The twenty-second of the twenty-four Buddhas and the first of the five Buddhas of the present Bhaddakappa.
He was the son of the brahmin Aggidatta, chaplain of Khemankara, king of Khemavatī, and Visākhā.
He was born in the Khema pleasaunce, and lived for four thousand years in the household in three palaces - Ruci, Suruci and Vaddhana (or Rativaddhana).
His wife was Virocamānā (or Rocanī), and he had a son, Uttara.
He left the world riding in a chariot, and practised austerities for only eight months.
Before his Enlightenment, he was given a meal of milk-rice by the daughter of the brahmin Vajirindha of the village Sucirindha, and grass for his seat by the yavapālaka Subhadda.
His bodhi was a Sirīsa-tree, and his first sermon was preached to eighty-four thousand monks in the park near the city of Makila.
He performed the Twin-Miracle under a Sāla-tree at the gates of Kannakujja. Among his converts was a fierce yakkha named Naradeva.
He held only one assembly of his monks.
Kakusandha's body was forty cubits in height, and he died at the age of forty thousand years in the Khema pleasaunce.
The thūpa erected over his relics was one league high.
The Bodhisatta was at that time a king named Khema. The Buddha's chief disciples were Vidhura and Sañjīva among monks, and Sama and Campā among nuns. His personal attendant was Buddhija. Accuta and Samana, Nandā and Sunandā were his most eminent lay-supporters (D.ii.7; Bu.xxiii; J.i.42; BuA.209ff). Kakusandha kept the fast-day (uposatha) every year (DhA.iii.236). In Kakusandha's time a Māra, named Dūsī (a previous birth of Moggallāna), gave a great deal of trouble to the Buddha and his followers, trying greatly the Buddha's patience (M.i.333ff; Thag.1187). The Samyutta Nikāya (S.ii.190f) mentions that during the time of Kakusandha, the Mount Vepulla of Rājagaha was named Pācīna-vamsa and the inhabitants were called Tivarā.
The monastery built by Accuta on the site where, in the present age, Anāthapindika erected the Jetavanārāma, was half a league in extent, and the ground was bought by golden kacchapas sufficient in number to cover it (J.i.94).
According to the Ceylonese chronicles (Dpv.ii.66; xv.25, 34; xvii.9, 16, etc.; Mhv.xv.57-90), Kakusandha paid a visit to Ceylon. The island was then known as Ojadīpa and its capital was Abhayanagara, where reigned King Abhaya. The Mahāmeghavana was called Mahātittha. The Buddha came, with forty thousand disciples, to rid the island of a pestilence caused by yakkhas and stood on the Devakūta mountain from where, by virtue of his own desire, all inhabitants of the country could see him. The Buddha and his disciples were invited to a meal by the king, and after the meal the Mahātittha garden was presented to the Order; there the Buddha sat, in meditation, in order to consecrate various spots connected with the religion. At the Buddha's wish, the nun Rucānandā brought to the island a branch of the sacred bodhi-tree. The Buddha gave to the people his own drinking-vessel as an object of worship, and returned to Jambudīpa, leaving behind his disciples Mahādeva and Rucānandā to look after the spiritual welfare of the new converts to the faith.
In Buddhist Sanskrit texts the name of the Buddha is given as Krakucchanda (See especially Divy.254, 418f; Mtu.iii.247, 330).
2. Kakusandha Thera.-Author of the Sinhalese Dhātuvamsa, probably a translation from the Pāli. He is generally assigned to the fifteenth century. P.L.C.255.