Maha Pajapati (Gotami) Theri: A Mother's Blessing
translated from the Pali by
Andrew Olendzki
© 2005–2013
Translator's note
The woman who is said to have composed this poem was Pajapati, the Buddha's stepmother and a Queen of the Sakyas. Her younger sister was Maya, married to King Suddhodana only after Pajapati herself was unable to conceive an heir. Queen Maya died in childbirth, and it was Pajapati who raised Gotama as her own son. After his enlightenment, Pajapati also left the palace and became the first of the bhikkhunis, the order of nuns.
The third stanza suggests that her attainments included the recollection of past lives, by which she was able to verify empirically the truth of continual rebirth —the "flowing on" (samsara) from one life to another. This process, as she mentions in her poem, is fueled by craving and by "not understanding." In the second and fourth stanzas Pajapati declares her attainment of nibbana, of final and complete liberation in this very life.
It is remarkable to think that when Maya is remembered in the last stanza, the author has in mind not the icon of motherhood and sacrifice that Maya became in the Buddhist tradition, but a dearly-loved younger sister who died tragically young —without ever seeing what her son had become.
Buddha! Hero! Praise be to you!
You foremost among all beings!
You who have released me from pain,
And so many other beings too.
All suffering has been understood.
The source of craving has withered.
Cessation has been touched by me
On the noble eight-fold path.
I've been mother and son before;
And father, brother — grandmother too.
Not understanding what was real,
I flowed-on without finding [peace].
But now I've seen the Blessed One!
This is my last compounded form.
The on-flowing of birth has expired.
There's no more re-becoming now.
See the gathering of followers:
Putting forth effort, self controlled,
Always with strong resolution —
This is how to honor the Buddhas!
Surely for the good of so many
Did Maya give birth to Gotama,
Who bursts asunder the mass of pain
Of those stricken by sickness and death.
In deep devotion taken and dedicated to my mother, my father, my teacher, my friends and guidance and dedicated to all mothers in the past, the present and the future. There is not a single being excluded with it.
Thank
MAHĀPAJĀPATÍ (große Hauptfrau, die Nachkommen hat)
Dir, Buddha, Held, Verehrung sei,
von allen Wesen Höchster, dir!
Du hast vom Leiden mich befreit
und auch das andre viele Volk!
Das ganze Leiden ist erkannt,
der Grund des Durstes ist verdorrt:
der edele Achtgliederweg,
das Aufhör’n ist von mir berührt.
Mutter, Sohn und Vater, Bruder,
und Großmutter ich früher war, -
die Wirklichkeit ich nicht erkannte,
fand aus dem Kreislauf nicht heraus.
Erschaut hab den Erhab’nen ich,
dies ist die letzte Anhäufung:
erschöpft ist der Geburtenkreis,
nicht ist jetzt mehr ein Wiederwerden.
In frischer Tatkraft, ernst sich mühend
und ständig fest in ihrem Streben,
auf gradem Weg die Jünger sieh:
das ist der Buddhas Ehrerweisen (Ehr-Erweisen)
Für viele wahrlich nur zum Nutzen
Māyā gebar den Gotamo:
von Krankheit und von Tod Geschlag’nen
die Leidenmasse er vertrieb.
Mit tiefer Dankbarkeit genommen und meiner Mutter, meinem Vater, meinen Lehrern, meinen Freunden und Begleitern und allen Müttern der Vergangenheit, der Gegenwart und der Zukunft gewidmet. Damit soll kein einziges Lebewesen ausgeschlossen sein.
Danke