[66. Succhintita1]

Roaming a mountain hard to reach
I was [then] a high-born lion.
Slaying assemblies of wild beasts
I was living on that mountain. (1) [1384]

But Atthadassi, Blessed One,
Best Debater, Omniscient One,
with a wish for my upliftment
came to that superb mountain [then]. (2) [1385]

I approached wishing to eat [some]
spotted antelopes I had killed.
At that time the Blessed One did
come [there] during his begging rounds. (3) [1386]

Taking excellent [chunks of] meat,
I gave [them] to the Teacher [then].
The Great Hero gave thanks [for that,]
[thus] bringing me toward nirvana. (4) [1387]

I entered that hard-reached mountain
with that pleasure in [my own] heart,
[and] having given birth to joy,
I passed away [right then and] there. (5) [1388]

Because of that gift of [some] meat
and the resolve in [my own] heart,
for fifteen hundred aeons I
delighted in the world of gods. (6) [1389]

In [all] the remaining aeons
I [always] acted wholesomely,
because of the gift of that meat,
and through Buddha-recollection. (7) [1390]

In the thirty-eighth aeon [hence]
there were eight [kings] named Dighāyu.2
In the sixtieth3 aeon hence
there were two [kings] named Varuṇa. (8) [1391]

The four analytical modes,
and these eight deliverances,
six special knowledges mastered,
[I have] done what the Buddha taught! (9) [1392]

Thus indeed Venerable Succhintita Thera spoke these verses.

The legend of Succhintita Thera is finished.

  1. “Well-Thought-Out.” #92 and #425 {428}, below, are ascribed to (apparently different) monks bearing this same name.↩

  2. “Long Life”↩

  3. BJTS reads saṭṭhimhi ‘to kappasate (“six thousand [sixty hundred] aeons ago”) with BJTS for PTS satthimh’ ito kappasate. The former must be wrong, because this protagonist performed his seed karma during the Buddha Era of Atthadassi Buddha, “only” eighteen hundred aeons ago. In addition to clarifying this particular reading, I take this verse (and others like it, where the math otherwise would not work) as important in establishing that the ito in these recurrent verses should be taken as “hence” (“from now”), “ago,” “before today,” as opposed to “thence” (“from then”) “after” “later”↩