Ep. 010: Devadatta, the Buddha's Evil Cousin
Enemy of the sangha
There's one in every family - two in mine, actually...
—Zazu the Hornbill in The Lion King (1994)
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Who was Devadatta?
It seems to be true that every family has that one person who just isn't with the program. In the Buddha's family, the traditional stories assign this role to Devadatta, his cousin through a paternal aunt.
But more than a cousin, really, because Siddhartha Gautama--the man we've come to call "the Buddha"--married Devadatta's sister Yasodhara. Devadatta was, then, not only a cousin, but that most maligned of relatives: "the brother-in-law."
