PSALMS OF THE BRETHREN

Canto II.
Psalms of Two Verses

CLXIX
Sandhita

Translated from the Pali by Mrs. C.A.F. Rhys Davids.

Public Domain

[Pali]

 

Reborn in this Buddha-age in a wealthy family of Kosala and named Sandhita, he heard, when come of age, a sermon on impermanence, and this alarmed him so that he entered the Order. Through the maturity of his knowledge he established insight, and acquired sixfold abhiññā. Recalling his own former life, how after the passing away of Sikhi Buddha he had worshipped at the Bo-tree and acquired discernment of impermanence,^[1] he declared his winning of the goal, by that efficient cause, in these verses:

[217] Beneath the tree — the holy Bodhi-tree —
Clad in the glory of its vernal green,
To me musing and mindful came a thought -
A Buddha-burdened thought.

[218] 'Tis one and thirty aeons since it came.
Natheless so fruitful proved that thought in me,
By dint thereof o'er the intoxicants
The victory is wrought!

 

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^[1] In lamenting that he only heard of that Buddha just as he had passed away. On Sikhi, see Dialogues, ii. 6. 'Bodhi-tree' is assatthe, or the species of fig-tree which was Gotama Buddha's Bo-tree. Sikhi's was a kind of mango (see Childers's 'Puṇḍarīka'), and the Commentary is at some pains to explain that assattha had come to stand for Bo-tree associations in general. 'Thought' - saññā, aperçu - is repeated thrice in the text.