- Feb 3
- 6 min read
Updated: Feb 7
Tathālokā Therī
February 3, 2026
🏵️🌗✨ February 8th-9th 2026 Half Moon Kaṇha Aṭṭhamī Uposatha 🏵️ Parinibbāna Day of Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī Therī & Founding Mothers of the Buddha's Bhikkhunī Sangha 🏵️
. . . offering this special dedicated post 1 of 7*. . .
*Wherefore this date?*
Venerable monastics and Dhamma friends have been asking me: "how do you know about Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī's parinibbāna date? - how did you learn about that?"
And: "how can I learn about that? - I want to know, I want to understand."
Others have said: "the posts are spread out here and there and are hard to find - can you gather them together?"
I will try...
I was amazing to learn that there are parinibbāna stories of our great arahant therīs passed down in the Pāli canon (Tipitaka). It was not long after we founded Dhammadharini that i first learned about the story of our bhikkhunī founding mother's parinibbāna story from Jonathan Walter's "A Voice from the Silence: the Buddha's Mother's Story" which was published in 1994. We didn't have the ease of access to the Tipitaka online that we do now back then.
A few years later, perhaps in 2007-2008, i heard from Bhante Sujato that a canonical Chinese text parallel to the canonical "Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī Therī Apadāna" gave the date: the text he was referring to clearly stated this to be three months prior to the Mahāparinibbāna or "Great Final Passing" of the Buddha himself.
That date, the full moon three months prior to Vesak, is well remembered in the Theravāda Buddhist traditions and commemorated annually as Māgha Pūjā or the Māgha Puṇṇamī in Pāli and Māgh or Māghi Purnima in India.
So, from 2012, we began with Dhammadharini to commemorate "Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī Parinibbāna Day" as one of the great events in the Buddha's lifetime to be recollected and commemorated on the Māgha Full Moon, as part of Māgha Pūjā. Gradually, more and more people joined us in doing so, expressing appreciation.
Ten years later, in 2018, we found the reference in Dr. Shobha Rani Dash's book Mahāpajāpatī: the First Bhikkhunī on sale in Japan! Shobha Rani Dash, from India, as part of her studies in Japan, learned to read classical Han Chinese and translated relevant portions from several texts in the Chinese 'Taisho' Tripitaka. It was a breakthrough! With the references, thanks to the work of late venerable elder Dharma Sister Heng Cheng Shi, I could look up the Chinese texts myself on CBETA! - that was so exciting at the time - such a breakthrough!
Here in these pages (shared above), we can clearly see the reference to the lines of the Canonical Ekottarāgama (aka Ekottarika Āgama, a Chinese parallel to the Pāli-text Angūttara Nikaya) preserved in the Taisho Tripitaka. It is the words "three months, three moons, 三月" which appear here at the bottom right of p 135 that are most important.
Two years earlier, in 2016, Ven. Bhikkhu Anālayo had published an incredible, nearly 700-page long volume titled Ekottarika-āgama Studies (which included this text). In 2020, we came to learn that he had studied and written on this very same text (screenshotted here).
Also in 2016, Ven. Bhikkhunī Dhammadinnā (Italy), published "The Parinirvāṇa of Mahāprajāpatī Gautamī and Her Followers in the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya" (Part 1) and "The Funeral of Mahāprajāpatī Gautamī and Her Followers in the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya" (Part II) - with translations of the MSV Vinaya parallel from both the Chinese Tripitaka and Tibetan Tripitaka (also screenshotted here).
This was all the more groundbreaking.
Why? Because a very important further detail emerged:
That upon learning of the Blessed One, the Buddha's, announcement of his own pending Mahāparinibbāna three months hence, not only did she decide, at that very ripe old age of 120 that it was time for her parinibbāna as well; she decided to give final seven days of teachings. These texts clearly recorded her Parinibbāna, and with her that of hundreds of her bhikkhunī cofounders who had gone forth together ~
~ on the "Eight Day Uposatha," that is the Aṭṭhamī in Pāli and Asthami in modern India, the waning lunar quarter (half moon) Uposatha 🌕✨.
That is, one lunar week after the Māgha full moon.
This was a breakthrough.
It was in 2020 that our Dhammadharini Bhikkhunis' community decided to begin to commemorate this on its own historical date.
We did so encouraged by our Dhamma friends and venerable Bhikkhuni Dhamma sisters and mothers and daughters from India.
Why?
Because in India, there is a deep an ancient tradition of remembering and commemorating such dates, not only on the nearest full moon, but on those dates themselves.
As the week before the Māgha full moon, the arahatship of great disciple Mahā Moggallāna is remembered. As the week after the Vesak full moon, the Buddha's cremation and the Parinibbāna of Ananda Thero is remembered.
And in this way, as our Buddhist forebears, in transmitting the Dhamma from India across the Silk Road into China and across the Himalayas into Tibet made the effort and took the special care to record the Parinibbāna Day of great disciple Mahāprajāpatī Gotamī, on the Eighth Day Uposatha, three months less one week prior to the Buddha's own Mahā Parinibbāna.
It is not something new. It is something very old.
That was lost and forgotten for sometime, and is now reawakened and coming alive again. Like our own knowing in the Dhamma awakens, and we remember. Like the Buddhist heritage is rising from the soil of it's homeland once again.
And with this together, in the diaries and records of the great pilgrims, the place, which they themselves visited, and were introduced to, was recorded as well. The Retracing Bodhisattva Xuanzang project has done great work with this.
Such that the ancient texts, the sacred sites, and the living commemoration and remembrance, are all beginning to come alive together again, in our time, in landscape, and in our minds and hearts.
I hope this is helpful for you.
With deep appreciation for the treasures of the ancient tradition and path which continue to rise to meet us and bless us with their profundity, inspiration and encouragement,
- Tathālokā Therī, bowing to the Buddha in gratitude
🏵️🏵️🏵️🌹🏵️🙏🙏🙏🏵️🌹🏵️🏵️🏵️
. . .
* This year our Dhammadharini Bhikkhuni Sangha's first week of winter retreat coincides with the final seven days of our Arhat Therī foremother's "entering final Nirvāna" teachings. I hope to post something in dedication in each day, dedicated to her, to all our awakened founding mothers, and to all of us now, especially those with the heart to have walked and to be walking in the awakening Footsteps of Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī: Honoring Women in Dhamma.
. . .
References / Images shared here
1. Screenshot of Mahāpajāpatī Parinibbāna Day Feb 9th 2026 from February of the Buddhist Year 2569 BE / Common Era 2026 CE Calendar of Lunar Uposatha Days with English, Pāli months & dates - Puṇṇamī Pūjā - Pūjanīya Uposatha Divasa prepared and offered as Dāna to the Buddha-Dhamma-Sangha by Dhamma Asoka-Vidisa Devi Buddhist Society of Chennai, India. Learn more.
2. Prof. Dr. Shobha Rani Dash's groundbreaking translation work on comparative analysis on the life of Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī Therī as expressed in the Pāli and Chinese Early Buddhist texts in Mahāpajāpatī: The First Bhikkhunī.
3. Venerable Bhikkhu Anālayo's research and translation in Ekottarika-āgama Studies, Gotamī-apadāna (Ap 17) chapter, pp 367-378.
4. Venerable Bhikkhunī Dhammadinnā's research and translations
