Their story
Early Buddhist texts describe Sāriputta as a brahmin's son from near Rājagaha who, with his childhood friend Moggallāna, became a follower of the wandering teacher Sañjaya. The two agreed that whichever of them first found the deathless would tell the other.
Tradition holds that Sāriputta met the monk Assaji on his almsround and heard a single verse: of things that arise from a cause, the Tathāgata has told the cause, and also their ending. He understood at once, told Moggallāna, and both joined the Buddha.
The Buddha named the pair his chief disciples. Sāriputta taught widely; several discourses in the Pāli Canon are his own, and in others the Buddha praises his analysis. A discourse in the Saṃyutta Nikāya reports his death, before the Buddha's, and Ānanda's grief on hearing the news.
The world they lived in
He came from the brahmin learning of Magadha and the restless world of wandering teachers, where debate was a way of life. His gift for systematic explanation met the needs of a young community that had to organise and pass on the teaching by memory.
Their contribution
He gave the teaching structure. Discourses attributed to him, such as the Saṅgīti Sutta, arrange doctrines in numbered lists, a method that helped monks memorise them and grew into the Abhidharma.
Teachings and works
Right View (Sammādiṭṭhi Sutta, MN 9)
His detailed explanation of right view.
Reciting in Concert (Saṅgīti Sutta, DN 33)
Teachings arranged by number, given at the Buddha's request.
Verses in the Theragāthā (Thag 17.2)
Related teachings
Their legacy
In Theravāda he is the model of wisdom, and tradition says the Abhidhamma was passed down through him. In Mahāyāna sūtras he often appears as the voice of the older teaching, questioned or outshone by bodhisattvas, a sign of how central he was to the tradition they were answering.
History and tradition
What history can establish
Like the other early disciples, Sāriputta is known only from Buddhist texts. Relic caskets inscribed with his name and Moggallāna's, found at Sanchi in the 1850s, show that he was venerated in central India within a few centuries.
What Buddhist tradition remembers
Theravāda tradition adds that the Buddha taught the Abhidhamma to the gods and then to Sāriputta, who passed it on to his students, and that he died in the room where he was born, after teaching his own mother.
