The Buddha's second chief disciple was converted by a verse he heard secondhand
Two boyhood friends made a pact: whoever found the truth first would tell the other. One met a monk who summed up the Buddha's teaching in a single stanza about causes, and passed it on. The listener, Maudgalyāyana, became one of the Buddha's two foremost disciples, famed for his supernatural powers.
Tradition says he was born Kolita, son of a village chief, in the village that gave him his name, now identified with Juafardih near Nalanda. He shared a birthday with his friend Upatiṣya, the future Śāriputra. Struck by a sense of futility while watching a festival, the pair left home to follow the wandering teacher Sañjaya. Some canons portray Sañjaya as a sceptic who refused to answer speculative questions; others describe him as a gifted visionary who fell ill and died, leaving his pupils to search on.
Splitting up, the friends agreed to share any discovery. Upatiṣya met Aśvajit, one of the Buddha's first five disciples, who apologised that he was newly ordained and could teach only a little, then offered a short verse about phenomena arising from causes and ceasing when those causes end. It became the most inscribed verse in the Buddhist world. Both friends reached the first stage of awakening on hearing it, and together with Sañjaya's five hundred students they ordained under the Buddha at Veṇuvana.
The Buddha seated them at once as his chief male disciples, provoking grumbling from older monks; he explained that the two had vowed to reach that rank lifetimes earlier. The early canons agree that Śāriputra excelled in wisdom while Maudgalyāyana's speciality was psychic power, which he used in teaching. He is credited with reuniting the monastic order after Devadatta's schism and linked to stories of the first Buddha image. Temple art typically shows the pair flanking the Buddha, although later images favour Ānanda and Mahākāśyapa instead.
Scriptures say he died at eighty-four, killed at the instigation of a rival sect, and explain this fate as karma from having killed his parents in a former life. Paradoxically, later texts made him a model of devotion to a parent: the story of him passing his merit to his mother inspired the ghost festival, when people across many Buddhist countries dedicate merit to their ancestors. Relics attributed to him were found in the nineteenth century.
Source: Maudgalyayana
