddha. Sirivaddhana then made a large offering to Anomadassī Buddha and his following, making the wish as suggested. Anomadassī Buddha looked into the future and declared that Sirivaddhana's aspiration would also come true. The two friends then spent the rest of their lives and many future lives doing good deeds. According to Buddhist legend, the aspiration came true in the time of Gautama Buddha with Sarada being reborn as Śāriputra and Sirivaddhana as Maudgalyāyana.
Biography
Early life Buddhist texts describe that Śāriputra was born with the birth name Upatiṣya (Pali: Upatissa) to a wealthy family in a village near Rājagaha in the ancient Indian kingdom of Magadha. Texts from the Mūlasarvāstivāda tradition state he was named after his father, while the Pali commentaries of the Theravada tradition state he was named after his birth village. Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Faxian refers to Śāriputra's birth village as Nāla (Nālaka) while Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang refers to the village as Kālapināka. The village has been variously identified as being either modern-day Sarichak, Chandiman (Chandimau), or Nanan (considered most likely to be the correct location).
Upatiṣya is described as having had a "golden complexion". He had six siblings; three brothers named Upasena, Cunda and Revata, and three sisters named Cāla, Upacālā and Sīsupacālā. Each of his siblings would grow up to become arhat disciples of the Buddha. According to the Pali tradition, Upatiṣya's father was named Vangunta, while according to Mūlasarvāstivāda tradition his father was named Tiṣya (Pali: Tissa). Upatiṣya's mother was named Śārī (alternatively called Rūpaśārī, Śārika, or Śāradvatī), because she had eyes like a śārika bird. His mother was the reason Upatiṣya later became known as Śāriputra (son of Śāri) and sometimes Śāradvatīputra (son of Śāradvatī).
Upatiṣya was born the same day as Kolita (who would later be known as Maudgalyāyana), a boy from a neighboring village whose family had been friends with Upatiṣya's family for seven generations, and became friends with him as a child. Upatiṣya and Kolita both became masters of the Vedas through their education and each developed a large following of youths. One day the realization that life is impermanent overtook the two friends during a festival in Rājagaha and they developed a sense of spiritual urgency.
Realizing the pointlessness of the impermanent material world, the two friends set out as ascetics to search for an end to rebirth. In Mūlasarvāstivāda texts, the two friends visited all six major teachers of India at the time before realizing none of them had the right path. According to Pali texts, the two friends and their following of youths became students under only one of the teachers, the ascetic Sañjaya Vairatiputra (Pali: Sañjaya Belaṭṭhaputta), who was staying nearby. Pali texts describe Sañjaya as a teacher in the Indian Sceptic tradition, with Upatiṣya and Kolita eventually becoming dissatisfied with his teachings and leaving. In Mūlasarvāstivāda texts, the Chinese Buddhist Canon and in Tibetan accounts, however, he is depicted as a wise teacher with meditative vision who becomes ill and dies. In some accounts, he predicts the coming of the Buddha through his visions. After being unable to find what they were looking for, the two friends went their separate ways but made a pact that if one was to find the path to Nirvana, he would tell the other.
Meeting the Buddha
After leaving Sañjaya, Upatiṣya encountered the monk Aśvajit (), one of the Buddha's first five arhat disciples. Upatiṣya noticed how serene the monk appeared and approached him to ask for a teaching. Aśvajit said he was still newly ordained but would teach what he can, and proceeded to teach the famous Ye Dharma Hetu stanza:
This stanza has become particularly famous in the Buddhist world, having been inscribed onto many Buddhist statues. According to philosopher Paul Carus, the stanza breaks away from the idea of divine intervention prevalent in ancient Brahmanism at the time and instead teaches that the origin and end of all things depends on its causation.
Following the teaching, Upatiṣya attained sotapanna, the first stage of enlightenment. Upatiṣya then went to Kolita to tell him about the incident and, after reciting the stanza for him, Kolita also attained sotapanna. The two friends, along with a large chunk of Sañjaya's disciples, then ordained as monks under the Buddha, with everybody in the group becoming arhats that day except for Upatiṣya and Kolita. Nyanaponika Thera states that the friends required longer preparatory periods before enlightening in order to fulfill their roles as chief disciples. Several texts describe the ordination with miraculous elements, such as the disciples' clothes suddenly being replaced with Buddhist robes and their hair falling out on its own. After ordaining, Upatiṣya started being called Śāriputra (Pali: Sāriputta), and Kolita started being called Maudgalyāyana (Pali: Moggallāna).
After Śāriputra and Maudgalyāyana ordained, the Buddha declared them his two chief disciples (Pali: aggasavaka), following the tradition of appointing a pair of chief disciples as the past Buddhas did, according to Buddhist belief. Since they were newly ordained some of the monks in the assembly felt offended, but the Buddha explained that he gave them the roles because they had made the resolve to become the chief disciples many lifetimes ago. Maudgalyāyana attained arhatship seven days after ordaining following intense meditation training. Śāriputra attained arhatship two weeks after ordaining while fanning the Buddha as the Buddha was delivering the Vedanāpariggaha Sutta to a wandering ascetic. Pali texts state that the ascetic was Śāriputra's nephew but Chinese, Tibetan and Sanskrit texts state he was Śāriputra's uncle. According to commentaries such as the Atthakatha, Śāriputra took longer to achieve enlightenment than Maudgalyāyana because his knowledge had to be more thorough as first chief disciple, and thus required more preparation time.
Chief disciple
Śāriputra is considered to have been the Buddha's first chief disciple, foremost in wisdom, a title he shared with the nun Kṣemā (Pali: Khemā). He shared the title of chief male disciple with Maudgalyāyana, together described in the Mahāpadāna Sutta as "the chief pair of disciples, the excellent pair" (Pali: sāvakayugaṁ aggaṁ bhaddayugaṁ). In the Mahavagga, the Buddha declared his two chief male disciples as being foremost in wisdom and foremost in psychic powers, referencing Śāriputra and Maudgalyāyana respectively. Texts describe that none of the Buddha's other disciples could answer questions that Maudgalyāyana was able to answer while Maudgalyāyana was unable to answer questions Śāriputra was able to answer. Buddhist tradition maintains that the first chief disciple, Śāriputra, customarily sat to the Buddha's right hand side, while the second chief disciple, Maudgalyāyana, sat to the left. The disciples have thus been stylized as the right hand and left hand disciples of the Buddha in Buddhist tradition and art accordingly.