Kassapa was born in Isipatana Deer Park. This place is located in Varanasi, a city in the modern-day state of Uttar Pradesh in northern India. His parents were the Brahmadatta and Dhanavatī, of the Kashyap Gotra. According to legend, his body was twenty cubits high, and he lived for two thousand years in three different palaces. They are Hamsa, Yasa, and Sirinanda.. His chief wife was Sunandā, who bore him a son named Vijitasena. Kassapa gave up his worldly life traveling in his palace. He practiced austerities for only seven days. Just before attaining enlightenment, he accepted a meal of milk-rice from his wife and grass for his seat from a yavapālaka named Soma. His Bodhi tree was a banyan, and he preached his first sermon at Isipatana to an assembly of monks who had renounced the world in his company. Kassapa performed the Twin Miracle at the foot of an asana tree outside Sundar Nagar. He held only one assembly of his disciples; among his most famous conversions was that of Nāradeva, a Yaksha. His chief disciples among monks were Tissa and Bhāradvāja, and among nuns were Anulā and Uruvelā, his constant attendant being Sabbamitta. Among his patrons, the most eminent were Sumangala and Ghattīkāra, Vijitasenā, and Bhaddā. Kassapa died at the age of sixteen thousand years, in the city ofKashi, in the Kashi Kingdom. Over his relics was raised a stupa one league in height, each brick of which was worth one crore rupees.
The Stupa of Kassapa Buddha
There was initially a great difference of opinion on what should be the size of the stupa and of what material it should be built. Construction of the stupa was begun after these issues were finally settled. But then the citizens found they lacked sufficient funds to complete the stupa. An anāgāmi devotee named Sorata travelled throughout Jambudvipa, requesting money from the people for the completion of the stupa. He sent the money as he received it, and on hearing that the work was completed, he set out to go and worship the stupa. However, he was seized by robbers and murdered in the forest, which later came to be known as the Andhavana. Upavāna, in a previous birth, became the guardian deity of the stupa, hence his great majesty in his last life. Among the thirty-seven goddesses noticed by Guttila when he visited heaven was one who had offered a scented five-spray at the stupa. Alāta offered āneja-flowers and obtained a happy rebirth. The cause of Mahākāśyapa's golden complexion was his gift of a golden brick to the building of Kassapa's shrine. At the same stupa, Anuruddha, who was then a householder in Varanasi, offered butter and molasses in brass bowls, which were placed without any interval around the stupa.
