PSALMS OF THE BRETHREN
Canto II.
Psalms of Two Verses
CLV
Sambula-Kaccāna
Translated from the Pali by Mrs. C.A.F. Rhys Davids.
Public Domain
Reborn in this Buddha-age in the kingdom of Magadha, as the son of a burgess of the Kaccāna's, he was named Sambula, but was known as Sambula-Kaccāna.[1] After he had heard the Master teach the Norm, and had entered the Order, he went to the neighbourhood of the Himālaya, and practised his insight exercises in a cave called Bhera-vāyana ('dreadful-passage').
Now one day there arose a great storm-cloud out of season, towering high in the heavens, emitting roars of thunders, forked lightning, and rushing noise. And it began to rain, and thunderbolts burst. All creatures - bears, hyenas, buffaloes, elephants - cried out in fear and trembling. But the Thera had stirred up insight, and, careless as to body and life, heeded not the noise, but cooled by the storm so composed his mind, that he quickened insight, and won arahantship together with abhiññā.
Thereupon reflecting on his achievement he was filled with joy, and in a psalm confessed aññā:
[189] God's rain pours down, ay, and god's rain roars down,
And I alone in fearsome hollow dwell.
Yet dwelling so in fearsome rocky dell
To me no fear comes nigh, no creeping dread,
No quailing [of my soul].
[190] For such the law
Within the blessed Norm, that dwelling so
To me no fear comes nigh, no creeping dread,
No quailing [of my soul] to me, alone.[2]
[1] There was need to distinguish him from other Kaccānas - e.g., CCXXIX. In Phayre MS. and Br. Cy., Sampahula-.
[2] The metre in these graceful gāthās I cannot allocate under any of the textbook varieties. The words, 'For such ... Norm,' are an expansion of the Suttanta term, Dhammatā (mam') esā- 'This for me is Normness' (cf. Dialogues, ii. 8, n. 3; my Buddhism, p. 119). Deva (god), the Commentary, as before, paraphrases with megha (cloud).
