[443. {446.}1 Ambāṭakiya2]
Vessabhū, the Sage, having plunged
into a sal-forest in bloom,
sat down on a bad mountain road
like a lion, the Well-Born-One.3 (1) [4752]
Happy, with pleasure in [my] heart,
I presented4 hog-plum5 [to him],
the Merit-Field, the Great Hero,
[feeling well-]pleased by my own hands. (2) [4753]
In the thirty-one aeons since
I offered6 that flower7 [to him],
I’ve come to know no bad rebirth:
that’s the fruit of Buddha-pūjā. (3) [4754]
My defilements are [now] burnt up;
all [new] existence is destroyed.
All defilements are exhausted;
I am living without constraint. (4) [4755]
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! (5) [4756]
The four analytical modes,
and these eight deliverances,
six special knowledges mastered,
[I have] done what the Buddha taught! (6) [4757]
Thus indeed Venerable Ambāṭakiya Thera spoke these verses.
The legend of Ambāṭakiya Thera is finished.
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.↩
“Hog-Plum-er”↩
abhijāto↩
lit., “did pūjā to”↩
ambāṭakā, RD: “the hog-plum, Spondias Mangifera (a kind of mango).” BJTS gloss ämbarälla, ämbärälla, a small, sour, mango-like fruit which is cooked as a curry. Here the protagonist apparently offered hog-plum flowers rather than fruits (see v. 3, below)↩
abhiropayiŋ↩
though “hog-plum” evokes the small sour fruit, in the present instance the protagonist apparently offers flowers from that tree↩