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.↩

“Two-families Bi-Kin” (see DPPN II:261). Also spelled Bākula, Vakkula. A historical monk, renounced at the age of eighty and attained arahantship on the eighth day. As a child, swallowed by a fish and later recovered from its belly. Remembered for providing medicines to Buddhas and monks in previous lifetimes; named the best in good health by the Buddha of this era. Also remembered as a monk who practiced asceticism without preaching it to others. Subject of the Bakkula-sutta (M.iii.124ff), in which he describes his eighty years as a monk (he dies at the age of 160).↩

reading tattha with BJTS for PTS tatthā (presumably a typo)↩

sindhuvārita, Vitex negundo, a.k.a. Horshoe vitex, Five-leaved chaste tree↩

reading kapitthā with BJTS for PTS kapiṭṭhaŋ, Feronia elephantum, Sinh. divul↩

lit., “trees there,” reading tattha with BJTS for PTS tatthā (presumably a typo)↩

at [3321] BJTS treats this as the name of a special type of jak-fruit. It means, “life-lifer,” also (as jivaṃjīvaka) the name of a bird (a type of pheasant, according to RD) whose call is similar to the sound “jīvaṃ jīvaṃ.”↩

a kind of tree, Vitex nigunda. Sinh: nika↩

lit., “trees there,” reading tattha with BJTS for PTS tatthā (presumably a typo)↩

badarā, Zizyphus jujuba. RD: “not unlike a crabapple in appearance & taste, very astringent, used for medicine A i.130=Pug 32; A iii.76; Vin iv.76; J iii.21; DhsA 320 (cited among examples of acrid flavours); VvA 186.”↩

reading badarāmalakāni with BJTS for PTS badarā malakāni. Āmalaka = Sinhala nelli, phyllanthus emblica, emblic myrobalan, Indian gooseberry.↩

Sinh. boraḷu damanu, a species of Eugenia.↩

alābū = Sinh. puhul (ash-pumpkin) or labu (gourd). Cone specifies that it is bottle-gourd, Lagenaria vulgaris. Also spelt alāpū↩

puṇḍarīkā↩

beluvā = Aegle marmelos, beli geḍiya, bael, bel, Bengal quince; bilva or vilva tree; billā↩

kadali↩

mātuluṅgakā, elsewhere mātuluṅgiya↩

mahānāmā. Following BJTS Sinhala gloss as uk, sugarcane, Sacchcharum officinarum (Gram.)↩

ajjuṇā (a.k.a. kakudha, Sinhala kumbuk gasa, kubuk, Terminalia arjuna) is an impressively large, shade-giving tree that thrives on the edges of tanks and lakes. PTS spells the term ajjunā.↩

piyaṅgukā. RD: “[cp. Vedic priyangu] 1. panic seed, Panicum Italicum Vv 537; J i.39; PvA 283. Mixed with water and made into a kind of gruel (piyangûdaka) it is used as an emetic J i.419. See also kangu. — 2. a medicinal plant, Priyangu J v.420. BJTS glosses it puvaṅgu, Botanical dictionary = priyaṅgu = ruk gasa, Myristica Hersfieldia (Myris.), “a lofty tree…It produces fragrant flowers and seeds from its trunk.”↩

PTS kosumbhā, BJTS kosambā, also spelt kosambhā; BJTS Sinh. gloss here = kohomba, neem or margosa tree, Azadirachta indica↩

PTS salaḷā, BJTS salalā, BJTS Sinh.gloss = hora = “large timber tree yielding rezin and oil, Dipterocarpus zeylanicus (Dipterocarp.)” (Bot. dict.)↩

nīpa = Sinhala kolom, nauclea orientalis; also called Leichhardt tree↩

nigrodhā = Sinh. nuga, RD: the banyan or Indian fig-tree, Ficus Indica; Bot. dict.: milky fig tree, Ficus altissima (Urti.)↩

kapitthanā = kapittha, kapiṭṭha (already mentioned in v. 2 [3759] above), Feronia elephantum, Sinh. divul↩

reading upetamhi mahāvīre anomadassimahāyase, gen. abs. construction, with BJTS, for PTS upetañccha mahāvīram Anomadassi-mahāyasaŋ (accusatives, unclear how the grammar would then work unless we assume an accusative absolute construction)↩

vātābādho, “a disease of the wind,” one of the three humors in classical Indian (including Buddhist) medical traditions.↩

iriyañ cchāpi disvāna↩

khippam assamam āgacchchiŋ, lit., “quickly I came to the hermitage”↩

reading ahās’ ahaṃ (“ I fetched, gathered, took, killed,” ahāsi =1st person sing. aorist of harati) with BJTS for PTS akās’ ahaŋ, “I did,” “I made”↩

sabbosadham. Though not stipulated, the sense may be “all the medicinal herbs required for the medicine I wished to make for the Buddha,” rather than every medicinal herb that exists, though either interpretation is possible and I have tried to leave the translation as open as the Pāli.↩

pānīyayogaŋ katvāna, lit., something like “having prepared them through liquifaction” or “making them drinkable.” He takes the herbs and prepares them into a liquid medicine for the Buddha (presumably by cleaning, chopping, boiling, squeezing then filtering them).↩

paribhutte, “was one who made use of,” i.e., who took the medicine.↩

vāto, lit., “wind”. The term invokes the illness itself, “a disease of the wind,” which would involve an imbalance (usually an excess) of that humor over the other two (bile and phlegm). The cure would thus involve eliminating or “suppressing” vāta to restore the healthy balance of the three humors.↩

vūpasami (fr. vūpasammati)↩

PTS reads passaddhadarathaŋ disvā, BJTS reads passaddhaṃ darathaṃ disvā↩

turiye, musical instruments↩

lit., “kṣatriyan”↩

“Not Inferior,” “Superior One”↩

jambusaṇḍa = jambudīpa = India, the South Asian continent↩

cchaturanto vijitāvi, “possessed of conquest of the four quarters,” a supreme imperial overlord↩

reading tāvatiṃse pi khobetvā (lit., “having shaken the thirty-three gods/[those in] the tāvatiṃsa heaven”) with BJTS for PTS tāvatiŋse ‘to khobetvā (having shaken from [a starting point?] in Tāvatiŋsa”)↩

pariggahaŋ vivajjetvā. Pariggaha can include, or specifically mean, not only his wealth, but also his wife.↩

tarissati, lit., “get through” “overcome” “cross beyond”↩

Bakkula was foremost among those of good health (DPPN II: 262, citing A.1.25; “for a problem connected with this, see Mil. 215ff.), and this verse apparently refers to that. Thus the “all of that” discerned by Gotama would be “all of that experience with medicine;” the “foremost place” would be “foremost among those of good health”↩

lit., “success,” “achievement,”result”↩

lit., “[planted] in a good field,” sukhette bījasampadā↩

tadā, lit., “at that time”↩