Chapter 25
This was their censorious reply: ‚Sister Cincamanavika... don't you know that the Recluse
Gotama has been going round and doing harm to us by depriving us of our gifts?‛
Whereupon, Cincamanavika said: ‚I know nothing about this. What can I do for you in
this matter?‛ They gave her this express reply: ‚Cincamanavika .... if you have our welfare
at heart, you might calumniate the Recluse Gotama by using your personal charm as an
instrument to destroy His fame, honour and gifts.‛ She was thus charged with the task of
performing a dirty job.
Cincamana's Wily Tactics
Cincamana pledged boldly: ‚Very well, good Sirs, ... you may rest assured that I will
accomplish the task entrusted to me. Have no more worries over this matter,‛ and she left
the park of the heretics. She then started to bring her wily tactics into action. She dressed
herself in a costume that was as red as the colour of a flying insect and made her way
towards Jetavana monastery with a bouquet in her hand, at about the time when people
were leaving the monastery after hearing the discourses. People casually asked her: ‚Where
are you headed for?‛ she replied: ‚What would you gain when you know my destination?‛
arousing people's suspicion on her. She actually went her way into the parks of heretics in
the proximity of Jetavana monastery and spent her nights there. At the time people were
arriving from the city of Savatthi to pay an early homage to the Buddha, she prepared
herself to look as if she had spent the night at the Jetavana monastery and was making her
way back to Savatthi. When asked as to where she had passed the night, she gave a similar
answer: ‚What would you gain when you know where I slept last night?‛ to create
suspicion in their minds.
She went on keeping the same routine everyday. After a lapse of one and a half month
she began her campaign of imputation by replying: ‚I passed the night with the Recluse
Gotama in His Scented Chamber.‛ That caused the ordinary people to wonder whether she
might be speaking the truth. Some three or four months later, she pretended pregnancy by
tying her abdomen with rags and covering herself with red dress. And she started telling
people that she got pregnant by the Recluse Gotama, an accusation wrongly believed by
unthinking people.
Foul Accusation In Front of Four Kinds of Audience
After a lapse of eight or nine months, Cincamanavika tied a disc of wood, which was cut
into the shape of half of an egg, round her body and wore a red costume to assume the
form of a pregnant woman. She struck her hands and feet with the jaw bones of a cow to
appear like a worn out fatiguing expectant mother. She then made her way one evening to
where the Buddha was sitting on the Throne of Dhamma and preaching to four kinds of
audience. She stood right in front of the Buddha and made the following malicious
accusation:
‚Big Recluse, .... You have been calmly preaching to the people keeping
compressed lips! As for me, I have become an expectant mother through
association with You. You have a heart to remain without thinking about
arrangement's for confinement or for collection of butter-oil. If You don't care to
do such things Yourself, You should have charged King Kosala or AnÈthapiÓÉika
or to Visakha, the donor of the monastery with the task to do the needful for me.
You have remained irresponsible and callous towards Your own blood, but You
know how to amuse Yourself by sensual pleasures.‛
Cincamana thus levelled a malicious accusation against the Buddha in the presence of a
huge congregation like a stupid woman trying to destroy the moon with a lump of faeces in
her hand! Whereupon, the Buddha suspended His preaching and, like a lion king, refuted
her charge with a raised voice:-
‚Sister Cincamana .... Only you and I know whether what you have just said is true
or false.‛
Cincamana was not to be daunted, she made another wave of attack by these words: