Ambapali

[Guest guest]

In the following excerpts from The Songs of the Sisters by Usula P.

Wijesuriya, which consists of adaptations of Theri Gatha or Psalms of

the Sisters, one can hear the voice of Ambapali who contemplates,

among other subjects, the ephemeral nature of her once enchanting

body:

 

Many aeons ago, in the time of Buddha Sikhi,

 

Ambapali was an elder nun in his order.

 

She and the sisters were paying homage to the Bodhi

 

When one sneezed, spraying spittle on the tree.

 

" Which whore did that? " demanded Pali,

 

Maligning the noble sisterhood.

 

She paid for this insult birth after birth,

 

In the guise of a courtesan, desired but cheap.

 

In the time of Buddha Gautama

 

She appeared 'neath a mango tree,

 

Her glory surpassing the proud sun at dawn,

 

Her grace - the swans or woodland fawn;

 

For she had wished in many past lives

 

That she be of no mother born.

 

Her suitors outnumbered bees on honeyed blooms

 

Or the leaves on her mango tree,

 

Until the king decreed that she

 

Would be the hired plaything of the realm.

 

Her only son, Wimala Kondanna by name,

 

Followed the Buddha and graced the yellow robe.

 

He came to tell his mother the selfless love he'd known

 

And bid her follow him to the Lord.

 

Ambapali - the love goddess of the state

 

Approached the Buddha, whose compassionate gaze

 

Stirred her, as no sensual gaze of prince or merchant

 

Ever did. And she on her knees prayed

 

" May I be of your order - dressed in rough shroud robe?

 

Accept my mango grove, oh sire,

 

May it be a haven for such as me

 

who at last has learnt that life's a dream. "

 

Sister Ambapali sat in rapt contemplation,

 

Of the change the thievish years had wrought

 

On her once dazzling beauty - and of her power

 

To lure prince and pauper in the wiles of love.

 

 

 

Years ago my hair was lustrous black,

 

Framing my face in tasselled curls.

 

Today it hangs like limp and listless hemp

 

The Buddha's truth of impermanence is here.

 

There was a day, when my hair

 

Dressed in perfumes and flowers,

 

Combed to silken perfection,

 

Trained with jewelled pins,

 

Lured the mighty of this land.

 

But now - the musty smell of age

 

Pervades it. The thick locks gone,

 

And rats' tails would a comparison make.

 

There was a day - when poets sang

 

To my rainbow eyebrows. When artists dreamed

 

Of their perfect arch.

 

Today they squiggle in a myriad wrinkles

 

Over forehead, cheek and chin.

 

What dimmed the lustre in my limpid eyes?

 

Where went the youthful nose so delicate and fine?

 

My ear lobes adorned with golden drops and beads

 

Now reduced to bone and shrivelled skin.

 

There was a day when my white and sparkling teeth

 

Smiled alluringly on princes of the realm,

 

But who would greet me now

 

Gap-toothed and yellow, like a broken fence.

 

My voice outdid the nightingale's

 

Love songs on moonlit nights;

 

But now it quavers, querulous and old,

 

Can I but speak - to tell you all I've learnt.

 

My graceful neck - the wild swans envied me,

 

Rivalled the smoothness of conches on sea beds,

 

Today, wrinkled and bent

 

I croak my message. This is the inevitable truth.

 

My arms so moulded - alabaster smooth were they,

 

Now like withered stalks they hang.

 

My hands - smooth, soft, adorned with rings,

 

Claws of decrepit birds to mem'ry brings.

 

My rounded breasts, so firm, so soft, so full,

 

Swan-like uplifted, claimed proud womanhood.

 

Now hang they empty between the ribs

 

Like strainers when the sap is fled.

 

My body - golden hued and warm,

 

Now a mass of scales and flabid flesh.

 

My thighs, once likened to elephant trunks

 

Are no more than crushed and splintered sugar cane.

 

Where are my ankles which danced to tinkling tunes

 

Drawn from jewelled anklets and silver bells.

 

Where are my feet - soft as silken pads

 

Now cracked and palsied. I painfully limp.

 

Such is this form, that age will surely spoil,

 

Such is fleeting beauty, pillaged by creeping years

 

Moving on silent feet.

 

This body, once the envy of the land

 

Is no more than a house of clay with peeling walls.

 

Sister Ambapali reached realisation one day

 

Absorbing all knowledge through the three-fold way,

 

Non-returner was she, before her days were done,

 

Temptress of an empire - Nibbana won.