Therigatha16.1

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Adapted from Archaic Translation By Mrs. Rhys Davids 1909

Compared with the Pali Tipitaka at www.tipitaka.org

16.1 Sumedha, Daughter Of Koncha, King Of Varanavati

She too, having made her resolve under former Buddhas, and accumulating good karma(deeds) of age-enduring efficacy in many rebirths, thoroughly preparing the conditions of enlightenment(vimutti, vimukti), was born, when Konagamana was Buddha, in a clansman's family. When she was of age, she and her friends, clansmen's daughters, agreed together to have a great park made, and handed it over to the Buddha and his Order. Through the merit of that act, she was reborn in the heaven of the Three-and-Thirty(angels). After a glorious period of enjoying divine wealth there, she arose once more among the Yama gods(angels), then among the Tusita heaven's Blissful gods (angels), then among the Nimmanrati Heaven's Happy Creator gods(angels), then among the Disposer gods(angels) of others' creations,  and there became Queen of the King of the gods(angels).

Reborn from that time on, when Kassapa was Buddha, as the daughter of a wealthy citizen, she acquired splendid merit as a lay-believer, winning another rebirth among the gods(angels) of the Three-and-Thirty(heaven). Finally reborn, in this Buddha-age, at the city of Mantavati, as the daughter of King Koncha,  she was named Sumedha. And when she was come to years of discretion, her mother and father agreed to let Anikaratta, the Raja of Varanavati, see her. But she from her childhood had been in the habit of going with Princesses of her own age and attendant slaves to the Bhikkhunis' quarters to hear them preach the Dhamma(path of eternal truth), and for a long time, because of her pristine resolve, she had grown fearful of birth in the round of life, devoted to religion and averse to the pleasures of sense.

For that reason, when she heard the decision of her parents and relatives, she said: 'My duty lies not in the life of the house. I will leave the world(to become nun).' And they were not able to dissuade her. She thinking, 'Thus shall I gain permission to leave the world,' laid hold of her purpose, and cut off her own hair. Then using her hair in accordance with what she had heard from the Bhikkhunis of their methods, she concentrated her attention on repugnance to physical attraction, and calling up the idea of 'Foul Things,'  then and there attained First Jhana(trance state). And when she was thus in rapt attention, her parents came to her apartments in order to give her away. But she made them first and all their retinue and all the Raja's people believers in religion, and left the house, renouncing the world in the Bhikkhunis' quarters.

Not long after, establishing well in insight meditation (Vipassana[1]), and ripe for enlightenment(vimutti, vimukti), she attained Arahantship(enlightenment equal to Buddha), with thorough grasp of the Dhamma(path of eternal truth) in true form and in meaning. And looking back at her victory, she broke forth in blissfulness:

King Heron's daughter at Mantavati, Born from his chief wife, was Sumedha, Devoted to the makers of the Law. (450) A virtuous girl was she and eloquent, Learned and in the system of our Lord Buddha Well trained. She talked to her parents, And spoke: 'Now listen, mother, father, both! (451) I am dedicated to Nibbana. Transient is everything that does become, Even if it have the nature of a god(angel). What I have to do, then, with the empty life Of sense, that gives little, destroys much? (452) Bitter as serpents' poison are lusts Of sense, after which youthful fools do yearn. For that full many a night in wretchedness They drag out tortured lives in realms of woe. (453) <p style="text-align:center;">The sinful-minded, the sinners do mourn <p style="text-align:center;">In life in hell. Ever these are fools <p style="text-align:center;">Without restraint in deed and word and thought. (454) <p style="text-align:center;">Oh! but the foolish have no wit or will. <p style="text-align:center;">They cannot grasp what makes sorrow rise– <p style="text-align:center;">When taught, they learn not; in their sloth minds <p style="text-align:center;">The Fourfold Ariyan Truth awakens not. (455) <p style="text-align:center;">Those Truths, O mother, that the Awakened One, <p style="text-align:center;">The Best, the Buddha, has revealed to us, <p style="text-align:center;">They, the Majority, know not, and they <p style="text-align:center;">Delight in coming again to be, <p style="text-align:center;">And long to be reborn among the gods(angels). (456) <p style="text-align:center;">Even with the gods(angels) is no eternal home. <p style="text-align:center;">Becoming needs must be impermanent. <p style="text-align:center;">Yet they, the foolish souls, are not afraid <p style="text-align:center;">Again, again to come somewhere to birth. (457) <p style="text-align:center;">Four are the ways of doleful life(4 bad destinations) , <p style="text-align:center;">and two alone the ways of well being(2 good destinations) [2] <p style="text-align:center;">and these how hard to win! If one come into the four, <p style="text-align:center;">there is no ordination available in those worlds. (458) <p style="text-align:center;">(i.e. the mind is not mature enough to grasp Dhamma in 4 bad destinations)

