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Padumavatī

1. Padumavatī.– Mother of five hundred Pacceka Buddhas. She was once a householder’s daughter in a village near Bārāṇasī; one day, while guarding her father’s field, she saw a Pacceka Buddha, and gave him a lotus with five hundred grains of fried rice (lājā), making a wish to have five hundred sons. At that moment, five hundred hunters who stood by gave honey and flesh to the Pacceka Buddha and expressed their wish to be her sons. Later, she was born in a lotus pond, within a lotus. An ascetic, seeing her, brought her up. Wherever she went, lotuses sprang up at her every footstep. The King of Bārāṇasī, hearing of her made her his chief consort. She gave birth to five hundred sons, the eldest being Mahāpaduma. All of them became Pacceka Buddhas (MA.ii.889).

The Aṅguttaranikāya Commentary mentions that Padumavatī was a previous birth of the Therī Uppalavaṇṇā, and gives her story with much greater detail (i.188 ff; see Uppalavaṇṇā, also ThigA.185 ff).

2. Padumavatī.– A courtesan of Ujjenī, who later became Abhayamātā Therī.