PSALMS OF THE BRETHREN
Canto I.
Psalms of Single Verses
IX
Pilinda-Vaccha
Translated from the Pali by Mrs. C.A.F. Rhys Davids.
Public Domain
Reborn at Sāvatthī as a brahmin's son, before the Exalted One became a Buddha, they named him Pilinda, Vaccha being the name of his clan. He became a recluse, and acquired the charm called the Lesser Gandhāra,[1] deriving therefrom great renown. But when our Exalted One became Buddha the charm ceased to work. He having learnt that the Greater Gandhara spell stopped the Less, [15] concluded that Gotama the recluse knew the former, and he waited on him in the hope of acquiring it, asking if the chance might be granted him. The Exalted One answered: 'You must leave the world.' He, fancying that this was a preparation for the charm,[2] did so. To him the Exalted One taught the Norm, and gave him exercise in meditation, so that he, the conditions being ripe, attained arahantship.
Now one who, in consequence of Pilinda's guidance in a former birth, had gone to heaven as a deva, waited on him morning and evening out of gratitude. Hence the Brother was distinguished as one dear to the gods, and was ranked chief among the brethren who were such by the Exalted One.[3]
And Pilinda one day, sitting among the brethren, and reflecting on his success, declared to them how the charm had brought him to the Exalted One uttering this psalm:
[9] O welcome this that came, nor came amiss!
0 goodly was the counsel given to me!
'Mong divers doctrines mooted among men
Of all 'twas sure the Best I sought and found.
[1] On the Gandhāra Vijjā, or charm — not, as here, distinguished as twofold — see Dialogues, i. 278. Cf. Jat., iv. 498 f. The charm is here said to confer the power both of going through the air and of thought-reading. The identity of this Thera with the Pilinda-Vaccha of Rājagaha (Vin. Texts, ii. 61). is doubtful; yet cf. next p., n. 2.
[2] This fresh renunciation (pabbajjā must have meant entering the Order, although this is not stated. Contrast with Pilinda's mistaken view, Dialogues, i. 278, and iii., XXIV., §4. Cf. Vangīsa, CCLXIV.
[3] Ang., i. 24, the Cy. on which quotes Udānaṇ, iii. 6.
