A young brahmin, sixteen years old, of Sávatthi, very learned in the Vedas and allied subjects. Five hundred brahmins staying in the city asked him to hold a discussion with the Buddha and refute his views. He agreed only after repeated requests, because, he said, Gotama was a thinker with views of his own and, therefore, difficult to defeat in controversy.
He visits the Buddha and asks what he has to say concerning the claims of the brahmins to be the only superior class, the legitimate sons of Brahma.
Assaláyana sits silent and upset at the end of the discourse, but when the Buddha relates to him a story of the past where Asita Devala had defeated brahmins who held these same views, Assaláyana feels relieved and expresses his admiration of the Buddha's exposition. He declares himself a follower of the Buddha (M.ii.147ff). Buddhaghosa (MA.ii.785) tells us further that Assaláyana became a devoted follower of the faith and built a cetiya in his own residence for worship, and that all his descendants, down to Buddhaghosa's day, built similar cetiyas in their houses.
Assaláyana is probably to be identified with the father of Mahákotthita, his wife being Candavati. There is, however, one difficulty connected with this theory: Mahákotthita says that he was won over to the faith after hearing the same sermon of the Buddha as converted his father (yadá me pitaram Buddho vinayí sabbasuddhiyá) (ThagA.i.31; Ap.ii.480). It is unlikely, if the identification be correct, that this refers to the Assaláyana Sutta, because at the time of that Sutta, Assaláyana was only sixteen years old; but there exists no record of any other sutta preached to Assaláyana, dealing with "sabbasuddhi."
Assalayána's name occurs in a list of eminent brahmins found in the Sutta-Nipáta Commentary (i.372).
Assaláyana Sutta.-Records the conversation between the Buddha and Assaláyana when the latter went to visit him. M.ii.147ff.