Buddha s Educational System and Enlightenment through A ṅgulim āla Episodes

ABSTRACT

A ṅgulim āla is a very unique in Buddhist history. He is a serial killer who killed 999 people and is an unacceptable evil man in society. However, he is enlightened by the teachings of the Buddha and becomes an Arahat. A ṅgulim āla has two faces, the murderer and the saint. A ṅgulim āla has a unique meaning in Buddhist history because it relates to how the karma of murder and enlightenment are understood. It is also noteworthy that it shows a Buddhist solution to the way of condemning crime today. There is much to us today about how the Buddha made a vicious killer a saint. The Buddha s educational system, as found in the A ṅgulim āla, is a system of awareness. It allows them to make their own right and wrong judgments, and to fully recognize themselves as the result of their actions with their awareness of karma. And the A ṅgulim āla-sutta shows that it is necessary to judge a person by the present act thoroughly, but not by the act of the past that is already completely cut off. If you are completely out of the bad karma of the past like murder, you are no longer a murderer. The A ṅgulim āla-sutta shows that it is possible to be responsible for accepting the consequences of the act completely because it has escaped the karma of the past.