Devadatta Devadatta Devadatta was by tradition a Buddhist monk, cousin and brother-in-law of Gautama Siddhārtha, the Sākyamuni Buddha, and brother of Ānanda, a principal student of the Buddha. Devadatta was a koliyan and sakyan and is said to have parted from the Buddha's following with 500 other monks to form their own Sangha, most of whom are said to have been Shakya clan relatives of both Devadatta and Siddhartha. The name "Devadatta" has the meaning "god-given" in Palī (cf. Latin "Deodatus", "Deusdedit"; both also meaning "god-given"). It is composed from the stem form of "deva" and the past participle "datta" of
Devadatta the verb "da", "give", composed as a tatpurusa compound. In the "Bhagavad Gītā", the conch shell used by Arjuna on the battle-field of Kurukshetra was named "Devadatta". The name Devadatta is still used today. According to Andrew Skilton, modern scholarship generally agrees that the Mahāsāṃghika Vinaya is the oldest extant Buddhist Vinaya. According to Reginald Ray, the Mahāsāṃghika Vinaya mentions the figure of Devadatta, but in a way that is different from the vinayas of the Sthaviravāda branch. According to this study, the earliest vinaya material common to all sects simply depicts Devadatta as a Buddhist saint who wishes for