PSALMS OF THE BRETHREN
Canto IV.
Psalms of Four Verses
CXCIII
Rāhula
Translated from the Pali by Mrs. C.A.F. Rhys Davids.
Public Domain
Reborn in this Buddha-age through our Bodhisat, as the son of Princess Yasodhāra, he was reared with a great retinue of nobles. The circumstances of his entering the Order are recorded in the Khandhaka.[1] And he, his knowledge ripened by gracious words in many Sutta passages,[2] conjured up insight, and so won arahantship. Thereupon, reflecting on his victory, he confessed añña:
[295] Twice blest of fortune am I whom my friends
Call 'Lucky Rāhula.' For I am both
Child of the Buddha and a Seer of truths;
[296] Yea, and intoxicants are purged from me;
Yea, and there's no more coming back to be.
Ar'hant am I, worthy men's offerings;
'Thrice skilled' my ken is of ambrosial things.
[297] Blinded are beings by their sense-desires,
Spread o'er them like a net; covered are they
By cloak of craving; by their heedless ways
Caught as a fish in mouth of funnel-net,[3]
[298] But I, that call of sense abandoning,
Have cut and snapt the bonds of devil's lure.
Craving with craving's root abolishing;
Cool am I now; extinct is fever's fire.[4]
[1] Vinaya Texts, i. 208 f.
[2] E.g., Majjhima, Nos. 62; 147; Saṃyutta, iii. 135 etc.
[3] Kumināmukhe. The kuminā, paraphrased by pasibbaka, a funnel-shaped net probably resembling our weir-traps.
[4] Nibbuto. This is nearer to the Buddhist idea than the rendering given to this line in the Sisters, p. 19; see n. 4.
