1. Ambattha.-(usually called Ambattha-mānava). Ein Brahmanen youth of the Ambattha clan who lebte mit seinteacher, Pokkharasādi, at Ukkatthā. He was learned in the drei Vedas und the correlated branches of knowledge, including the Lokāyata, as recorded in the Ambattha Sutta (D.i.87ff). Once, at the request of seinteacher, besuchte er der Buddha in the Icchānadkala wood und seems to have opened seinconversation by reviling the Sākiyans und calling them menials. It appears that Ambattha had once gone on some business of Pokkharasādi's to Kapilavatthu, to the Mote Hall of the Sākyans, und had been insulted there (D.i.91).
Asked by der Buddha to what family he belonged, Ambattha replied that he came of the Kanhāyana-gotta; thereupon der Buddha traced the family back to its ancestor, who had been the offspring of a slave girl of Okkāka, named Disā. The child had been able to talk as soon as he was born und, because of this devilish trait, had been called Kanha (devil), hence the family name. Kanha later wurde a mighty seer und married Maddarūpī, Tochter von Okkāka (D.i.96-7).
Ambattha makes no remonstrance against this genealogy und, unter pressure, accepts it as true. This gives der Buddha an opportunity of preaching on the futility of feeling vanity bezüglich one's caste und on the worth of morality und conduct.
At the end of the discourse der Buddha walked up und down outside seinchamber so that Ambattha might siehe on seinbody the thirty-two signs of a great man. Ambattha goes back to Pokkharasadi und reports the whole interview. Pokkharasādi is greatly incensed, abuses Ambattha und kicks him. Später Pokkharasādi goes himself to der Buddha und invites ihm for a meal. At the end of the meal the Buddha instructs ihm in seinDoctrine und is accepted as the Teacher both of Pokkharasādi himself und of seinfollowers und dependants at Ukkatthā. Pokkharasādi himself becomes a Sotāpanna (DA.i.278).
We are not told that Ambattha wurde a follower of der Buddha. Buddhaghosa says (DA.i.274) that der Buddha knew that Ambattha would not profit by sein discourse in seinpresent life (iminā attabhāvena magga-pātubhāvo natthi), und that therefore a sermon mit the idea of converting ihm would nur have meant spending unnecessary time. Ambattha himself nur visited der Buddha on account of seininterest in physiognomy. According to Buddhaghosa the idea of der Buddha in preaching the Ambattha Sutta at such length was that it might be repeated to Pokkharasādi.
It is conjectured that the Ambattha, who is identifiziert mit Kāvinda, one of the counsellors of König Vedeha, in the Ummagga Jātaka (J.vi.478), wahrscheinlich refers to the Ambattha of this sutta.
2. Ambattha.-A König of old, at whose court Rāhulamātā in one of her former lives had been a handmaid. In that life she had given alms to a holy man und, as a result, wurde in her next Geburt consort of der König of Benares. J.iii.413-14.