[395] **"Like the sun, blazing, [scorches] the earth with its blaze" (ādicco va pathaviṃ tejī tejasā):** "Ādicco" is a term for the sun. "Pathavī" (the earth) is a term for aging (jarā). Just as the sun, blazing, endowed with blaze, with fiery heat, having overcome, vanquished, overspread, exhausted, and scorched the earth, having struck down all that lies in the sky, having dispelled the darkness and displayed light, goes along its course through the sky, through the firmament — even so the Blessed One, blazing with knowledge (ñāṇa), endowed with the fiery power of knowledge, … the whole origin of volitional formations (abhisaṅkhāra) … having dispelled the darkness of the defilements, the blinding gloom of ignorance, having displayed the light of knowledge, having fully understood objective sensuality (vatthukāma), having abandoned subjective sensuality (kilesakāma) — having overcome, vanquished, overspread, exhausted, and crushed [them] — moves about, carries on, conducts himself, guards himself, sustains himself, and maintains himself. Hence: "like the sun, blazing, [scorches] the earth with its blaze."
[Variant readings noted in the Siam Raṭṭha edition:]
1. Burmese ed.: this reading is absent. 2. Burmese ed.: viharati; so also below. 3. Burmese ed.: sūriyo throughout. 4. Burmese ed.: jagatī. 5. Burmese ed.: this reading is absent. 6. Burmese ed.: tamagataṃ. 7. Burmese ed.: dassayitvā. 8. Burmese ed.: gaganapathe.
English translation from the Pali (Siam Raṭṭha edition) — under review, not for citation.