[863] I too remember seven births (jāti) through which I myself have transmigrated,
and seven more in the future to which I shall go when I have passed from here.
That birth which was my seventh in the past, O lord of the people:
I was a smith's son in the Magadha country, in the city of Rājagaha.
Having taken up with an evil companion, much evil was done by me;
we went about violating the wives of others, as though we were immortal.
That deed (kamma) lay stored away, like a fire covered over with ashes;
then, through other deeds, I was born in the land of the Vaṃsas —
at Kosambī, in the family of a wealthy merchant (seṭṭhi), prosperous, flourishing, of great wealth;
I was the only son, great king, ever honored and revered.
There I kept company with a friend, a companion devoted to the good,
wise and accomplished in learning; he established me in the good.
On the fourteenth and the fifteenth, through many a night, I sat in observance [of the fast];
that deed lay stored away, like a treasure at the water's edge.
Then, of those evil deeds, the one that was done in Magadha —
its fruit came round upon me afterwards, as when one has swallowed virulent poison.
Passing away from there, O Vedeha, long was I tormented in the Roruva hell (niraya)
by my own deed; remembering it, I find no happiness.
When I had spent many a long year there amid much suffering (dukkha),
I became, O king, a castrated he-goat in Bhinnāgata.
English translation from the Pali (Siam Raṭṭha edition) — under review, not for citation.