An arahant. During the Akkhakkháyika famine, Dutthagámaní provided him and four others with a dish of sour millet gruel, which was purchased with the proceeds of the sale of the king's earrings (Mhv.xxxii.30). Mahádeva took his portion to Sumanakúta and shared it with nine hundred others (Mhv.xxxii.49). He was also among the eight arahants who accepted a meal of pork from Sáliya in his previous birth as a blacksmith (MT.606). He was probably so called because he lived at Kotapabbata in the Malaya country. MT.606 he is called Kotapabbatavásika.
It is said that for three years after his ordination Mahádeva lived in the Maindalárámaka vihára (Mahádeva called Maliyadeva in the context (AA.i.22), but further on in the same passage (p.23) he is addressed as Mahádeva). One day, while going for alms in Kallagáma, near by, he was invited by an upásiká to her dwelling, where she gave him a meal, and, regarding him as a son, invited him to take all his meals at her home. The invitation was accepted, and each day, after the meal, he would return thanks with the words "May you be happy and free from sorrow" (sukham hotu, dukkhá mucca). At the end of the rainy season he became an arahant, and the chief incumbent of the Vihára entrusted him with the task of preaching to the assembled people on the Pavárana Day. The young novices informed the upásiká that her "son" would preach that day, but she, thinking they were making fun of her, said that not everyone could preach. But they persuaded her to go to the vihára, and, when the turn of Maliyadeva came, he preached all through the night. At dawn he stopped, and the upásiká became a sotápanna.
Maliyadeva once preached the Cha Chakka Sutta in the Lohápásáda, and sixty monks, who listened to him, became arahants. He also preached the same sutta in the Mahámandapa, in the Mahávihára, at Cetíyapabbata, at Sákyavamsa vihára, at Kutáli vihára, at Antara-sobbha, Mutingana, Vátakapabbata, Pácínagharaka, Díghavápí, Lokandara, and Gamendavála, and, at each place, sixty monks attained arahantship. At Cittalapabbata he saw a monk of over sixty preparing to bathe at Kuruvakatittha, and asked permission to bathe him. The Elder, discovering from his conversation that he was Maliyadeva, agreed to let him do so, though, he said, no one had ever touched his body during sixty years. Later in the day, the Elder begged Maliyadeva to preach to him, and this he did. Sixty monks, all over sixty, were among the audience, and at the conclusion of the Cha Chakka Sutta they all became arahants. The same thing happened at Tissamahávihára, Kalyáni vihára, Nágamahávihara, Kalacchagáma, and at other places, sixty in all (MA.ii.1024f).
Malaya Mahádeva was among those various large groups who renounced the world in the company of the Bodhisatta: the Kuddálasamágama, Múgapakkha samágama, Cúlasutasoma samágama, Ayogharapandita samágama and Hatthipála samágama (J.iv.490; also vi.30, where Mahámaliyadeva is called Kálavelavásí). It is said (Vsm.241) that two monks once asked Malaya Mahádeva for a subject of meditation, and that he gave them the formula of the thirty two parts of the body. Though versed in the three Nikáyas, the monks could not become sotápannas until they had recited the formula for a period of four months.