Utpalavarṇā

Family: Takshaśilā · Role: courtesan · First appears: Chapter X

In Takshaśilā, Utpalavarṇā was born to a wealthy householder and his wife. After giving birth to her first daughter, she witnessed her mother with her husband, left home, and abandoned the newborn with him. Later, a caravan-leader took her as his wife and left her in Mathurā. When she recognized her daughter among the women of that household, she departed again, thinking, “As there I was mother and joint-wife, and here my daughter is joint-wife, I must anyhow depart.”

At Vaiśālī, Utpalavarṇā joined the courtesans and, after beguiling a young grocer, was named their mistress. She later gave birth to a son, whom her maid exposed at the east gate, and then to a daughter, exposed near the western warder’s house. The eastern warder’s son made Utpalavarṇā his wife with the Liććhavis’ permission; in time she learned that he was her exposed son and her fellow-wife was her exposed daughter. After giving birth to another son, she left the household.

Utpalavarṇā travelled to Rājagṛiha and resumed life as a courtesan. There, after hearing Āyushmant Maudgalyāyana, she asked him to teach her the doctrine and recognized the four truths.