Burdened by the enormity of her deed, Bhaddā had no desire to return to lay life, for sensual pleasures and possessions no longer had any meaning for her. Therefore she decided to become a wandering ascetic. First she entered the order of the Jains, and as a special penance her hair was torn out by the roots when she ordained. But it grew again and became very curly, for which reason she was called Kuṇḍalakesā, which means “Curly-hair.”

The teaching of the Jain sect did not satisfy her, so she became a solitary wanderer. Travelling through India, she visited many spiritual teachers, learned their doctrines, and thereby obtained an excellent knowledge of religious texts and philosophies. She became especially skilled in the art of debate and in a short time became one of the most famous debaters in India. Whenever she entered a town, she would make a sand-pile and stick a rose-apple branch into it, announcing that whoever would engage in debate with her should notify her by trampling upon the sand-pile.

One day she came to Sāvatthī and again erected her little monument. At that time the Venerable Sāriputta was staying at the Jetavana monastery. He heard of the arrival of Bhaddā and, as a sign of his willingness for debate, he told several children to go and trample on the sand-pile. Thereupon Bhaddā went to Jetavana, confident of victory, accompanied by a large number of people.

She put a number of questions to Sāriputta, and he answered them all until she had nothing more to ask. Then Sāriputta questioned her. Already the first question affected Bhaddā profoundly, namely, “What is the one?” She remained silent, unable to determine what the elder could have intended. Surely, she pondered, he did not mean “God,” or “Brahman,” or “the Infinite.” But what was it then? The answer should have been “nutriment,” because all beings are sustained by food. Admitting defeat, Bhaddā asked Sāriputta for the answer, but he said that he would tell her only if she entered the Buddhist Order. The elder then sent her to the bhikkhunīs and had her ordained, and after a few days she attained arahantship.

Such is the version of Bhaddā’s meeting with the Dhamma that has been recorded in the Dhammapada Commentary, but Bhaddā’s verses in the Therīgāthā present a different picture:

Formerly I travelled in a single cloth

With plucked hair, covered with mud,

Imagining flaws in the flawless

And seeing no flaws in what is flawed.

Having come out from my daytime dwelling,

On the mountain Vulture’s Peak

I saw the spotless Enlightened One Accompanied by the Bhikkhu Sangha.

Then I humbly bowed down on my knees

And in his presence saluted him.

“Come, Bhaddā,” he said to me—

And that was my ordination.

(Thī 107–9)

In this version the meeting between Bhaddā and the Buddha takes place, not at Sāvatthī, but at Vulture’s Peak near Rājagaha, and Bhaddā receives ordination, not by the established procedure of a formal ceremony, but simply by the Buddha’s invitation to her to become a bhikkhunī. The discussion that took place between them is not recorded in the verses themselves, but Bhaddā must have attained realization very quickly; for the Buddha later declared her to be the foremost of the bhikkhunīs with respect to quickness of understanding (khippābhiññā). The Therīgāthā Commentary, in commenting on the verses, attempts to reconcile the verses and the old commentarial tradition. According to this version, after Bhaddā admitted defeat to Sāriputta, she paid homage to him and he brought her into the presence of the Buddha. Then the Teacher, aware that her wisdom was ripe, spoke to her a verse of the Dhammapada:

Though one hears a thousand verses

Made of lines devoid of meaning,

Better is a single meaningful line

By hearing which one is set at peace.

(Dhp 101)

At the conclusion of the verse she attained arahantship together with the analytical knowledges (paṭisambhidā–ñāṇa). Thereupon she requested the going forth. The Buddha consented to this and sent her to the order of nuns, where she received formal ordination.