Thig 6:6 · Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī
Awakened! Hero! Homage to you,
highest of all beings—
you who’ve released me
and many other people
from suffering!
I’ve comprehended all stress,
dried up craving, the cause,
developed the eightfold path,1
and touched cessation.
Before I was mother, son,
father, brother,
grandmother.
Not knowing things as they were,
I wandered on
without respite.
But now that I’ve seen the Blessed One,
this is my last body-heap.
Birth & wandering-on
are totally ended.
There is now
no further becoming.
I see the disciples gathered,
their persistence aroused,
resolute, constant
in strong exertion:
This is the worship of the Buddhas.2
Truly for the benefit of the many
did Māyā3 give birth to Gotama,
thrusting away the mass of pain
of those mired in illness & death.
Notes
1. Reading bhavit’aṭṭhaṅgiko maggo with the Thai edition.
2. See DN 16 on the topic of how homage is best shown to the Buddha.
3. Mahāpajāpatī’s sister, the Buddha’s mother.
Translated by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu. © 2014 / rev. 2017 Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu — released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 licence, for free distribution only. Source: dhammatalks.org (Metta Forest Monastery).
