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Pārileyya, Pārileyyaka

A town (nagara) near Kosambī. When the Buddha found that he could not persuade the Kosambī monks to refrain from quarrelling, he left Kosambī, alone and unattended, and passing through Bālakaloṇakāragāma and Pācīnavaṃsamigadāya, went to Pārileyyaka, where he stayed at the foot of Bhaddasāla in the Rakkhita-vanasanda. There a certain elephant who, finding communal life distasteful, had left his herd, waited on the Buddha, ministering to all his needs. From Pārileyyaka the Buddha went on to Sāvatthi (Vin.i.352 f; S.iii.95; Ud.iv.5; J.iii.489; M.i.320).

This was in the tenth year after the Enlightenment (BuA., p.3). The Commentaries (e.g., DhA.i.48 ff; iv.26 ff. UdA.250 f; see Thomas, op.cit., 117 n ) say that the elephant’s name was Pārileyya, and describe in vivid detail the perfect way in which he looked after the Buddha, omitting nothing, even to the extent of finding hot water for his bath. There was also there a monkey who offered the Buddha a honeycomb. Soon after, the monkey fell on a tree stump and died and was born in Tāvatiṃsa.

Later, when Ānanda came with five hundred others to invite the Buddha to return to Sāvatthi, Pārileyyaka provided them all with food. He died of a broken heart when the Buddha left the forest, and was born in Tāvatiṃsa in a golden palace, thirty leagues high, where he came to be known as Pārileyyaka-devaputta.

This elephant is identified with the elephant of the Bhisa Jātaka. J.iv.314.