[515. {518.}1 Ghosasaññaka2]

I was a deer-hunter back then,
within a grove in the forest.
I saw the Buddha, Stainless One,
honored by the gods’ assembly.3 (1) [5500]

Explaining the Four Noble Truths,
he was preaching the deathless state.
I heard the honey[-sweet] Teaching
of Sikhi, Kinsman of the World. (2) [5501]

I pleased [my] heart in the sound of
the Unequaled, the Peerless One.4
After having pleased [my] heart there,
I crossed existence, hard to cross. (3) [5502]

In the thirty-one aeons since
I obtained that perception then,
I’ve come to know no bad rebirth:
that’s the fruit of perceiving sound. (4) [5503]

My defilements are [now] burnt up;
all [new] existence is destroyed.
Like elephants with broken chains,
I am living without constraint. (5) [5504]

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) [5505]

The four analytical modes,
and these eight deliverances,
six special knowledges mastered,
[I have] done what the Buddha taught! (7) [5504 (5506)]5

Thus indeed Venerable Ghosasaññaka Thera spoke these verses.

The legend of Ghosasaññaka 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. “Sound-Perceiver”↩

  3. devasaṅghapurakkhataŋ↩

  4. reading asamappaṭipuggale with BJTS for PTS asamappaṭipuggalaŋ (in which case the epithet stands in apposition to “heart” or “difficult to cross”↩

  5. Here a piece of broken type make the “6” in “5506” appear as a “4”, which unfortunately seems to have affected the subsequent numbering, beginning the next apadāna with 5505 (actually, 5555) rather than 5507. I have stuck with the BJTS numbering despite this error, which leaves us with two verses numbers 5504 and two verses number 5505.↩