<p style="text-align:center;">Allow me both of you, that I renounce my world; <p style="text-align:center;">And in the blessed teaching of the Lord of Ten Powers(Buddha)[3] <p style="text-align:center;">heedless of all without, I'll strive to root out birth and death. (459) <p style="text-align:center;">How can I take delight in many births, <p style="text-align:center;">In this poor body, froth without a soul? <p style="text-align:center;">That I may put an utter end to thirst <p style="text-align:center;">Again to be, allow me that I go forth (become ascetic). (460) <p style="text-align:center;">Now is the Age of Buddha! Gone the want <p style="text-align:center;">Of opportunity! The moment's won! <p style="text-align:center;">O let me never while I live, <p style="text-align:center;">Undervalue both, the Moral Precepts(Sheel), <p style="text-align:center;">and the holy celibate life!' (461)

<p style="text-align:center;">Thus spoke Sumedha, and again: 'Mother <p style="text-align:center;">And father mine, never again will I  <p style="text-align:center;">As a laywoman break my fast and eat. <p style="text-align:center;">Here will I sooner lay me down and die!' (462) <p style="text-align:center;">The afflicted mother wept; the father, stunned <p style="text-align:center;">With grief, strove to dissuade and comfort her <p style="text-align:center;">Who prostrate lay upon the palace floor, (463) <p style="text-align:center;">He said 'Rise up, dear child. Why this unhappiness <p style="text-align:center;">For you ? You are being married to go and reign <p style="text-align:center;">In Varanavati, the promised bride <p style="text-align:center;">Of King Anikaratta, handsome youth. (464) <p style="text-align:center;">You are to be his chief wife, his queen. <p style="text-align:center;">Hard is it, little child, to leave the world, <p style="text-align:center;">Hard are the Moral Precepts(Sheel) and the celibate life. (465) <p style="text-align:center;">As queen you will enjoy authority, <p style="text-align:center;">Riches and sovereignty and luxuries. <p style="text-align:center;">You that are blessed in this and young, enjoy <p style="text-align:center;">The sweets life yields. Let's go to your wedding, child.' (466)

<p style="text-align:center;">Then answered them Sumedha: 'No, not thus! <p style="text-align:center;">No soul, no essence, can becoming yield. <p style="text-align:center;">One or the other shall be–you choose which: <p style="text-align:center;">Or let me leave the world, or let me die. <p style="text-align:center;">Thus, and thus only, would I choose to wed. [4] (467) <p style="text-align:center;">What is it worth  –this body foul, unclean, <p style="text-align:center;">Emitting odours, source of fears, a bag <p style="text-align:center;">Of skin with filth filled, oozing, impure (468) <p style="text-align:center;">The while? What is it worth to me who know– <p style="text-align:center;">Repulsive carcass, plastered over with flesh <p style="text-align:center;">And blood, the haunt of worms, dinner of birds– <p style="text-align:center;">To whom shall such a thing as this be given? (469) <p style="text-align:center;">Borne in a little while to charnel-field(cremation ground), <p style="text-align:center;">There is this body thrown, when consciousness has left from it, <p style="text-align:center;">Like useless log, from which even relatives turn away. (470) <p style="text-align:center;">Throwing the thing that they have to be bathed <p style="text-align:center;">The food of alien things, at which recoil <p style="text-align:center;">The very parents, let alone their relatives. (471) <p style="text-align:center;">They have a fondness for this souless frame, <p style="text-align:center;">That's knit of bones and sinews, body foul, <p style="text-align:center;">Filled full of many types of oozings. (472) <p style="text-align:center;">Where one the body to dissect, and turn <p style="text-align:center;">The inside outermost, the smell would prove <p style="text-align:center;">Too much for even one's mother to endure. (473) <p style="text-align:center;">The factors of my being, organs, elements, <p style="text-align:center;">All are a transient compound, rooted deep <p style="text-align:center;">In birth, are Suffering, and first and last the thing <p style="text-align:center;">I would not. Whom, then, could I choose to wed? (474) <p style="text-align:center;">Rather would I find death day after day <p style="text-align:center;">With spears three hundred piercing me anew, <p style="text-align:center;">Even for an hundred years, if this would then <p style="text-align:center;">Put a last end to pain, unending else. (475) <p style="text-align:center;">The wise would with this [bargain] close, and meet <p style="text-align:center;">Utter destruction, seeing that His Word, <p style="text-align:center;">The Master's(Buddha's), says: "Long the wandering  <p style="text-align:center;">Of them who are struck down, again & again are reborn." (476) <p style="text-align:center;">Countless are the ways in which we meet our death, <p style="text-align:center;">Among gods(angels) and men, as demons or as beasts, <p style="text-align:center;">Among the ghosts, or in the haunts of hell. (477) <p style="text-align:center;">And there how many doomed tormented live! <p style="text-align:center;">No sure refuge is ours even in heaven. <p style="text-align:center;">There is nothing above, Nibbana's bliss. (478) <p style="text-align:center;">And they have won that Bliss who all their hearts <p style="text-align:center;">Have plighted to the blessed Word of Him <p style="text-align:center;">Who has the Tenfold Powers(Buddha), and heeding nothing, <p style="text-align:center;">Have striving to put far from them birth and death(rebirths). (479) <p style="text-align:center;">This day, my father, I will go forth(become ascetic)! <p style="text-align:center;">I will take nothing of empty riches! <p style="text-align:center;">Sense-desires repel and sicken me, and are become <p style="text-align:center;">Even as the stump where once has stood a palm.' (480)

