[226. Aṅkolapupphiya1]
My name [back then] was Nārada
[and] I was known as Kassapa.
I saw the [Buddha] Vipassi,
Chief of the Monks, Honored by Gods,
the Buddha, Bearing Lesser Marks,2
Sacrificial Recipient.
Taking an alangium bloom,
I offered [it] to the Buddha. (1-2) [2401-2402]
In the ninety-one aeons since
I did pūjā [with] that flower,
I’ve come to know no bad rebirth:
that’s the fruit of Buddha-pūjā. (3) [2403]
In the seventy-fourth aeon
the kṣatriyan named Romasa,3
strong with servants and vehicles4
was dressed with garland-ornaments. (4) [2404]
The four analytical modes,
and these eight deliverances,
six special knowledges mastered,
[I have] done what the Buddha taught! (5) [2405]
Thus indeed Venerable Aṅkolapupphiya Thera spoke these verses.
The legend of Aṅkolapupphiya Thera is finished.
“Alangium Flower-er”. PTS reads CChaṅkolapupphiya↩
anubyañjana-dharaŋ, lit., “bearing the secondary characteristics,” i.e., the additional minor marks of a great man.↩
The meaning of this name is unclear to me, but it recurs in numerous places in our text, and only in our text. Cf. roma, body hair, romaka, feathered, romantheti, chews the cud. Cf. #265 which takes place (v. 1; [2557]) on a mountain in the Himalayas by this name; the mountain is named elsewhere (#517) and the name is used also of a previous Paccchchekabuddha (#279, #347, #433 {436}, below), and a rebirth-precursor of other arahants, too (#299, below, where he is a Titan); all the DPPN references to this name are only to Apadāna (one instance in ThagA i.399)↩
following BJTS Sinhala gloss on the fourth foot of the verse: sayoggabalavāhano↩