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tha-ap.123 Thera Apadana

Sereyyaka

I was a learned mantra-knower
who had mastered the three Vedas.
While standing in the open air
I saw the Leader of the World,

wandering the woods like a lion,
untrembling like a tiger-king,
the Great Sage, like an elephant,
a mātaṅga in three-fold rut.

Picking up some jasmine flowers,
I tossed them up into the air.
By the power of the Buddha,
they fully surrounded him there.

The Great Hero stood unmoving,
the World-Leader, Omniscient One.
On all sides they scattered flowers,
thus covering the Bull of Men.

There a canopy of flowers
with stems inside and blossoms out
having covered him for a week
afterward then disappeared.

And having seen that miracle,
marvel making hair stand on end,
I pleased my heart in the Buddha,
the Well-Gone-One, the World-Leader.

Due to that pleasure in my heart,
incited by my wholesome roots,
for one hundred thousand aeons,
I’ve come to know no bad rebirth.

In the fifteen-thousandth aeon
there were five more than twenty men,
wheel-turning kings with great power,
all known as Cīnamāla then.

The four analytical modes,
and these eight deliverances,
six special knowledges mastered,
I have done what the Buddha taught!

Thus indeed Venerable Sereyyaka Thera spoke these verses.

The legend of Sereyyaka Thera is finished.

- Translator: Jonathan S. Walters

- Editor: Ayya Vimala