<p style="text-align:center;">So spoke she to her father. Now the King, <p style="text-align:center;">Anikaratta, on his way to woo <p style="text-align:center;">His youthful bride's consent, drew near <p style="text-align:center;">At the appointed time. But Sumedha (481) <p style="text-align:center;">Let down the soft black masses of her hair <p style="text-align:center;">And with a dagger cut them off. Then closed <p style="text-align:center;">The door that led to her own terraced rooms, <p style="text-align:center;">And at once to First Jhana-rapture(Bliss of meditative trance) won. (482) <p style="text-align:center;">There sat she lost in ecstasy, the while <p style="text-align:center;">Anikaratta reached the capital. <p style="text-align:center;">Then she started thinking on impermanence, <p style="text-align:center;">Developing its thought. (483) <p style="text-align:center;">The while Anikaratta swiftly mounts <p style="text-align:center;">The palace steps, in brave array of gems <p style="text-align:center;">And gold, and bowing low woos Sumedha. (484)

<p style="text-align:center;">'Reign in my kingdom and enjoy my wealth <p style="text-align:center;">And power. Rich, happy and so young you are, <p style="text-align:center;">Enjoy the sweets that life and love can yield, <p style="text-align:center;">Though they be hard to win and won by few. (485) <p style="text-align:center;">To you my kingdom I surrender! Now <p style="text-align:center;">Dispose as you do wish, give gifts galore. <p style="text-align:center;">Be not downcast. Your parents are distressed.' (486)

<p style="text-align:center;">To him thus Sumedha, for whom desires <p style="text-align:center;">Of sensuous love were worthless, nor availed <p style="text-align:center;">To lead astray, made answer: 'O set not <p style="text-align:center;">your desires for this sensual love. <p style="text-align:center;">See all the peril, the enjoyments of senses. (487) <p style="text-align:center;">Mandhata, King of the world's four continents, <p style="text-align:center;">Had greater wealth to gratify his sense <p style="text-align:center;">Than any other man, yet passed away <p style="text-align:center;">Unsatisfied, his wishes unfulfilled. (488) <p style="text-align:center;">No, and the rain-god rained all seven kinds <p style="text-align:center;">Of gems till earth and heaven were full, still would <p style="text-align:center;">The senses crave, and insatiated men die. (489) <p style="text-align:center;">'Like the sharp blades of swords are sense-desires'. <p style="text-align:center;">'Like the poised heads of snakes prepared to dart'. <p style="text-align:center;">'Like blazing torches,' and 'like bare gnawn bones'. (490) <p style="text-align:center;">Transient, unstable are desires of sense, <p style="text-align:center;">Pregnant with Suffering and full of venom dire, <p style="text-align:center;">Searing as heated iron globe to touch. <p style="text-align:center;">Harmful is the root of them, and also harmful is the fruit. (491) <p style="text-align:center;">As 'fruit'  that brings the climber to a fall, <p style="text-align:center;">Are sense-desires; evil as 'lumps of flesh' <p style="text-align:center;">That greedy birds one from the other snatch; <p style="text-align:center;">As cheating 'dreams'; as 'borrowed goods' reclaimed. (492) <p style="text-align:center;">'As spears and javelins are desires of lusts,' <p style="text-align:center;">'A pestilence, a boil, and bane and bale. <p style="text-align:center;">A furnace of live coals,' the root of distress, <p style="text-align:center;">Murderous and the source of harrowing dread. (493)

