Their story
Early Buddhist texts describe Moggallāna as Sāriputta's friend from boyhood. Having joined the Buddha together, the two became his chief disciples: Sāriputta foremost in wisdom, Moggallāna foremost in spiritual powers.
A discourse shows him before his awakening, nodding off in meditation, and the Buddha visiting him with advice on how to stay awake. Many stories give him journeys to other realms, where he spoke with gods and with beings in the hells and brought back reports that illustrated the Buddha's teaching on the results of actions.
Later tradition holds that he was killed by bandits hired by rival ascetics, shortly before the Buddha's own death, and explains his violent end as the ripening of a deed in a past life.
The world they lived in
The early community prized mastery of meditation, and the wider Indian world took it for granted that deep concentration brought extraordinary powers. The texts treat Moggallāna's powers as real, but always as secondary to insight and liberation.
Their contribution
He shared leadership of the early community with Sāriputta and guided monks in meditation. In the stories told about him, the Buddha's picture of the world became vivid: heavens, hells and hungry ghosts, and the moral causes that lead beings there.
Teachings and works
Measuring Up (Anumāna Sutta, MN 15)
His teaching on how monks should accept and give correction.
Related teachings
Their legacy
In China, the Ullambana Sūtra told how Mulian saw his mother suffering as a hungry ghost and, on the Buddha's advice, saved her through offerings to the monastic community. The story became the basis of the Ghost Festival in China and Obon in Japan, still observed every summer.
History and tradition
What history can establish
Known only from Buddhist texts. Relic caskets bearing his name alongside Sāriputta's, found at Sanchi, show early veneration of the pair in central India.
What Buddhist tradition remembers
The Ullambana Sūtra survives only in Chinese and was probably composed in China. It builds on older Indian stories, such as those of the Petavatthu, in which disciples help the dead.
