[207. Salaḷamāliya1]
[I saw] Siddhattha, the Trainer,2
seated on a mountainside [then,]
shining like a dinner-plate tree,3
surveying every direction. (1) [2299]
Gathering both ends of a bow,4
then I joined it with an arrow.
Cutting a flower with its stalk,
I offered [it] to the Buddha. (2) [2300]
In the ninety-four aeons since
I did pūjā [with] that flower,
I’ve come to know no bad rebirth:
that’s the fruit of Buddha-pūjā. (3) [2301]
In the fifty-first aeon hence
there was one [named] Jutindhara,5
a wheel-turning king with great strength,
possessor of the seven gems. (4) [2302]
The four analytical modes,
and these eight deliverances,
six special knowledges mastered,
[I have] done what the Buddha taught! (5) [2303]
Thus indeed Venerable Salaḷamāliya Thera spoke these verses.
The legend of Salaḷamāliya Thera is finished.
“Salaḷa-Garland-er.” BJTS reads salala°. BJTS Sinh.gloss = hora = “large timber tree yielding rezin and oil, Dipterocarpus zeylanicus (Dipterocarp.)” (Bot. dict.).↩
lit., “Trainer of Men” or “Charioteer of Men,” narasārathiŋ. I adopt the shorter form here metri causa.↩
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.↩
lit., “Having made a bow not two-fold.” The meaning seems to be, “having strung a bow”.↩
“Effulgent One”↩