[292. Pupphadhāraka1]
I was a bark-clothed [ascetic],
wearing deer-leather outer robes.
[I] had five special knowledges;2
a person who could stroke the moon. (1) [2676]
Seeing Vipassi, the World’s Torch,3
come to [the same place] as me,
I bore the floral canopy
[over the head] of the Teacher. (2) [2677]
In the ninety-one aeons since
I bore that floral [canopy],
I’ve come to know no bad rebirth:
that’s the fruit of bearing [flowers]. (3) [2678]
In the eighty-seventh aeon
hence, there was one lord of the earth
by name Samantadharaṇa,4
a wheel-turning king with great strength. (4) [2679]
The four analytical modes,
and these eight deliverances,
six special knowledges mastered,
[I have] done what the Buddha taught! (5) [2680]
Thus indeed Venerable Pupphadhāraka Thera spoke these verses.
The legend of Pupphadhāraka Thera is finished.
“Flower-Bearer”.↩
lit., “five special knowledges had been produced.” One was still lacking, presumably the sixth and distinctively Buddhist knowledge described as certainty of one’s own nirvana; the other five can be attained by non-Buddhist (in this case, brahmin) adepts.↩
lokapajjotaŋ↩
“Holding up all Sides”↩