[98]
[The Elder Sāriputta asked:]
"Naked and of hideous appearance are you,
emaciated, your veins standing out;
you whose ribs protrude, you gaunt one —
who, now, are you, that stand here?"
[The petī replied:]
"I, venerable sir, am a petī (a female peta, a ghost of the departed),
in a woeful state (duggatā), belonging to the world of Yama;
having done an evil kamma,
I have gone from here to the world of petas (petaloka)."
[The Elder asked:]
"What wrong deed, then, was done by body,
by speech, or by mind?
Through the ripening (vipāka) of what kamma
have you gone from here to the world of petas?"
[The petī replied:]
"There were none, venerable sir, who had compassion on me —
no father, no mother, nor yet any kinsmen —
who might have urged me:
'With a confident mind give a gift (dāna)
to ascetics and brahmins.'
For five hundred years from hence
I have wandered in such a form as this, naked,
devoured by hunger and by thirst:
this is the fruit of my evil kamma.
I venerate you, noble sir, with a confident mind;
have compassion on me, O hero of great might!
Having given something, dedicate it to me,
and free me, venerable sir, from the woeful state."
"So be it!" — and, having assented to her
English translation from the Pali (Siam Raṭṭha edition) — under review, not for citation.