[334. {337.}1 Tiṇakuṭidāyaka2]

In the city, Bandumatī,
I was one who worked for others.
[Though] bound in service to others,
I looked not for another’s rice.3 (1) [3005]

Gone off alone and sitting down,
I thought [it out] in this way:
“The Buddha’s risen in the world
and I’ve provided no service. (2) [3006]

It is time to clean up my life;4
the moment is prepared for me.
Suffering is a taste of hell
for creatures devoid of merit. (3) [3007]

Having thought [it out] in this way,
I approached the labor foreman.5
After begging [him] for [some] work,6
I entered into the forest.7 (4) [3008]

Having gathered at that time [some]
grass and sticks and [also some] vines,
[and] having put three poles8 in place,
I constructed a grass hut [there]. (5) [3009]

After I dedicated that
hut for9 the Assembly of monks,
I came back on that very day
and approached the labor foreman. (6) [3010]

Due to that karma done very well,
I then went to Tāvatiṃsa.
My mansion there, very well made,
was created by a grass hut. (7) [3011]

The mansion [that] appeared for me,
a mil-kaṇḍa10 cent-bheṇḍu11 [large],
made of gold, covered in flags,
contained a hundred thousand doors. (8) [3012]

In whichever womb I’m reborn,
[whether] it’s human or divine,
recognizing what I’m thinking,
a palace comes to be [for me]. (9) [3013]

I do not experience fear,
get stupefied, horripilate;
I do not know those things in me:12
that’s the fruit of grass-hut[-giving]. (10) [3014]

Lions and tigers and leopards,
bears13 [and] wolves,14 kara bānā bears15 —
all of them stay away from me:
that’s the fruit of grass-hut[-giving]. (11) [3015]

Vipers16 and ghosts,17 cobras [as well],
kumbhaṇḍa, rakkhasa-[demons];
they too are [all] avoiding me:
that’s the fruit of grass-hut[-giving]. (12) [3016]

I do not remember seeing
my dreams [when they] are of evil.
Mindfulness arises for me:
that’s the fruit of grass-hut[-giving]. (13) [3017]

Just because of that grass-hut[-gift],
I have experienced success.
I have witnessed the Teaching of
Gotama [Buddha], Blessed One. (14) [3018]

In the ninety-one aeons since
I did that [good] karma back then,
I’ve come to know no bad rebirth:
that’s the fruit of grass-hut[-giving]. (15) [3019]

The four analytical modes,
and these eight deliverances,
six special knowledges mastered,
[I have] done what the Buddha taught! (16) [3020]

Thus indeed Venerable Tiṇakuṭidāyaka Thera spoke these verses.

The legend of Tiṇakuṭidāyaka Thera is finished.

  1. Apadāna numbers provided in {fancy brackets} correspond to the BJTS edition, which contains more individual poems than does the PTS edition dictating the main numbering of this translation.↩

  2. “Grass Hut Donor”↩

  3. i.e., I was self-sufficient, I earned my own keep. This follows the reading of BJTS Sinhala gloss.↩

  4. gatiŋ me, following BJTS Sinhala gloss↩

  5. kammasāmi, lord of work, superintendent↩

  6. kamma↩

  7. BJTS reads vipinaṃ for PTS pavanaŋ; the meaning is not different (but cf RD on pavana, which he defines as “mountainside” rather than “woodland”).↩

  8. tidaṇḍake↩

  9. lit., “for the sake of”↩

  10. here and in the following neologism I exploit the English exploitation of the Latin shorthand for “thousand” and “hundred” to keep the meter. The Pali is lit., “a thousand kaṇḍas (part, portion, lump, a small measure), hundred bheṇḍu [tall? thick?]…sacrificial post” .↩

  11. following BJTS, PTS reads geṇḍu, in multiple variations. At least in transmission, these obscure measures may not have been more intelligible than they are today, even if they are clues to the historical situation in which the original was composed.↩

  12. lit., of me, genitive.↩

  13. acchcha°, Sinh. gloss valassu↩

  14. koka, etymological cousin of vāka, vṛka, above, see RD↩

  15. taracchchā, Sinh. gloss kara bānā (‘submissive” “bent over”) valassu, Note BJTS omits the second mention of “wolves” so may be taking koka in compound with taracchchā (i.e., kokataracchchā), in specifying this particular type of bear (cf. Sorata, kara baāna valasā, s.v.)↩

  16. sarpaya↩

  17. bhūta↩