Kisa Gotami

Kisa Gotami was the wife of a wealthy man of Savatthi. She
had only one child. When her son was old enough to start
running about, he caught a disease and died. Kisa Gotami
was greatly saddened. Unable to accept that her son was dead
and could not be brought back to life again, she took him in
her arms and went about asking for medicine to cure him.
Everyone she encountered thought that she had lost her mind.
Finally, an old man told her that if there was anyone who could
help her, it would be the Buddha.

In her distress, Kisa Gotami brought the body of her son
to the Buddha and asked him for a medicine that would bring
back his life. The Buddha answered, “I shall cure him if you
can bring me some white mustard seeds from a house where no
one has died.” Carrying her dead son, she went from door to
door, asking at each house. At each house the reply was always
that someone had died there. At last the truth struck her, “No
house is free from death.” She laid the body of her child in the
woods and returned to the Buddha, who comforted her and
preached to her the truth. She was awakened and entered the
first stage of arhatship (attainment of religious goals according
to Buddhism and Jainism). Eventually, she became an arhat.