[370. {373.}1 Tīṇuppalamāliya2]

On CChandabhāgā River’s bank,
I was a monkey3 at that time.
I saw the Stainless Buddha [who]
was seated on a mountainside. (1) [3232]

I was enraptured seeing [him],
Shining Forth in All Directions,
like a regal sal tree in bloom,
Bearing the Great and Lesser Marks.4(2) [3233]

Happy, with [my] heart exultant,
[and my] mind bristling with joy,
I offered on [the Buddha’s] head
three [lovely] blue lotus flowers. (3) [3234]

After offering5 [those] flowers
to Phussa [Buddha], the Great Sage,
cultivating great reverence,
I went off [from there] facing north. (4) [3235]

Crouched over6 going off [from there,]
with a mind that was very clear,
I alighted on a mountain
[and] attained the end of [my] life. (5) [3236]

Due to that karma done very well,
with intention and [firm] resolve,
discarding [my] human body,7
I went to Tāvatiṃsa [then]. (6) [3237]

And [afterwards,] three hundred times,
I ruled over the [world of] gods.
And [furthermore] five hundred times
I was a king who turned the wheel. (7) [3238]

In the ninety-two aeons since
I did pūjā [with] that flower,
I’ve come to know no bad rebirth:
that’s the fruit of Buddha-pūjā. (8) [3239]

The four analytical modes,
and these eight deliverances,
six special knowledges mastered,
[I have] done what the Buddha taught! (9) [3240]

Thus indeed Venerable Tīṇuppalamāliya Thera spoke these verses.

The legend of Tīṇuppalamāliya 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. “Three Blue Lotus Flower-er.” BJTS reads Tiuppala°. Cf. #339{342}.↩

  3. vānara. This is the elegant grey langur (Sinh. vandurā) as opposed to the cruder rhesus monkey (Sinh. rilavā)↩

  4. lakkhaṇavyañjanûpetaŋ, i.e., the thirty-two primary marks and eighty lesser or minor marks that adorn the body of a great man (mahāpurusa) who is destined to be either a wheel-turning monarch or a Buddha.↩

  5. lit., “after doing pūjā with”↩

  6. taking paṭikuṭiko (BJTS reads pati°) as fr. paṭikuṭati “to crouch,” “to bend over” (as does apparently BJTS, glossing the term häkiḷī = vakuṭu vu). This may mean that he went off still bowing in reverence, or else that he went off on all fours.↩

  7. here as above, the recurrent verse has not been modified to reflect that the protagonist discards a simian rather than human body as he moves to heaven.↩