Khema (Pali: Khem?; Sanskrit: K?em?) was a Buddhist bhikkhuni, or nun, who was considered one of the foremost female disciples of the Buddha. She was born into a noble family in the ancient Kingdom of Madra, and was the wife of King Bimbisara of the ancient Indian kingdom of Magadha. Khema was convinced to visit the Buddha by her husband, who hired poets to sing about the beauty of the monastery he was staying at to her. She attained arahantship, or the final stage of enlightenment, as a layperson while listening to one of the Buddha's sermons. Following her attainment, Khema entered the monastic life under the Buddha as a bhikkhuni. The Buddha declared her his female disciple foremost in wisdom. Khema is considered the first of the Buddha's two chief female disciples, along with Uppalavanna. Her male counterpart was Sariputta.
Background
In Buddhist belief, when a fully enlightened Buddha arrives in the world, he always has a set of chief disciples. For the current Buddha, Gautama, his chief male disciples were Sariputta and Moggallana, while his chief female disciples were Khema and Uppalavanna.
According to the Pali Canon, in a previous life Khema was born a woman in the time of Padumattara Buddha and witnessed him declare one of his nuns foremost in wisdom. After hearing the declaration, the woman made the resolution to become the female disciple foremost in wisdom under a future Buddha and did many good deeds for several lifetimes in hopes of becoming one. This wish came true in the time of Gautama Buddha, when she was reborn as Khema.
Early life and marriage
Khema was born in the city of Sagala as a member of a noble family in the Madra Kingdom. Her name means "security" and is sometimes used as a synonym for Nirvana. Khema was described as being immensely beautiful and having a radiant golden complexion. When she came of age she married King Bimbisara of the kingdom of Magadha and became one of his chief royal consorts.
Meeting the Buddha
As a chief consort of the king, Khema developed a strong attachment to her beauty and became very vain. As a devout Buddhist himself, King Bimbisara tried multiple times to get his wife to visit the Buddha but Khema always refused. Khema had a strong attachment to her looks and knew the Buddha found fault with physical beauty. Knowing Khema loved beautiful things, King Bimbisara hired poets to recite poems in front of Khema describing the beauty of the monastery the Buddha was staying at in order to entice her to visit. Hearing about the beauty of the monastery, Khema became curious and went to visit the monastery. In order to ensure that Khema encounter the Buddha, King Bimbisara ordered the guards accompanying her to guide the Queen to the Buddha.
As Khema toured the monastery and approached the main hall the Buddha was staying in, the Buddha read her mind and used psychic powers to conjure up an image of a woman even more beautiful than her to appear fanning him. Stunned by the beautiful woman, Khema thought she was mistaken about the Buddha disparaging beauty. As Khema fixated on the image of the beautiful woman, the Buddha aged the image before her eyes, from youth, middle age, old age and then death. Seeing the image of the beautiful woman age and die, Khema realized she too must share the same fate. The Buddha then preached to her about the impermanence of beauty until she attained stream-entry, a level of enlightenment. The Buddha then continued to preach to her about the problems of attachment to worldly desires until she attained arahantship. Following the attainment she joined the Buddha's monastic community and became a bhikkhuni. The story of Khema's enlightenment is considered notable in Buddhist tradition because it is a rare case of a laywoman attaining arahantship before becoming a monastic.
Chief disciple
After going forth as a bhikkhuni, Khema became known for wisdom. She famously preached to King Pasenadi on the issue of the existence of the Buddha after death, explaining that the Buddha is unfathomable and that defining him as existing or not existing after death is impossible. King Pasenadi later asks the same questions to the Buddha himself who, to the king's amazement, answers the same way Khema did. At one point after her ordination, Mara attempted to guide Khema away from the monastic life. Mara takes the form of a young man and attempts to seduce her, but in a drastic shift from her previous conceit, Khema describes her disgust for the human body and explains that she has moved beyond any attachment to the senses. She is also associated with figures in a variety of jataka tales and stories set in the time of the previous Buddhas.
The Buddha designated Khema the female disciple foremost in wisdom. The Buddha also praised her for her teaching and leadership skills, declaring Khema and Uppalavanna his chief female disciples that other nuns should take as their model. Uppalavanna and Khema share the title of chief disciples with their male counterparts, Maha Moggallana and Sariputta.
Legacy
Khema is viewed as an accomplished disciple of the Buddha. According to German Buddhist monk Nyanaponika Thera and Pali scholar Hellman Hecker, Khema's unusually fast attainment of arahantship was no accident, but was something she earned from the great merit that she accumulated over numerous lifetimes as described in the jatakas. Buddhist writer Susan Murcott argues that Khema's exchange with a powerful king such as King Pasenadi shows how well respected she was, given that society at the time did not even allow female nuns to teach male monks. Anthropologist Ranjini Obeyesekere notes that of the Buddha's two pairs of chief disciples, each pair had one disciple that was dark-skinned (Maha Moggallana and Uppalavanna) and one disciple that was light-skinned (Sariputta and Khema). Obeyesekere argues that this pairing is meant to symbolize the inclusiveness of the Buddha's teachings, that the Dhamma is meant for people of all skin tones and classes.
