[60. Asanabodhiya1]
[When] I was [but] seven years old
I saw the [Buddha], World-Chief.
Happy, [and] with a happy heart
I went up to the Best of Men. (1) [1334]
Happy, [and] with a happy heart,
I planted the best Bodhi tree
for [him], Tissa, the Blessed One,
the World’s Best One, the Neutral One. (2) [1335]
Foot-drinker growing in the earth,2
it was known as an “Asana”.
For five years I tended that [tree],
the superb Asana Bodhi. (3) [1336]
Having seen that flowering tree,
marvel making hair stand on end,
relating my own karma [then]
I went up to the Best Buddha. (4) [1337]
Tissa, who was then Sambuddha,
Self-Become One, the Top Person,
seated in the monks’ Assembly
spoke these verses [about me then]: (5) [1338]
“I shall relate details of him
who has planted this Bodhi [Tree]
and honored [me with] Buddha-pūjā;
[all of] you listen to my words: (6) [1339]
For thirty aeons among gods
he will exercise divine rule,
and four and sixty times he’ll be
a king who turns the wheel [of law]. (7) [1340]
Falling from Tusitā heaven,
incited by [his] wholesome roots,
experiencing the two-fold bliss,
he’ll delight in the human state. (8) [1341]
Being one bent on exertion,
calmed,3 devoid of grounds for rebirth,4
knowing well all the defilements
he’ll reach nirvana, undefiled.” (9) [1342]
Binding [myself] to solitude,
calm of mind, with desires blown out,
like a tusker with broken chains,
I’m living without defilements. (10) [1343]
In the ninety-two aeons since
I planted that Bodhi back then,
I’ve come to know no bad rebirth:
that’s the fruit of planting Bodhis. (11) [1344]
Seventy-four aeons ago
I was a wheel-turning monarch.
[I was] known as Daṇḍasena,5
possessor of the seven gems. (12) [1345]
Seventy-three aeons ago
there were6 seven lords on the earth.
They were [all] wheel-turning monarchs
who were named Samantanemi.7 (13) [1346]
Five and twenty aeons ago
the Kṣatriyan named Puṇṇaka
was a wheel-turner with great strength,
possessor of the seven gems. (14) [1347]
The four analytical modes,
and these eight deliverances,
six special knowledges mastered,
[I have] done what the Buddha taught! (15) [1348]
Thus indeed Venerable Asanabodhiya Thera spoke these verses.
The legend of Asanabodhiya Thera is finished.
The Summary:
Vījanī and Sataraŋsī
Sayan, Odaki, Vāhiya,
Parivāra and Padīpa,
Dhaja, Paduma-Pūjaka
and Bodhi’s said to be the tenth;
thus two and ninety verses.
The Vījanī Chapter, the Sixth.
“Asana Bodhi Tree-er.” Asana is Pentaptera tomentosa, = a.k.a. crocodile-bark tree, Indian laurel, silver grey wood, white chuglam. The Bodhi tree of Tissa Buddha. BJTS glosses as piyā, bakmī; Sarcocephalus cordatus (Rubi.).↩
this compound consists of two different words for” tree”: dharaṇī-rūha (“growing in the earth”) and pādapa (“drinking from the feet [or roots]”). Though awkward in English, I translate literally here rather than give the non-descriptive “tree, which was a tree”.↩
upasanto↩
nirūpadhi↩
“Rod and Army”↩
i.e., “I was reborn as”↩
“Complete Circumference” “Rim on All Edges”↩