1. ādiccabandhu.-An often-used epithet of the Buddha (E.g., D.iii.197; Sn.v.1128; Thag. 26, 158, 417, etc.). The Vimanavatthu Commentary (p.116) says that ādicca (the Sun) belonged to the Gotamagotta, as did also the Buddha, hence his epithet ādiccabandhu; other explanations are given in the same context: the Buddha is born in the same ariyā jāti and is the descendant of the Sun (tam paticca tassa ariyāya jātiya jātattā), or the Sun is the Buddha's kinsman because the Sun is the Buddha's orasaputta (breast-born son) inasmuch as the Sun is the Buddha's disciple. It is in this sense that in the Samyutta Nikāya (S.i.57) the Buddha speaks of the sun as "mama pajā," which Buddhaghosa (SA.i.86) explains as meaning disciple and spiritual son.
ādicca is described as tapatam mukham (chief of heat-producing things). MA.ii.783.
2. ādiccabandhu.-A Pacceka Buddha who was instrumental in enabling the author (son of the King of Benares) of the twentieth verse of the Khaggavisāna Sutta to become a Pacceka Buddha. ādiccabandhu saw that the young prince, who had renounced the world and was living in his father's park near the city, did not, on account of the visits of his parents and others, have sufficient peace of mind to develop his power of meditation.
He, therefore, visited the prince and persuaded him to go into the forest by showing him how real pabbajitas lived. The first two lines of the Sutta Nipāta verse (No. 54) were uttered by ādiccabandhu. Sn.v.54; SnA.i.104-5; see also ApA.i.105, 152.