<p style="text-align:center;">So has the direfulness of sense-desires, <p style="text-align:center;">Those barriers to salvation, been declared. <p style="text-align:center;">Go, leave me, for I do not trust myself, <p style="text-align:center;">While in this world I yet have part and lot. (494) <p style="text-align:center;">What shall another do for me? For me <p style="text-align:center;">Whose head is wrapped in flames,  whose steps are pursued <p style="text-align:center;">By age and death that stop not. To crush <p style="text-align:center;">Them utterly I need must strive.' (495)

<p style="text-align:center;">Then coming to her door she saw the king <p style="text-align:center;">Her suitor, and her parents seated there <p style="text-align:center;">And shedding tears. And once more spoke to them: (496)

<p style="text-align:center;">'Long have they yet to wander through the worlds <p style="text-align:center;">Who witless yet again their tears renew, <p style="text-align:center;">Weeping is the world withoutend for father dead, <p style="text-align:center;">Or brother killed, or that themselves must die. (497) <p style="text-align:center;">You call to mind how it was said that tears <p style="text-align:center;">And milk and blood flow on world without end. <p style="text-align:center;">And bear in mind that bundle of bones & blood <p style="text-align:center;">By creatures piled who wander through the worlds. (498) <p style="text-align:center;">Remember the four oceans as compared <p style="text-align:center;">With all the flow of tears and milk and blood. <p style="text-align:center;">Remember the 'great heap of one man's bones <p style="text-align:center;">From one aeon alone, equal to Vipula(mountain)'; (499) <p style="text-align:center;">And how great India (Jambudipa) would not be sufficient <p style="text-align:center;">To provide little counting-balls of mould, <p style="text-align:center;">By which to count all the ancestors <p style="text-align:center;">Of one's own round of life world without end.' (500) <p style="text-align:center;">Remember how the little squares of straws <p style="text-align:center;">And tree branches and twigs could never suffice <p style="text-align:center;">As count for one's fathers world without end.' (501) <p style="text-align:center;">Remember how the parable was told <p style="text-align:center;">Of witless turtle in the Eastern Seas, <p style="text-align:center;">Or other oceans, once as time goes by, <p style="text-align:center;">Thrusting his head through hole of drifting yoke'; <p style="text-align:center;">So rare as this the chance of human birth. [5] (502) <p style="text-align:center;">Remember too the 'body'-parable, <p style="text-align:center;">The 'lump of froth,' of spittle without core, <p style="text-align:center;">Drifting. See here the fleeting factors five. <p style="text-align:center;">And O forget not hell where many suffer. (503) <p style="text-align:center;">Remember how we swell the charnel-fields(cremation grounds), <p style="text-align:center;">Now dying, now again elsewhere reborn. <p style="text-align:center;">Remember what was said of 'crocodiles,' <p style="text-align:center;">And what those perils meant for us, and O! <p style="text-align:center;">You bear in mind the Four, the Ariyan Truths. (504)

<p style="text-align:center;">THE NECTAR(AMATA/AMRIT)[6] OF ETERNAL LIFE IS NOW KNOWN <p style="text-align:center;">How can you be satisfied with bitter drinks of sensuality <p style="text-align:center;">All sensual enjoyments including sex are bitter, <p style="text-align:center;">and bitter are five senses (leading to bitter suffering) (505)

<p style="text-align:center;">THE NECTAR(AMATA/AMRIT) OF ETERNAL LIFE IS NOW KNOWN <p style="text-align:center;">How can you be satisfied with fevered fits of sensuality? <p style="text-align:center;">All sensual enjoyments including sex are burning, <p style="text-align:center;">wasting, boiling, grief and feverish (506)

<p style="text-align:center;">THERE IS, WHERE ENMITY IS NOT! O how <p style="text-align:center;">Can you be satisfied with joys of sense <p style="text-align:center;">In danger are you from so many foes–the wrath <p style="text-align:center;">Or greed of king, or thief, or rival, harm <p style="text-align:center;">Through fire, or water–Yes, so many foes! (507)

