[521. {524.}1 Abbhañjanadāyaka2]

In the city, Bandhumatī,
I lived in the royal garden.
I was then clothed in deer-leather,3
carrier of a water-pot. (1) [5561]

I saw the Buddha, Stainless One,
the Self-Become, Unconquered One,
Energetic,4 Meditator,
Lover of Trances, the Master,5
Successful in All the Pleasures,
Flood-Crosser, the Undefiled One.
Having seen [him,] pleased and happy,
I gave some unguent6 [to him.] (2-3) [5562-5563]

In the ninety-four aeons since
I gave [him] that unguent then,
I’ve come to know no bad rebirth:
that is the fruit of unguent. (4) [5564]

My defilements are [now] burnt up;
all [new] existence is destroyed.
Like elephants with broken chains,
I am living without constraint. (5) [5565]

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) [5566]

The four analytical modes,
and these eight deliverances,
six special knowledges mastered,
[I have] done what the Buddha taught! (7) [5567]

Thus indeed Venerable Abbhañjanadāyaka Thera spoke these verses.

The legend of Abbhañjanadāyaka 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. “Unguent Donor.” Cf. #274, above, for a different apadāna ascribed to a monk with the same name.↩

  3. reading cchammavāsī with BJTS (and PTS alt.) for PTS dhammavādī (“a speaker of the truth” or “a speaker of the Teaching” [or perhaps, more appropriately, “a debater of doctrines”?]). The latter — or the alt. reading cchammavāsī — is preferable given the other epithet applied to the protagonist here, “carrier of a water-pot (kamaṇḍaludharo),” which like the deer-leather robe is a distinctive mark of non-Buddhist adepts.↩

  4. padhānapahitattaŋ↩

  5. vasiŋ↩

  6. abbhañjanam, BJTS Sinh. gloss äṅga galvana telak (“an oil for rubbing on the body”)↩