SHE, too, was born, when Padumuttara was Buddha, at the city Haŋsavatī, in a clansman's family. And, when grown up, she heard, with a great multitude, the Master teach, and assign a certain Bhikkhunī the chief place among those who had mystic potency.318 And she gave great gifts for seven days to the Buddha and the Order, and aspired to that same rank. . . .
In this Buddha-age, she was reborn at Sāvatthī as the daughter of the Treasurer. And because her skin was of the colour of the heart 319 of the blue lotus, they called her Uppalavaṇṇā.320 Now, when she was come of age, kings and commoners from the whole of India sent messengers to her father, saying: 'Give us your daughter.' Thereupon the Treasurer thought: 'I cannot possibly meet the wishes of all. I will devise a plan.' And, sending for his daughter, he said: 'Dear one, are you able to leave the world?' To her, because she was in her final stage of life, his words were as if oil a hundred times refined had anointed her head. Therefore she said: 'Dear father, I will renounce the world!' He, honouring her, brought her to the Bhikkhunīs' quarters, and let her be ordained.
A little while afterwards it became her turn for office in the house of the Sabbath.321 And, lighting the lamp, she swept the room. Then taking the flame of the lamp as a visible sign, and contemplating it continually, she brought about Jhana by way of the Lambent Artifice,322 and making that her stepping-stone, she attained Arahantship. With its fruition, intuition and grasp of the Norm were achieved, and she became especially versed in the mystic potency of transformation.323
And the Master, seated in conclave in the Jeta Grove, assigned her the foremost rank in the mystic powers. She, pondering the bliss of Jhana and of fruition, repeated one day certain verses. They had been uttered in anguish by a mother who had been living as her daughter's rival with him who later, when a Bhikkhu, became known as the Ganges-bank Elder,324 and were a reflection on the harm, the vileness and corruption of sensual desires:
I.
II.
Joyful and happy, she meditates on the distinction she has won:
III.
She works a marvel before the Buddha with his consent, and records the same:
IV.
She is disturbed by Māra in the Sāl-tree Grove, and rebukes him:
NOTE.–Four gāthā's ascribed to this famous Sister are, in the Therigāthā, recorded without break. The Commentary breaks them up into four episodes. In the first, a merchant's wife at Sāvatthī, about to bear her first child in her husband's prolonged absence on business at Rājagaha, is turned out by his mother, who disbelieves the wife's fidelity. She seeking her husband, and delivered of a son at a wayside bungalow, another merchant carries off the babe in her absence, and adopts it. A robber-chief finds the distracted mother, and she bears him a daughter. This child she accidentally injures, and flees from the chief's wrath. Years after her son, yet a youth, weds both mother and daughter, ignorant of the kinship. The mother discovers the scar on her daughter's head, and identifies her rival as her own child.
318 Iddhi.
319 Gabbha, or matrix. So also Ang. Nik. Commentary. But cf. Dr. Neumann's note. And below, verse 257.
320 Lotus-hued. The lengthy legend, or chain of legends, associating the past lives of this famous Therī with the lotus-flower is fully translated from the Anguttara Commentary in Mrs. Bode's Women Leaders, etc., J.R.A.S., 1893, 540-551. It is only interesting as folk-lore, and not as illustrating any point in her Psalm, hence is here omitted.
321 Uposathāgāre kālavāro pāpuṇi, a phrase I have not yet met with elsewhere.
322 See Buddhist Psy., 43, n. 4; 57, n. 2; 58.
323 The standard description of the modes of Iddhi are given in English in Rhys Davids' Dialogues of the Buddha, i. 277.
324 See Theragāthā, verses 127, 128. See note below, p. 114.
325 I have read pabbaji, not pabbajiŋ, following the majority of the MSS. consulted by Pischel, as well as the Commentary. It is less forced to read, in sā, 'she,' and not 'I,' where no other pronoun follows (sā'haŋ). Verse (226) thus becomes the comment of Uppălăvaṇṇā on the mother's distressful utterance.
326 The Pali metre changes here from the usual śloka to a mixed jagatī and trishsṭubh metre, but changes back again after verse 231. Cf. the other version of this Psalm in the Appendix. e.g.:
˘ ˘ ˘ ˘ ˘ ˘ _ _ _ _ _ _ S u p u p p h i t a g g a ŋ u p a g a m m a p ā d a p a ŋ || (jagatī) ˘ ˘ ˘ ˘ ˘ ˘ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ e k ā t u v a ŋ t i ṭ ṭ h a s i r u k k h a m ū l e || (trishsṭubh)
327 Māra was himself an adept at this kind of magic (see Majjh. Nik., i. 332). I follow the Commentary and Dr. Windisch (Māra und Buddha, 139 ſſ.) in making the Sister speak the verse, her special gift being 'mystic potency,' or Iddhi.
328 Cf. Ps. xxxv.