<p style="text-align:center;">ENLIGHTENMENT(Mokkha, Moksha) awaits to be known! <p style="text-align:center;">O how can you be satisfied with sensual joys, in which <p style="text-align:center;">Lie bonds and death? Yes, in those very joys <p style="text-align:center;">lurk deathpit and hangsmen. They who seek to indulge <p style="text-align:center;">Their lusts needs, must from that time on, suffer ills. (508) <p style="text-align:center;">Him will straw-torches burn who holds them long <p style="text-align:center;">And lets not go. So, in the parable, <p style="text-align:center;">Desires of sense burn them who let not go. (509) <p style="text-align:center;">Cast not away, because of some vain joy <p style="text-align:center;">Of sense, the bigger happiness sublime, <p style="text-align:center;">Otherwise like the fish you swallow the hook, <p style="text-align:center;">Only to find yourself ruined (510) <p style="text-align:center;">Tame you yourself in sense-desires, nor let <p style="text-align:center;">Yourself be bound by them, as is a dog <p style="text-align:center;">bound by a chain; else they will do, no doubt, <p style="text-align:center;">With you as hungry outcast with that dog(eaten). (511) <p style="text-align:center;">Once more I say, immeasurable sufferings <p style="text-align:center;">And many weary miseries of mind <p style="text-align:center;">You suffer yoked to sensual life. Renounce, <p style="text-align:center;">Renounce desires of sense! They pass away. (512)

<p style="text-align:center;">THERE IS, THAT GROWS NEVER OLD! O how <p style="text-align:center;">Can you be satisfied with sense-desires <p style="text-align:center;">That age so soon? Are not all things reborn, <p style="text-align:center;">Wherever it be, gripped by disease and death? (513) <p style="text-align:center;">THIS  that does never grow old, that dies not, <p style="text-align:center;">THIS never-ageing, never-dying Path– <p style="text-align:center;">No sorrow comes there, no enemies, <p style="text-align:center;">Nor is there any crowd;  none faint or fail, <p style="text-align:center;">No fear comes, nor anything that does torment– (514) <p style="text-align:center;">To THIS, the Path of Ambrosia(to eternity/immortality), have gone <p style="text-align:center;">Full many. And to-day, even now it is to be won. <p style="text-align:center;">But only by a life that's utterly <p style="text-align:center;">Surrendered in devotion. Labour not, <p style="text-align:center;">And you shall not attain!'  Thus Sumedha (515) <p style="text-align:center;">Ended her say, who found no joy in all <p style="text-align:center;">Activities that lead from life to life, <p style="text-align:center;">And, to Anikaratta thus her mind <p style="text-align:center;">Declaring, dropped her long hair on the floor. (516) <p style="text-align:center;">Then up he rose with outstretched folded hands, <p style="text-align:center;">And with her father pleaded for her thus: <p style="text-align:center;">'O allow Sumedha to leave the world(become ascetic) , <p style="text-align:center;">That she may ordain and see the Truth and Liberation(Moksha/Nirvana)!' (517)

<p style="text-align:center;">The parents gave permission, and she became ordained, <p style="text-align:center;">Afraid to stay and build up fear and grief. <p style="text-align:center;">Six branches of Insight [7]she realized, <p style="text-align:center;">As learner, winning to the Topmost Fruit. (518)

<p style="text-align:center;">How wondrous is this! How marvellous! <p style="text-align:center;">Nibbana for the daughter of a king! <p style="text-align:center;">Her state and conduct in her former lives, <p style="text-align:center;">Even as she told in her last life were these: (519) <p style="text-align:center;">'When  Konagamana was Buddha here, <p style="text-align:center;">And in a new abode, the Order's Park, <p style="text-align:center;">Took up his dwelling, two of my friends, and I  <p style="text-align:center;">Built a Vihara(monastery) for the Master's use. (520) <p style="text-align:center;">And many scores and centuries of lives <p style="text-align:center;">We lived among the gods(angels), let alone men. (521) <p style="text-align:center;">Mighty our glory and our power among <p style="text-align:center;">The gods(angels), nor need I speak of fame on earth. <p style="text-align:center;">Was I not wife of an Emperor, <p style="text-align:center;">The Treasure-Woman amongst the Treasures Seven? (522)

<p style="text-align:center;">Endurance  in the Dhamma(eternal truth) the Master(Buddha) taught– <p style="text-align:center;">This was the cause, the source, the root, <p style="text-align:center;">This the First Link in the long Causal Line, <p style="text-align:center;">This is Nibbana if we love the Dhamma(path of eternal truth). (523)

<p style="text-align:center;">Thus acting,  they who put their trust in Him, <p style="text-align:center;">Wisdom Supreme,  lose every wish and hope <p style="text-align:center;">Of coming back to be–and thus released <p style="text-align:center;">They from all passion's stain are purified. (524)