[345. {348.}1 Tiṇamuṭṭhidāyaka2]

In the Himalayan region,
there’s a mountain named Lambaka.3
The Sambuddha, Upatissa,
walked back and forth in open air. (1) [3121]

I was a deer-hunter back then,
within a grove in the forest.
Having seen that God among Gods,
the Self-Become, Unconquered One,
with a mind that was very clear,
I then gave a handful of grass
to the Greatest Sage, the Buddha,
so that [he could] sit down [on it]. (2-3) [3122-3123]

Giving the God of Gods some more,
I brought pleasure to [my own] heart.
Saluting the Sambuddha, I
[then] departed, facing the north. (4) [3124]

Not long after, a king of beasts4
injured me where I had traveled.5
Being brought down by [that] lion,
I passed away [right] on the spot. (5) [3125]

Near [when] I did that karma for
the Best Buddha, the Undefiled,6
quick like7 an arrow [just] released,
I went to the world of the gods. (6) [3126]

[My] lovely sacrificial post,8
created by good9 karma there,
was mil-kaṇḍa10 cent-bheṇḍu11 [large]
made out of gold, covered in flags. (7) [3127]

Radiating its brilliant light,
like the risen hundred-rayed [sun],
it’s crowded with divine maidens.
I [greatly] enjoyed [myself there]. (8) [3128]

Falling from the world of the gods,
incited by [my] wholesome roots,
coming back to the human state,
I attained [my] arahantship.12 (9) [3129]

In the ninety-four aeons since
I gave [him a place to] sit down,
I’ve come to know no bad rebirth:
the fruit of a handful of grass. (10) [3130]

The four analytical modes,
and these eight deliverances,
six special knowledges mastered,
[I have] done what the Buddha taught! (11) [3131]

Thus indeed Venerable Tiṇamuṭṭhidāyaka Thera spoke these verses.

The legend of Tiṇamuṭṭhidāyaka 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. “Handful of Grass Donor.” With only minor changes (the elision of four feet from the opening verses, and addition of the first two verses of the three-verse concluding refrain [the present apadāna includes only the third verse of the three-verse concluding refrain]) the same apadāna, with the same title, is presented below as #518 {521}↩

  3. perhaps fr. lambati, to hang down, “Pendulous”. #1, #122 also take place on this mountain.↩

  4. migarājā, a lion↩

  5. lit., “at the distance I had gone”↩

  6. anāsava↩

  7. reading va with BJTS (and PTS alternative) for PTS ccha, “and”↩

  8. yūpa↩

  9. lit., “meritorious,” puññakammâbhinimmita↩

  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 (could this be related to geṇḍuka, a small ball?). 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., “I attained the destruction of the outflows” (āsavakkhayaŋ)↩