[436. {439.}1 Ambapiṇḍiya2]

I was then an elephant-king,
with tusks like plough-poles, fully grown.
Wandering in a large forest,3
I saw the Leader of the World. (1) [4701]

Taking a cluster of mangoes,4
I gave [them] to [him,] the Teacher.
The Great Hero accepted them,
Siddhattha, Leader of the World. (2) [4702]

While I5 meditated [on him],
the Victor then consumed [that fruit].
Bringing pleasure to [my] heart there,
I was reborn in Tusitā.6 (3) [4703]

After falling down from there, I
was a monarch who turns the wheel.
[Then] through that very method, I,
having enjoyed [great] good fortune,7
being one bent on exertion,
calmed,8 devoid of grounds for rebirth,9
knowing well all the defilements,
am living [here now,] undefiled. (4-5) [4704-4705]

In the ninety-four aeons since
I gave that fruit [to him] back then,
I’ve come to know no bad rebirth:
that is the fruit of giving fruit. (6) [4706]

My defilements are [now] burnt up;
all [new] existence is destroyed.
Like elephants with broken chains,
I am living without constraint. (7) [4707]

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! (8) [4708]

The four analytical modes,
and these eight deliverances,
six special knowledges mastered,
[I have] done what the Buddha taught! (9) [4709]

Thus indeed Venerable Ambapiṇḍiya Thera spoke these verses.

The legend of Ambapiṇḍiya 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. “Mango-Cluster-er”↩

  3. reading brahāraññe with BJTS (and PTS alt.) for PTS Brahmāraññe (“Brahmā’s forest”)↩

  4. ambapiṇḍi. The term can mean “lump”or “round mass” too, but it’s not clear how an elephant would get or make a lump or ball of mango to present a Buddha; “mango-cud” seems unlikely. Wild elephants eat by breaking branches, fronds or stems off trees and shrubs with their trunks, and the image here seems to be along those lines: mangoes fruit in clusters along branches, and the protagonist has apparently broken off such a branch, clustered with mangoes, to give the Buddha.↩

  5. reading mama with BJTS (and PTS. alt.; gen. abs. construction) for PTS mamaŋ (acc.)↩

  6. the heaven of happiness↩

  7. sampadā, [good] achievements, etc.↩

  8. upasanto↩

  9. nirūpadhi↩