[433. {436.}1 Kalambadāyaka2]

The Sambuddha3 named Romasa4
was living on a mountainside.
I gave bindweed5 to that [Buddha],
[feeling well-]pleased by [my] own hands. (1) [4679]

In the ninety-four aeons since
I gave that donation back then,
I’ve come to know no bad rebirth:
that’s the fruit of [giving] bindweed. (2) [4680]

My defilements are [now] burnt up;
all [new] existence is destroyed.
Like elephants with broken chains,
I am living without constraint. (3) [4681]

Being in Best Buddha’s presence
was a very good thing for me.
The three knowledges are attained;
[I have] done what the Buddha taught! (4) [4682]

The four analytical modes,
and these eight deliverances,
six special knowledges mastered,
[I have] done what the Buddha taught! (5) [4683]

Thus indeed Venerable Kalambadāyaka Thera spoke these verses.

The legend of Kalambadāyaka 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. “Stalk of Sugar-Cane-er” BJTS reads Ucchchukhaṇḍika (“a broken bit/a stick of sugar-cane”)↩

  3. BJTS takes him as a Lonely (paccchcheka, Sinh. pasē) Buddha, even though the text is unambiguous in labelling him a Sambuddha.↩

  4. see above, note to #226, v. 4 (BJTS v. 2404) for a discussion of possible meanings and details of the use of this name elsewhere in Apadāna.↩

  5. kalamba, RD draws attention to Skt. kalambika, kalambuka = convulvulus repens, bindweed, but there are other possibilities including the tree menispermum calumba (but its fruits are poisonous/only used in controlled medical usages, unlikely?) and (following BJTS Sinh. gloss on [169] and [4005]) Anthocephalus Cadamba (Rub.), Sinh. kalamba. BJTS Sinh. gloss here is vilapalā, “edible greens from a lake[side],” which accords with the context whatever the actual plant was (or would be called in English). An alternative, and reasonable translation might be “wild greens” or “edible greens”↩