[473. {476.}1 Kusaṭṭhakadāyaka2]

Happy, with pleasure in my heart,
I gave eight tickets for alms food3
to Kassapa, the Blessed One,
the Brahmin, the Perfected One.4 (1) [4991]

Within the [present] aeon, since
I gave those eight meal-tickets [then],
I’ve come to know no bad rebirth:
that’s the fruit of eight meal-tickets. (2) [4992]

My defilements are [now] burnt up;
all [new] existence is destroyed.
Like elephants with broken chains,
I am living without constraint. (3) [4993]

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) [4994]

The four analytical modes,
and these eight deliverances,
six special knowledges mastered,
[I have] done what the Buddha taught! (5) [4995]

Thus indeed Venerable Kusaṭṭhakadāyaka Thera spoke these verses.

The legend of Kusaṭṭhakadāyaka 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. “Eight Meal Ticket-er”↩

  3. kusa [Skt. kuśa, i.e. a type of sharp grass] + aṭṭhaka, “an octave” “eight in number”. Cone explains this very passage as “(food) for eight tickets,” following Cty (p. 487: “the meaning is: ‘I gave eight meals-by-ticket [aṭṭha-salākaka-bhattaṃ] which are to be given on the basis of blades of kusa [grass, the actual “tickets” or “markers”] for [types of] meals-by-ticket [including] “meals within a fortnight” [pakkhika-bhatta°], “meals on lunar sabbaths” [uposathikabhatta], “regular meals” [dhura-bhatta], etc.’”), as does BJTS Sinhala gloss (lahabat aṭak). However, unlike BJTS and cty, Cone’s translation could be read to mean that the gift was of food for eight tickets; I suggest, conversely, that the gift was of eight tickets for food. In other words, the presentation of the blades of kusa grass was an invitation to eight different meals.↩

  4. vusīmato<vusīmant, vusitavant, perfected or accomplished, especially with regard to brahmacchariya (celibacy)↩