The son of Sudinna Kalandakaputta by the wife of his lay days. He was conceived after Sudinna had already been ordained. His wife came to him during her period and begged him to give her an offspring (bíjaka). As the rule against unchastity had not then been promulgated, Sudinna yielded to her importunities, thus becoming guilty of the first Párájiká. The son was called Bíjaka, and so Sudinna came to be called Bíjakapitá and the mother Bíjakamátá. Both Bíjaka and his mother later left the world and became arahants. Vin.iii.17 19; Sp.i.215f.
A slave of Videha, present when the ascetic Guna expounded his doctrine to King Angati, and it was approved by Aláta. Bíjaka also agreed that Guna's teaching accorded with his own experience. He remembered his previous life, when he had been born as Bhávasetthi of Sáketa and had done many acts of virtue and piety. But at present he was the son of a poor prostitute leading a wretched life. Even so, he always gave half his food to any who might desire it, kept the fast, and led, in every way, a virtuous life. But virtue, he said, was useless; it bore no fruit. So saying, he wept. When Rujá (q.v.) heard this, she said that Bíjaka's sufferings were due to evil actions done in the past in earlier lives (J.vi.227, 228, 229, 233, 235).
The scholiast explains (J.vi.228) that in the time of Kassapa Buddha, while Bíjaka was seeking a lost ox, a monk enquired of him the way which he had lost. Bíjaka was angry and abused the monk, calling him a slave. His birth as Bhávasetthi was due to some earlier good done by him, but in this birth he became a slave.
Bíjaka is identified with Moggallána (J.vi.225).