[489. {492.}1 Paŋsukūlapūjaka2]

In the Himalayan region,
there’s a mountain named Udaka.3
There I saw [the Buddha’s] rag-robe,
stuck up in the top of a tree.4 (1) [5256]

Plucking three kiṅkhani5 flowers,
[that were growing there] at that time,
happy, [and] with a happy heart,
I offered [them] to [that] rag-robe. (2) [5257]

Due to that karma done very well,
with intention and [firm] resolve,
discarding [my] human body,
I went to Tāvatiṃsa [then]. (3) [5258]

In the ninety-one aeons since
I did pūjā to [that] Buddha,
I’ve come to know no bad rebirth:
that’s the fruit of Buddha-pūjā. (4) [5259]

My defilements are [now] burnt up;
all [new] existence is destroyed.
Like elephants with broken chains,
I am living without constraint. (5) [5260]

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! (6) [5261]

The four analytical modes,
and these eight deliverances,
six special knowledges mastered,
[I have] done what the Buddha taught! (7) [5262]

Thus indeed Venerable Paŋsukūlapūjaka Thera spoke these verses.

The legend of Paŋsukūlapūjaka 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. “Rag-Robe Worshipper”↩

  3. “Water”. BJTS (and PTS alt.) read Uddhangaṇo (“High Clearing”), but this breaks the meter so I stick with the PTS reading of this (anyway likely mythical) name↩

  4. I follow the cty and BJTS Sinhala gloss in taking dumagge as duma + agge. It would also be possible to take it as du + magge, “on a bad road”. Cf. v. [592] above for a case comparable to the latter. Though I do follow it here, the cty and BJTS reading rather begs the question how the Buddha’s rag robes got up in the tree.↩

  5. here as elsewhere, BJTS reads kiṅkaṇi°↩