[196. Kisalayapūjaka[1]]
In the city, Dvāravatī,
I had a small flowering tree.[2]
There was a well there [in that place,]
[whose water] made the trees grow tall.[3] (1) [2241]
Siddhattha, the Unconquered One,
made firm by [his] own [mental][4] strength,
showing [his] compassion for me,
traveled in the path of the wind.[5] (2) [2242]
I am looking at nothing else,
fixed on worship of the Great Sage.
Seeing an ashoka tree sprout
I threw it up into the sky. (3) [2243]
Those shoots are going backwards
to the Buddha going [in the sky].
That I, seeing that miracle,
[thought], “O! The Buddha’s loftiness!”[6] (4) [2244]
In the ninety-four aeons since
I offered [the Buddha] that sprout,
I’ve come to know no bad rebirth:
that’s the fruit of Buddha-pūjā. (5) [2245]
In the twenty-seventh aeon
ago lived one Ekassara,[7]
a wheel-turning king with great strength,
possessor of the seven gems. (6) [2246]
The four analytical modes,
and these eight deliverances,
six special knowledges mastered,
[I have] done what the Buddha taught! (7) [2247]
Thus indeed Venerable Kisalayapūjaka Thera spoke these verses.
The legend of Kisalayapūjaka Thera is finished.
“Offerer of a Tender Sprout (or Shoot)” ↩︎
lit., “there was a small flowering tree (or shrub) of mine” ↩︎
lit., “making grow up of the trees,” apposite “well” ↩︎
see above, #189, v. 2 (BJTS 2203) ↩︎
BJTS gloss makes clear: out of compassion he demonstrated his Buddha powers by flying through the sky for a moment. ↩︎
reading uḷāratā with BJTS for PTS pūjaka (“offerer”). The latter reading — which is also possible — would mean that his amazement was at the fact that his pūjā resulted in his seeing the miracle, rather than the miracle itself (the iddhi powers of a Buddha). ↩︎
the name means “One Mule,” which seems rather diminutive for a world-conquering monarch. Both PTS and BJTS give alternate reading Ekissaro, “One Lord,” which would seem more appropriate, but both accept Ekassara as the preferred reading based on the manuscript record. ↩︎