He belonged to a merchant family of Setabyā, and, while on a journey to Sāvatthi with five hundred carts, he heard the Buddha teach at Jetavana and entered the Order. He lived in the charnel field meditating, and, one day, the crematrix Kāḷā, noticing him, arranged the limbs of a recently cremated body near the Thera that he might gaze at them. With these as a topic of meditation, he soon became an Arahant.

Thag.vss.151 f; his story is given in much greater detail at DhA.i.66 ff; there he is said to have been the eldest of three brothers, of whom the others were Majjhimakāḷa and Cūḷakāḷa. He went with the latter to Sāvatthi, where both of them joined the Order. After becoming an Arahant, Mahākāḷa went with the Buddha to Setabyā and dwelt in the Siṃsapāvana, Cūḷakāḷa accompanying him. Cūḷakāḷa’s wives invited the Buddha and the other monks to a meal, and he himself went on earlier to make arrangements. His wives disrobed him. At the end of the meal, Mahākāḷa was left behind by the Buddha to make the thanksgiving. His eight wives surrounded him and stripped him of his robes, but, knowing their intention, he disappeared through the air.

Ninety-one world-cycles ago, while wandering near the mountain Urugana, he saw the rag robe of an ascetic and offered three kinkiṇika flowers in its honour (ThagA.i.271 f). He is probably identical with Paṃsukūlapūjaka Thera of the Apadāna. Ap.ii.434; but see ThagA.i.79, where the same Apadāna verses are quoted.