A nickname given to Jeṭṭhatissa I. When certain of his ministers eschewed reluctance to accompany his father’s funeral procession, he finally persuaded them; but when they were assembled he had the gates shut on them, put them to death, and had their bodies impaled on stakes around his father’s pyre. Hence his name — Jeṭṭhatissa the Cruel (kakkhaḷa). Mhv.xxxvi.118-22.