454. {457.} Ekachattiya (THA-AP459)

The world had turned to burning coal,
the earth was mixed with hot embers.
Padumuttara, Blessed One,
walked back and forth in open air.

Carrying a white umbrella,
I proceeded along a road.
Having seen the Sambuddha there,
I experienced happiness.

“The ground is full of the sun’s rays;
this earth is like burning charcoal.
The gusty winds that are blowing
deplete the breath of the body.

Please accept this, my umbrella,
which blocks the sun’s heat and the winds,
killing both the heat and the cold;
through it I will touch nirvana.”

Merciful, Compassionate One,
Padumuttara, Greatly Famed,
discerning what I was thinking,
the Victor then accepted it.

Lord of gods for thirty aeons,
I exercised divine rule then,
and five hundred different times,
I was a king who turns the wheel.

There was also much local rule,
innumerable by counting.
I’m enjoying my own karma,
formerly well-done by myself.

This is the final time for me;
my last rebirth is proceeding.
Even now a white umbrella
is carried for me all the time.

In the hundred thousand aeons
since I gave that umbrella then,
I’ve come to know no bad rebirth:
the fruit of giving umbrellas.

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

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!

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

Thus indeed Venerable Ekachattiya Thera spoke these verses.

The legend of Ekachattiya Thera is finished.

Translated by Jonathan S. Walters.

Whitman College, 2017

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