336. {339.} Dhammasavaniya (THA-AP341)

The Victor, Padumuttara,
was the Master of Everything.
While preaching the Four Noble Truths,
he ferried many folks across.

A matted-haired ascetic then,
I practiced fierce austerities.
Throwing off my clothes made of bark,
I traveled in the sky back then.

Then I was unable to fly
over him, the Best of Buddhas.
Like a bird hitting a mountain,
I did not get to journey on.

My movement had not formerly
been obstructed in such a way;
as though rising up from water,
I easily flew through the sky.

“A lofty human being must
be sitting underneath me now.
It’s good for me to search for him;
I might obtain something worthwhile.”

Then descending from the sky, I
heard the sound of the Teacher,
who was preaching impermanence;
I learned that lesson at that time.

Learning to see impermanence
I went back to my hermitage.
Dwelling there the rest of my life,
I passed away right on the spot.

In my subsequent existence,
I recalled hearing that Teaching.
Due to that karma done very well,
I went to Tāvatiṁsa then.

For thirty thousand aeons I
delighted in the world of gods.
And I exercised divine rule,
one more than fifty different times.

And seventy-one different times
I was a wheel-turning monarch.
There was also much local rule,
innumerable by counting.

Then seated in my father’s house,
a monk with senses well-controlled,
illustrating the truth in verse,
spoke of things as impermanent.

Remembering that perception,
transmigrating from birth to birth,
I still did not perceive the end,
nirvana, everlasting state.

“In flux indeed is all that is;
things come to be and then decay.
They arise and then they dissolve;
their cessation is happiness.”

After hearing him say that verse,
I recalled my past perception.
Seated in a single sitting,
I achieved the arahant-state.

Being only seven years old,
I attained my arahantship.
Recognizing my virtue the
Buddha, Eyeful One ordained me.

Even though I was a mere boy,
I finished what needs to be done.
Today what do I need to do
in the Śākyan’s dispensation?

In the hundred thousand aeons
since I did that good karma then,
I’ve come to know no bad rebirth:
the fruit in hearing the Teaching.

The four analytical modes,
and these eight deliverances,
six special knowledges mastered,
I have done what the Buddha taught!

Thus indeed Venerable Dhammasavaniya Thera spoke these verses.

The legend of Dhammasavaniya Thera is finished.

Translated by Jonathan S. Walters.

Whitman College, 2017

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