{"collection":"Buddhism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/bud/pos/pos20.htm","path":"bud/pos/pos20.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/bud/pos/pos20.htm","text":"SHE too, having made her resolve under former Buddhas, and persisting in her former disposition in this and that rebirth, in that she heaped up good of age-enduring efficacy, in the seventh rebirth before her last phase of life, susceptible to sex-attraction, wrought adulterous conduct. For this she did purgatory for many centuries, and thereafter for three rebirths was an animal. Thereafter she was brought forth by a slave-woman as an hermaphrodite, and thereafter she was born as the daughter of a poor common man, and was, when of age, married to the son of a caravan-leader named Girid\u0101sa. Now the wife that he had was virtuous and of noble qualities, and the new wife envied her, and quarrelled with the husband because of her. After her death she was, in this Buddha-era, reborn at Ujjen\u012b 397 as the daughter of a virtuous, honoured and wealthy merchant, and was named Isid\u0101s\u012b. 398 When she was of age, her parents gave her in marriage to a merchant's son, a good match with herself. For a month she dwelt with him as a devoted wife; then, as the fruit of her previous actions, her husband became estranged from her, and turned her out of his house. All this is told in the Pali text. Because she had not proved desirable for one husband after another, she grew agitated and, gaining her father's consent, took orders under the Ther\u012b Jinadatt\u0101. And studying for insight, she not long after attained Arahantship, together with thorough grasp of the Norm in form and meaning.\nDwelling in the bliss of fruition and Nibbana, she one day, after seeking her meal in the city of Patna and dining, sat down on a sandbank of great Ganges, and being asked by her companion, the Ther\u012b Bodhi, about her previous experience, she related it by way of verses. And to show the connection of her former and latter replies, these three stanzas were inserted by the Recensionists:\n 396 On this curious Psalm see Introduction.\n \n 397 See n. to verse 405.\n \n 398 = Slave of the sage.\n \n 399 P\u0101\u1e6daliputta. On the rise of this city as the capital of the Mauryan dynasty, and the Buddha's prophecy of that rise, see Rhys Davids, Buddhist Suttas, xi., pp. xv. 18; Buddhist India, pp. 262 \u017f\u017f., where the testimony of Megasthenes is largely quoted.\n \n 400 On Ujjen\u012b and S\u0101keta, see Rhys Davids, Buddhist India, pp. 39, 40; Neumann, op. cit., 361 n. They may have been some 500 miles apart, and the journey would be largely by river. Cf. Rhys Davids, op. cit., 103.\n \n 401 The Commentator interprets the Vedic infinitive k\u0101tuye, 'do,' as meaning k\u0101tu' yye, 'do, lady.'\n \n 402 My reading of this very obscure passage\u2013jin\u0101mhase r\u016bpinin Lacchin or r\u016bpin\u012b Lacch\u012b\u2013is suggested by my husband, and differs from that of Dr. Neumann, who has felt compelled to doctor the text. Commentary: 'Defeated by the goddess Sir\u012b (\u015ar\u012b) clad in human dress'\u2013i.e., Isid\u0101s\u012b, as personating the fickle goddess of chance. Thus \n they call her 'Luck!' I cannot believe that, had the young divorcee been enceinte, she would have been sent home so ignominiously, or that the tale would have been silent about the child when born.\n \n 403 Vinayadhar\u0101, who could repeat the Vinaya-Pitaka. This proficiency was Pa\u1e6d\u0101c\u0101r\u0101's to a special degree. See Ps. xlvii.; Ang. Nik., i. 25.\n \n 404 Brahmins.\n \n 405 Nijjaress\u0101mi. This was the ascetic aspect taken of the religious life. As a Jainist opinion, it is criticized by the Buddha in the 'Devadaha Sutta,' Majjhima Nik\u0101ya, ii. 214 \u017f\u017f.\n \n 406 Dvipada, lit., 'bipeds,' an epithet of the Buddha I do not find elsewhere.\n \n 407 Buddhist India, p. 40; Neumann, op. cit., 366 n.\n \n 408 To ripen or be cooked is the usual metaphor for a cause working out its effect. Note that 'hell' here (nir\u0103y\u0103) is really purgatory. No form of being, for Buddhism, was eternal.\n \n 409 I have discussed this passage in 'Early Economic Conditions in North India' (J.R.A.S., 1901, 880, n. 1) thus: In the second line, \n \n which Dr. Neumann renders 'Vom Tische Reicher lasen wir die Reste auf,' I take the compound dhanikapurisap\u0101tabahulamhi (Commentary: i\u1e47\u0101yik\u0101na\u014b puris\u0101na\u014b adhipatanabahule bah\u016bhi i\u1e47\u0101yikehi abhibhavitabbe) to mean 'fallen into the power of usurers.' This leads up to the next line, giving a point to it which is lacking in the rendering alluded to.\n \nI am unable to classify the metre throughout this poem, from the first line:nagaramhi kusuman\u0101me P\u0101\u1e6daliputtamhi pathaviy\u0101to the last:d\u0101s\u012b va upa\u1e6d\u1e6dhahanti\u014b tassa pi anto kato may\u0101","title":"Psalms of the Sisters: Canto XV. Psalms of Over Forty Verses","type":"page"}