Bodhivandaka Chapter, the Thirty-Eighth

[368. {371.}1 Bodhivandaka2]

I saw a green pāṭali3 tree,
foot-drinker growing in the earth.4
Resolutely5 pressing my hands,
I worshipped [that] pāṭali [tree]. (1) [3220]

Having pressed hands together,
filling6 [my] mind [with] reverence,
purified [both] inside [and] out,7
I worshipped [that] pāṭali [tree]
as though before8 the Sambuddha,
Well-Liberated, Undefiled,9
Vipassi, Honored by the World,
Sea of Compassion and Knowledge. (2-3) [3221-3222]

In the ninety-one aeons since
I worshipped that Bodhi [tree then],
I’ve come to know no bad rebirth:
that is the fruit of worshipping. (4) [3223]

The four analytical modes,
and these eight deliverances,
six special knowledges mastered,
[I have] done what the Buddha taught! (5) [3224]

Thus indeed Venerable Bodhivandaka Thera spoke these verses.

The legend of Bodhivandaka 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. “Bodhi [Tree] Worshipper.”↩

  3. Sinh. paḷol, Bignonia suaveolens, sterospermum suaveolens (Bignon.), trumpet-flower tree, the Bodhi Tree of Vipassi Buddha. Cf. #71, #78, #96, #248, #255, #369{372}.↩

  4. 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”.↩

  5. ekaŋsam, with certainty, definitively, absolutely.↩

  6. lit., “making”↩

  7. antosuddhaŋ bahiŋ suddhaŋ (reading bahisuddhaŋ with BJTS and PTS alt.), lit., “purified inside, purified outside.” I follow BJTS Sinhala gloss in taking this as referring to the donor (or perhaps, in an adverbial sense, to his worship) rather than — as is also grammatically possible — as a Buddha-epithet, i.e., He Who is Purified [Both] Inside [and] Out”↩

  8. sammukhā viya, lit., “as though face to face with”↩

  9. anāsava↩