[486. {489.}[1] Dhammarucchī[2]]
When Dipaṅkara was Buddha,
the Victor said of Sumedha:
“Aeons beyond measure from now,
this one will become a Buddha. (1) [5193]
The one named Māyā’s going to be
the birth-mother of this [person];
Suddhodhana the father’s name;
this one will be [named] Gotama. (2) [5194]
Being one bent on exertion,
having practiced austerities,
the Sambuddha will awaken[3]
Great Famed, at the Bodhi tree’s roots.[4] (3) [5195]
Upatissa[5] and Kolita[6]
will be the [two] chief followers;[7]
the one whose name is Ānanda
will attend upon this Victor. (4) [5196]
Khemā and Uppalavaṇṇā
will be chief female followers;[8]
CChitta and Ālavaka will
be the chief pious laymen.[9] (5) [5197]
Khujjuttarā, Nandamātā
will be chief pious laywomen;[10]
the Bodhi tree of this Hero
is known as the Aśvattha tree.”[11] (6) [5198]
After having heard those words of
the Great Sage, the Unequaled One,[12]
overjoyed, [both] gods[13] and men, are
praising [him], hands pressed together. (7) [5199]
At that time I was a young man,
well-educated, named Megha.[14]
Having heard [that] best prophesy
for Sumedha, [then] a great sage,
cultivating confidence in
Sumedha, font[15] of compassion,
[when] that hero renounced the world,[16]
I renounced right along with [him]. (8-9) [5200-5201]
Restrained[17] in the monastic rules,[18]
and [also] in the five senses,
he lived pure, mindful, a hero,
doer of what the Victor taught.[19] (10) [5202]
[While] I was living in that way,
I strayed away[20] from the good road,
urged into bad behavior by
a certain evil friend [of mine]. (11) [5203]
Having been controlled by reason,[21]
I fell from the dispensation;[22]
afterward, by that bad friend, the
murder of [my] mother was schemed. (12) [5204]
I did no-interval karma,[23]
and I killed with an evil mind;
I fell from there [right into] hell,[24]
born in a very cruel [place]. (13) [5205]
Being gone to that woeful state,[25]
I long transmigrated in pain,[26]
not seeing the Hero again,
Sumedha, the Bull among Men. (14) [5206]
In this aeon, in the ocean,
I was a timiṅgala fish.[27]
Having seen a ship in the sea,
I approached it looking for food. (15) [5207]
Seeing me, the traders, afraid,
remembered the Best of Buddhas;
I heard a huge sound shouted out,
“Gotama!” [they cried in terror]. (16) [5208]
Recalling the past perception,
I passed away [right] on the spot.
I was reborn in Śrāvasti,
a brahmin in a high-ranked clan. (17) [5209]
My name was Dhammarucchī [then],
a loather of every evil.
Having seen the Lamp of the World,
being [only] seven years old, (18) [5210]
I went to great Jetavana,[28]
[and] went forth into homelessness.
I approach the Buddha three times
[every] night, also [every] day. (19) [5211]
Seeing [me], seeing [me,] the Sage
called [me] “long time Dhammarucchī.”
After that I told the Buddha
[how my] past karma had progressed: (20) [5212]
Very long, marked with hundreds of good deeds,[29]
conditions [then] gradually[30] purified.
Today I am looking closely indeed,
I am seeing your body without compare. (21) [5213][31]
Very long, darkness is destroyed by it.[32]
Through guarding[33] purity, the stream[34] has been cleansed.
Very long, [now] purified without fault,
is the eye made out of knowledge, O Great Sage. (22) [5214]
A long time, [now] come together with you;
not destroyed, again the interval was long;
today, again come together with you,
O Gotama, deeds do not [just] disappear. (23) [5215]
My defilements are [now] burnt up;
all [new] existence is destroyed.
Like elephants with broken chains,
I am living without constraint. (24) [5216]
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! (25) [5217]
The four analytical modes,
and these eight deliverances,
six special knowledges mastered,
[I have] done what the Buddha taught! (26) [5218]
Thus indeed Venerable Dhammarucchī Thera spoke these verses.
The legend of Dhammarucchī Thera is finished.
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. ↩︎
“Splendor of the Teaching”. ↩︎
bujjhissati, from the same root as Buddha (lit., “Awakened”) ↩︎
lit., “of an asattha tree.” The asattha (Skt. aśvattha) tree, ficus religiosa, is the Bodhi tree of Gotama Buddha (Sinh. bō gasa) ↩︎
i.e., Sāriputta (Thera-apadāna #1) ↩︎
i.e., Mahā-Moggallāna (Thera-apadāna #2) ↩︎
sāvakā, “voice-hearers,” accompished arahant monks ↩︎
sāvikā ↩︎
upāsakā, devout laymen who observe eight precepts, more monk-like than ordinary Buddhists who observe the five precepts. ↩︎
upāsikā ↩︎
The asattha (Skt. aśvattha) tree is ficus religiosa (Sinh. bō gasa) ↩︎
asamassa ↩︎
°marū, in the more general sense of “gods” (as opposed, I suppose, to the maruts of Vedic mythology to which the term most directly applies ↩︎
“Cloud” ↩︎
āsaya, lit., “abode” “haunt” “support for” “vessel of” ↩︎
or “went forth” ↩︎
saŋvuto ↩︎
lit., “in the recitation,” “in the Pātimokkha,” the (in the Pāli vinaya, 227) rules recited at monthly uposatha gatherings of Buddhist monks, ideally encapsulating the whole of monastic law. ↩︎
jinasāsanakārako ↩︎
or “was lost,” paridhaŋsito ↩︎
or thinking, vitakka-vasa-go (BJTS vitakka-vasīko) ↩︎
sāsanato, lit., “from the dispensation” ↩︎
anantariyañ, a deed whose result is immediate descent into the lowest Avīcchi (“no interval”? “no pleasure”?) hell, “a deadly sin,” of which there are five: patricide, matricide, killing an arahant, shedding the blood of a Buddha (it is impossible to kill one), and dissension in the Sangha (monks’ Assembly). ↩︎
lit., “into avīcchi, which is particularly gruesome. See DPPN I:199ff. ↩︎
or “suffering,” vinīpatagato ↩︎
or “suffering,” dukkhito ↩︎
of mythical proportions, the largest fish in the sea, maybe even “sea monster” ↩︎
the “Jeta Grove” in which Anāthapiṇḍika built the famous hermitage for the Buddha, the location of many of the suttas. ↩︎
lit., “merits,” °puñña° ↩︎
reading patipubbena with BJTS for PTS patipubbe na (“in the past, not…”) ↩︎
PTS and BJTS agree in presenting this and the following two verses in a different, more complex meter than the rest of the poem (and indeed, different from the meter in the vast majority of the whole Apadāna collection), with 10-11-10-11 syllable counts per quatrain (10-11-10-12 in the present instance, perhaps due to the superfluous ‘haŋ). I have translated accordingly. ↩︎
reading tayā with BJTS (and PTS alts.) for PTS mayā (“by me”) ↩︎
suci-rakkhena, a play on words that echoes the “very long [time]” (su-cchiraṃ) governing these verses. Or is this succhira + akkhena, “by the eye for very long,” picking up the “eye” (nayana) reference in the fourth foot? ↩︎
or river (nadī) of existence, or of doubt (as in #485 {488} above, v. 7 = [5183] ↩︎