54. Gandhodaka (THA-AP56)

There was a Bodhi Tree festival
for Padumuttara Buddha.
Taking a decorated pot,
I donated scented water.

When that Bodhi was being bathed
a huge cloud rained down upon it.
And there was a deafening sound
when the lightening bolts burst forth there.

Due to the force of that lightening
I passed away right then and there.
Standing in the world of the gods
I uttered these verses aloud:

“O! the Buddha! O! the Teaching!
O! our Teacher’s great achievement!
My dead body has fallen down
and I now delight in heaven!

My residence is very tall,
rising up one hundred stories.
A hundred thousand virgins now
are around me all of the time.

Disease does not exist for me;
grief too does not exist for me;
I do not experience pain:
that is the fruit of good karma.”

Twenty eight hundred aeons thence
I was named King Saṁvasita,
a wheel-turner with great power,
possessor of the seven gems.

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

Thus indeed Venerable Gandhodakiya Thera spoke these verses.

The legend of Gandhodaka Thera is finished.

Translated by Jonathan S. Walters.

Whitman College, 2017

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