PSALMS OF THE BRETHREN

Canto IV.
Psalms of Four Verses

CLXXXVII
Bhagu

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

Public Domain

[Pali]

 

Reborn in this Buddha-age in a clan of Sākiyan rājas, he left the world, together with his clansmen, Anuruddha and Kimbila, and dwelt by the village of Bālakaloṇa.^[1] And one day, when he had left his cell to discipline his tendency to sloth and torpor, he fell as he was stepping up on to the terrace. Using this as his goad,^[2] he accomplished self-mastery, and developing insight, he won arahantship. Thereupon, as he was living in the bliss of fruition, the bliss of Nibbāna, the Master, coming to congratulate him on his solitude, asked him: 'How now, bhikkhu, do you continue in earnest?' And he assenting, replied:

[271] Foredone by drowth I gat me from my cell
For exercise, and climbed the terrace-steps,
And fell thereby all drowsy to the earth.

[272] Chafing my limbs, once more I mounted up;
And while on terrace to and fro I went,
Within 'twas all alert, composed, intent.

[273] Thereat arose in me the deeper thought:
Attention to the fact and to the cause.
[177] The misery of it all was manifest;
Distaste, indifference the mind possessed;

[274] And so my heart was set at liberty.
O see the seemly order of the Norm!
The Threefold Wisdom have I made my own,
And all the Buddha bids me do is done.

This was the Thera's confession of aññā.

 

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^[1] On these see above (CXVIII.,n. 4) and below (CCLVI.). The visit by the Buddha, without the incident of the tumble, is recorded, Majjh. Nik., iii. 154; Vinaya Texts, ii. 308, where the village has '-kāra' added to its name. Cf. Jāt., i., No. 10; Milinda, i. 163. The village was a suburb of Kosambī on the Jumna.

^[2] Cf. Sisters, xvii.