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Sukkā

1. Sukkā Therī.– She belonged to a householder’s family of Rājagaha, and, very impressed by the Buddha’s majesty when he visited Rājagaha, she became a lay believer. Later she heard Dhammadinnā teach, and entered the Order under her, attaining Arahantship not long after.

In the time of Vipassī Buddha she had been a nun, and, after a sojourn in Tusita, she was again a nun in the time of Sikhī, Vessabhū, Kakusandha, Koṇāgamana, and Kassapa Buddha.

In her last life she was a great teacher, at the head of five hundred nuns. One particular discourse to the nuns is specially mentioned, and a tree sprite, living at the end of the nun’s walking-path (caṅkamana), went about Rājagaha, singing Sukkā’s praises. People, hearing the sprite, flocked to hear Sukkā.

Thig.vss.54‑6; ThigA.57 f ; Ap.ii.605 f; the incident of the tree sprite’s praise is twice mentioned in the Saṃyuttanikāya as well. There the sprite is called a yakkha (S.i.212); in the second account (ibid., 213) it says that the yakkha’s praise was owing to a meal given to Sukkā by a lay follower of Rājagaha.

2. Sukkā.– A class of devā who were present, in the company of the Veghanasā, at the teaching of the Mahāsamaya Sutta. D.ii.261.