PSALMS OF THE BRETHREN
Canto I.
Psalms of Single Verses
XCVI
Khaṇḍasumana
Translated from the Pali by Mrs. C.A.F. Rhys Davids.
Public Domain
[Pali]
Reborn in this Buddha-age at Pāvā in the family of a Malla rāja,[1] he was named Khaṇḍasumana (Jasmine), because on his birthday the jasmine was in bloom.[2] He heard the Exalted One while the latter was staying in Cunda's mango grove at Pāvā,[3] entered the Order, and acquired sixfold abhiññā. Thereupon he remembered his own former births: how he had offered a plant of jasmine at the tope of Kassapa Buddha when all the plucked flowers went to form the king's own offering; and, discerning how this act had guided him to Nibbāna now, he said this verse:
[96] One flower in pious offering brought
Did win me years on years of pleasant life
In heavenly worlds; the balance hath availed
To bring me perfect peace and purity.[4]
[1] See p. 10, n. 8.
[2] Sumāna is jasmine; Khanda is boken, fragmentay. The jasmine is called khaṇḍa-sakkara, broken-sugar.
[3] See Dialogues, ii. 137. Pronounced Chunda.
[4] Lit., 'by the remainder am I nibbuto' — i.e., 'I have parinibbāna of the kilesa's,' entire going out of quieting away of the ten kinds of moral corruption or torment. See above, LXXII., n.
