Tiṇadāyaka1 Chapter, the Fifty-Third

[518. {521.}2 Tiṇamuṭhidāyaka3]

In the Himalayan region,
there’s a mountain named Lambaka.4
The Sambuddha, Upatissa,
walked back and forth in open air. (1) [5538]

I was a deer-hunter back then,
within a grove in the forest.
Having seen that God among Gods,
I then gave a handful of grass. (2) [5539]

Giving [it] to the Buddha to
sit on, I pleased [my own] heart [there].
Saluting the Sambuddha, I
[then] departed, facing the north. (3) [5540]

Not long after, a king of beasts5
injured me where I had traveled.6
Being brought down by [that] lion,
I passed away [right] on the spot. (4) [5541]

Near [when] I did that karma for
the Best Buddha, the Undefiled,7
quick like8 an arrow [just] released,
I went to the world of the gods. (5) [5542]

[My] lovely sacrificial post9
created by good10 karma there
was mil-kaṇḍa11 cent-bheṇḍu12 [large]
made out of gold, covered in flags. (6) [5543]

Radiating its brilliant light,
like the risen hundred-rayed [sun],
it’s crowded with divine maidens.
I [greatly] enjoyed [myself there]. (7) [5544]

Falling from the world of the gods,
incited by [my] wholesome roots,
coming back to the human state,
I attained [my] arahantship.13 (8) [5545]

In the ninety-four aeons since
I gave [him a place to] sit down,
I’ve come to know no bad rebirth:
the fruit of a handful of grass. (9) [5546]

My defilements are [now] burnt up;
all [new] existence is destroyed.
Like elephants with broken chains,
I am living without constraint. (10) [5547]

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! (11) [5548]

The four analytical modes,
and these eight deliverances,
six special knowledges mastered,
[I have] done what the Buddha taught! (12) [5549]

Thus indeed Venerable Tiṇamuṭṭhidāyaka Thera spoke these verses.

The legend of Tiṇamuṭṭhidāyaka Thera is finished.

  1. BJTS reads simply Phaladāyaka°↩

  2. 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.↩

  3. “Handful of Grass Donor.” Virtually the same apadāna (with four extra feet among the first verses, and eliding the first two verses of the three-verse concluding refrain), with the same title, is presented above as #345 {348}↩

  4. perhaps fr. lambati, to hand down, “Pendulous”. #1, #122 also take place on this mountain.↩

  5. migarājā, a lion↩

  6. lit., “at the distance I had gone”↩

  7. anāsava↩

  8. reading va with BJTS (and PTS alternative) for PTS ccha, “and”↩

  9. yūpa. The description which proceeds in the next verse seems to refer to the whole palace, not just the sacrificial post.↩

  10. lit., “meritorious,” puññakammâbhinimmita↩

  11. here and in the following neologism I exploit the English exploitation of the Latin shorthand for “thousand” and “hundred” to keep the meter. The Pali is lit., “a thousand kaṇḍas (part, portion, lump, a small measure), hundred bheṇḍu [tall? thick?]…sacrificial post” .↩

  12. following BJTS; PTS reads geṇḍu, in multiple variations (could this be related to geṇḍuka, a small ball?). At least in transmission, these obscure measures may not have been more intelligible than they are today, even if they are clues to the historical situation in which the original was composed.↩

  13. lit., “I attained the destruction of the outflows” (āsavakkhayaŋ)↩