He belonged to a merchant family of Setavyá, and, while on a journey to Sávatthi with five hundred carts, he heard the Buddha preach at Jetavana and entered the Order. He lived in the charnel field meditating, and, one day, the crematrix Kálá, noticing him, arranged the limbs of a recently cremated body near the Thera that he might gaze at them. With these as a topic of meditation, he soon became an arahant.
Thag.vss.151f.; his story is given in much greater detail at DhA.i.66ff.; there he is said to have been the eldest of three brothers, of whom the others were Majjhimakála and Cúlakála. He went with the latter to Sávatthi, where both of them joined the Order. After becoming an arahant, Mahákála went with the Buddha to Setavyá and dwelt in the Simsapá grove, Cúlakála accompanying him. Cúlakála's wives invited the Buddha and the other monks to a meal, and he himself went on earlier to make arrangements. His wives disrobed him. At the end of the meal, Mahákála was left behind by the Buddha to make the thanksgiving. His eight wives surrounded him and stripped him of his robes, but, knowing their intention, he disappeared through the air.
Ninety one kappas ago, while wandering near the mountain Urugana, he saw the rag robe of an ascetic and offered three kinkinika flowers in its honour (ThagA.i.271f). He is probably identical with Pamsukúlapújaka Thera of the Apadána. Ap.ii.434; but see ThagA.i.79, where the same Apadána verses are quoted.
An upásaka of Savatthi who was a sotápanna. One day he took the uposatha vows and, having listened throughout the night to the preaching, was washing his face in the pool near Jetavana early the next morning, when thieves who had broken into a house and were being pursued put their stolen goods near him and ran away. He, being taken for a thief, was beaten to death. When this was reported to the Buddha, he related a story of the past in which Mahákála had been a forest guard of the king of Benares. One day he saw a man entering the forest road with his beautiful wife and, falling in love with the wife, invited them to his house. He then had a gem placed in the man's cart, and the latter was beaten to death as a thief. DhA.iii.149ff.
A Naga king who dwelt in the Mańjerika Nágabhavana. When the Buddha, after eating the meal given by Sujátá, launched the bowl up stream, it travelled a short way and then stopped, having reached the Nága's abode under the Nerańjará, and then came into contact with the bowls similarly launched by the three previous Buddhas of this kappa. To the Nága because of his long life it seemed that the previous Buddha had died only the preceding day, and he rejoiced to think that another had been born. He went therefore to the scene of the Buddha's Enlightenment with his Nága maidens and they sang the Buddha's praises. J.i.70, 72; this incident is among those sculpturally represented in the Relic Chamber of the Mahá Thúpa (Mhv.xxxi.83); see also Dvy.392; Mtu.ii.265, 302, 304.
Kála's life span was one kappa; therefore he saw all the four Buddhas of this kappa, and when Asoka wished to see the form of the Buddha, he sent for Mahákála, who created for him a beautiful figure of the Buddha, complete in every detail (Mhv.v.87f.; Sp.i.43, etc.).
When the Buddha's relics, deposited at Rámagáma, were washed away, Mahákála took the basket containing them into his abode and there did them honour till they were removed, against his will, by Sonuttara. Mhv.xxxi.25ff.
4. Mahákála. A householder of Bandhumati in the time of Vipassí Buddha. He was a previous birth of Ańńá-Kondańńa. He and his brother Cúlakála gave the first fruits of their harvest, in nine stages of its growth, to the Buddha. AA.i.79ff.; ThagA.ii.1f.
5. Mahákála. One of the seven mountains surrounding Gandhamádana. SNA.i.66; J.v.38.