Verses on Dhamma 182

182

Kiccho manussapaṭilābho,
kicchaṃ maccāna jīvitaṃ;
Kicchaṃ saddhammassavanaṃ,
kiccho buddhānamuppādo.

Difficult (to obtain) is the conception of men, difficult is the life of mortals, difficult is the hearing of the True Law, difficult is the birth of the Awakened (the attainment of Buddhahood).
[179, 180. Buddha, the Awakened, is to be taken as an appellative rather than as the proper name of the Buddha (see v. 183). It means, anybody who has arrived at complete knowledge. Anantagokaram I take in the sense of, possessed of unlimited knowledge. Apadam, which Dr. Fausböll takes as an epithet of Buddha and translates by 'non investigabilis,' is translated 'trackless,' in order to show the play on the word pada; see Childers, s.v. The commentator says: 'The man who is possessed of even a single one of such conditions as râga, &c., him ye may lead forward; but the Buddha has not even one condition or basis of renewed existence, and therefore by what track will you lead this unconditioned Buddha?' Cf. Dhp. vv. 92, 420; and Gâtaka, vol. i. pp. 79, 313.