[304. Dhammasaññaka1]
There was a huge festival
for Blessed Vipassi’s Bodhi Tree.
The Sambuddha [sat] at its roots,
the World’s Best, the Bull among Men.2 (1) [2729]
At that moment the Blessed One,
Honored by the Monks’ Assembly,
was preaching the Four Noble Truths,
uttering [his] majestic3 speech. (2) [2730]
Preaching by means of summary
and also extended discourses,
the Sambuddha, Covers Removed,4
purified5 the great multitude. (3) [2731]
Hearing the Teaching of Buddha,
of the World’s Best, the Neutral One,
having worshipped the Teacher’s feet
I departed facing the north. (4) [2732]
In the ninety-one aeons since
I heard that Teaching at that time,
I’ve come to know no bad rebirth:
fruit of perceiving the Teaching.6 (5) [2733]
In the thirty-third aeon hence
there was one ruler of people,
known by the name of Sutava,7
a wheel-turning king with great strength. (6) [2734]
The four analytical modes,
and these eight deliverances,
six special knowledges mastered,
[I have] done what the Buddha taught! (7) [2735]
Thus indeed Venerable Dhammasaññaka Thera spoke these verses.
The legend of Dhammasaññaka Thera is finished.
“Perceiver of the Teaching”↩
I take the BJTS vocatives here as typos↩
vācchā + āsabhim>āsabhī, a reading both PTS and BJTS accept despite Lilley’s n. to PTS here that the mss. always give the (mis)reading “vācchasabbam,” “whole speech” or “all [his] words”↩
vivatta-cchchada, lit., “removed covering,” perhaps He who Removes the Coverings or He Whose Covers are Removed or One who is Freed of All Coverings (see RD s.v.). The epithet is especially appropriate here for evoking the “open-fisted” method of the Buddha, where nothing is secret or for initiates only.↩
nibbāpesi, could also be “extinguished,” “quenched”↩
following BJTS in reading dhamma-saññā for PTS dhamma-dāna, “giving the Teaching.” Though the latter comes to label important forms of practice, here it would be odd, since the protagonist is the recipent rather than the agent of the Teaching.↩
“Hearer”↩