[351. {354.}1 Sakoṭakakoraṇḍadāyaka2]

Having seen the path3 stepped upon
by4 Sikhi [Buddha], World’s Kinsman,
placing deer-hide on one shoulder,
I worshipped that superb5 footprint. (1) [3153]

Seeing a koraṇḍa in bloom,
foot-drinker growing in the earth,6
taking a sprig with [flowers,] I
worshipped7 the wheel on [that] footprint.8 (2) [3154]

In the thirty-one aeons since
I did that [good] karma back then,
I’ve come to know no bad rebirth:
that’s the fruit of footprint-pūjā. (3) [3155]

The four analytical modes,
and these eight deliverances,
six special knowledges mastered,
[I have] done what the Buddha taught! (4) [3156]

Thus indeed Venerable Sakoṭakakoraṇḍadāyaka Thera spoke these verses.

The legend of Sakoṭakakoraṇḍadāyaka 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. “Koraṇḍa-Sprig Donor.” Koraṇḍa is Sinh. kaṭukoraṇḍu, Barberia prionitis (Acanth.), cf. koraṇḍaka, kuraṇḍaka, a shrub and its flower, J. v.473 (RD)↩

  3. or foot, or footprint (the translation of the same word preferred in the fourth foot of the verse)↩

  4. lit., “of,” genitive case↩

  5. reading padaseṭṭhaṃ (lit., “best footprint”) with BJTS (and PTS alt.) for PTS padaseyyaŋ, though it amounts to the same thing.↩

  6. the foot consists of two different words for” tree”: dharaṇī-rūha (“growing in the earth”) and pādapa (“drinking from the feet [or roots]”). Though awkward in English, I translate literally here rather than give the non-descriptive “tree, which was a tree”.↩

  7. lit., “did pūjā to”↩

  8. the wheel is one of the auspicious marks found on the footprint of the Buddha↩