[6. Ekapiṇḍadāyikā1]

In the city, Bandhumatī,
there was a king2 named Bandhuma.3
I was [then] the wife of that king,
behaving in a certain way.4 (1) [46]

Gone off alone, having sat down,
I then reflected in this way:
“I’ve done no wholesome [deeds] that [I]
can take [and] go [when I have died]. (2) [47]

I have no doubt about the fact
that I’ll certainly go to hell,
blazingly hot, laden with grief,
of frightful form, [and] very cruel.” (3) [48]

After having approached the king,
I [then] spoke these words [to him]:
“O kṣatriyan, do give to me
one monk, [whom] I will [thenceforth] feed.” (4) [49]

That great king gave a monk to me,
with cultivated faculties.
After having taken his bowl,
I satisfied [him] with milk-rice.5 (5) [50]

Having filled [it] up with milk-rice,
I [applied some] scented ointment.
Covering it with [some] netting,
I closed [it] with a blue lotus.6 (6) [51]

Making that my object of thought7
for as long as [my] life [lasted],
bringing pleasure to [my] heart there,
I went to Tāvatiṃsa [then]. (7) [52]

I was fixed in the chief queen’s place
of thirty kings among the gods.
Whatever my mind wishes for
comes into being as desired. (8) [53]

I was fixed in the chief queen’s place
of twenty kings who turned the wheel.
With accumulated [merit,]
I transmigrated through lifetimes. (9) [54]

I am set free from every bond;
my substrata are gone away;8
all defilements are extinguished;
now there will be no more rebirth. (10) [55]

In the ninety-one aeons since
I gave that almsgiving back then,
I’ve come to know no bad rebirth:
that’s the fruit of food that’s begged for. (11) [56]

My defilements are [now] burnt up;
all [new] existence is destroyed.
Like elephants with broken chains,
I am living without constraint. (12) [57]

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! (13) [58]

The four analytical modes,
and these eight deliverances,
six special knowledges mastered,
[I have] done what the Buddha taught! (14) [59]

Thus indeed Bhikkhunī Ekapiṇḍadāyikā spoke these verses.

The legend of Ekapiṇḍadāyikā Therī is finished.

  1. “One Ball [of Food] Donor”. BJTS reads Ekapiṇḍapātadāyikā, “Giver of one begged-for-alms-meal”↩

  2. lit., “a kṣatriyan”.↩

  3. “Kinsman,” according to my notes (ref?) also the name of the king-father of Vipassi Buddha↩

  4. BJTS reads ekajjhaṃ, “together [with the king] (?)”.↩

  5. lit., “the ultimate food.” See n. to Therāpadāna v. [28-29]↩

  6. BJTS reads vatthayugena, “with a pair of cloths”. Some PTS alt give mahāccholena, “a big piece of cloth”. The term mahānela is obscure, but used again in Therī-apadāna v. [79], below, where it more clearly refers to a blue lotus flower (perhaps through conflation with mahanel, or mānel, one of the Sinhala names for the blue lotus flower [uppala]). This translation follows the lead of BJTS Sinhala gloss, which in the case of v. [79] takes the term to be equivalent to the Sinhala mahanel.↩

  7. lit., “Remembering that as my object of sense.” Buddhist schematics thought one such sense-object (Sinhala aramuṇu) and in context, the meaning is clearly that she continued to think about that almsgiving for the rest of her life.↩

  8. upādikā, the foundations of defilement (kilesas).↩