[136. CChampakapupphiya1]
[I saw Buddha], the Morning Star,2
shining like a dinner-plate tree,3
sitting down within a mountain,
surveying all the directions. (1) [1909]
There were three young brahmin men then,
well-trained in their own [brahmin] arts.4
Taking ascetics’ provisions,
they were coming up behind me. (2) [1910]
In a bag were seven flowers
those ascetics had laid down [there].
Having picked them up I gave them
for the knowledge of Vessabhu. (3) [1911]
In the thirty-one aeons since
I offered those flowers [to it],
I’ve come to know no bad rebirth:
that’s the fruit of knowledge-pūjā. (4) [1912]
In the twenty-ninth aeon [hence,]
[a king] known as Vihatābha,5
was a wheel-turner with great strength,
possessor of the seven gems. (5) [1913]
The four analytical modes,
and these eight deliverances,
six special knowledges mastered,
[I have] done what the Buddha taught! (6) [1914]
Thus indeed Venerable CChampakapupphiya Thera spoke these verses.
The legend of CChampakapupphiya Thera is finished.
“CChampaka-Flower-er”. The cchampaka (Sinh. sapu) tree is Magnolia champaca, formerly classified as michelia champaca. English names for the tree include Champak, Joy Perfume Tree, Yellow Jade Orchid Tree and Fragrant Himalayan Champaca. It was the Bodhi tree of the seventeenth Buddha of the Buddhavaṃsa, Atthadassi. It has highly fragrant cream to yellowish-colored blossoms.↩
osadhī. RD (s.v.) points out that all we really know about this star is that it was particularly bright, leading Childers to translate it as “Venus” and others as the morning star.↩
kaṇṇikāra, kaṇikāra = Sinhala kinihiriya, Pterospermum acerifolium, produces a brilliant mass of yellow flowers; Engl. a.k.a. karnikar, bayur tree, maple-leaf bayur, caniyar (now archaic?), dinner-plate tree; Bodhi tree of Siddhattha Buddha.↩
presumably sacrificing, chanting mantras, and forth.↩
“Bright Light”↩