[260. Aggapupphiya1]

To give an aggaja2 blossom,
I approached the Ultimate Man,
the Golden-Colored Sambuddha,
Sikhi, [who] like a heap of fire3
was shining forth [his thousand] rays
while sitting on a mountainside.
Happy, with pleasure in [my] heart,
I offered Buddha [that flower]. (1-2) [2535-2536]

In the thirty-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) [2537]

In the twenty-fifth aeon [hence]
I‘m known [by the name] Amita,4
a wheel-turning king with great strength,
possessor of the seven gems. (4) [2538]

The four analytical modes,
and these eight deliverances,
six special knowledges mastered,
[I have] done what the Buddha taught! (5) [2539]

Thus indeed Venerable Aggapupphiya Thera spoke these verses.

The legend of Aggapupphiya Thera is finished.

The summary:

Thomaka, Bhikkha, CChitaka,
CChampaka, Sattapāṭali,
‘pāhana, Mañjari, Paṇṇa,
Kuṭida, Aggapupphiya5
and the verses here are counted
as exactly forty plus one.

The Thomaka Chapter, the Twenty-Sixth

  1. “Agga-Flower-er”. BJTS takes agga (“first” or “chief”) or aggaja (“first born” or “eldest brother”) as the name of a flower, which is reasonable given the context of its usage here, and is also the conclusion of the cty: “Aggajaṃ puppham ādāya ti aggaja-nāmakaṃ pupphaṃ…”↩

  2. one is tempted to take the literal meaning (“first born” etc.) as a proper name of the flower and translate accordingly, but I have not found the term in dictionaries so that would imply too much certainly about it. The PTS ed. gives the name of the monk as Aggapupphiya, and it is thus unclear whether agga or aggaja would be the flower’s name. It is also possible, contra the BJTS, to see this not as the name of the flower but rather some characteristic of it, e.g., “first blossom” on a plant, or “produced (jan) through some chief/top/best method (agga).↩

  3. sikhī, a play on the meaning of the Buddha’s name. It can also mean “peacock.”↩

  4. “Boundless”↩

  5. omitting ccha following PTS alternative as well as BJTS. This keeps the meter right, in Pāli as much as in English. There are anyway already two cchas in the following line, which keeps the English awkward enough.↩