The Elder Mahātissa
R1 and R2 were both fixed formulas or scholastic definition — no real narration, and so no real aorist. This reading is different: it's a story, and stories are where the aorist (Lesson 12) actually earns its keep. This is also the Visuddhimagga's own most famous illustration of "not grasping the details" in Sīlaniddesa's treatment of restraint of the faculties.
The Story
Reproduced exactly from our Sīlaniddesa translation. The Elder Mahātissa, walking to Anurādhapura for alms with his eyes lowered in the ordinary discipline of the alms-round, is laughed at by a woman fleeing a quarrel with her husband — and, looking up only far enough to see the bones of her teeth as she laughs, is struck by the meditation on foulness he has long practiced, and attains Arahantship on the spot.
Theraṃ kira cetiyapabbatā anurādhapuraṃ piṇḍacāratthāya āgacchantaṃ aññatarā kulasuṇhā sāmikena saddhiṃ bhaṇḍitvā sumaṇḍitapasādhitā devakaññā viya kālasseva anurādhapurato nikkhamitvā ñātigharaṃ gacchantī antarāmagge disvā vipallatthacittā mahāhasitaṃ hasi. Thero kimetanti olokento tassā dantaṭṭhike asubhasaññaṃ paṭilabhitvā arahattaṃ pāpuṇi. Tena vuttaṃ —
"Tassā dantaṭṭhikaṃ disvā, pubbasaññaṃ anussari;
tattheva so ṭhito thero, arahattaṃ apāpuṇī"ti.
Sāmikopi kho panassā anumaggaṃ gacchanto theraṃ disvā "kiñci, bhante, itthiṃ passathā"ti pucchi. Taṃ thero āha —
"Nābhijānāmi itthī vā, puriso vā ito gato;
apica aṭṭhisaṅghāṭo, gacchatesa mahāpathe"ti.
It is said that, as the Elder was coming from Cetiya Mountain to Anurādhapura for alms, a certain daughter-in-law of good family, having quarreled with her husband, beautifully adorned and dressed like a celestial nymph, having set out early from Anurādhapura to go to her relatives' house, saw him on the road and, her mind distorted, burst into loud laughter. The Elder, looking to see what this was, gained the perception of foulness in the bones of her teeth, and attained Arahantship. Hence it was said —
"Having seen the bones of her teeth, he recalled his earlier perception; standing right there, that Elder attained Arahantship."
Now her husband too, coming along the same road, saw the Elder and asked: "Venerable sir, did you happen to see a woman?" The Elder said to him —
"I do not know whether it was a woman or a man that went by here; but a collection of bones is going along this highway."
Word by Word: The Prose
Notice how much of this sentence's forward motion comes from absolutives, not finite verbs: four "having done X" clauses pile up before the sentence ever reaches its one main aorist verb, hasi, "laughed." This is the ordinary shape of Pāli narrative prose — a long chain of completed background actions, resolving into a single main event — and it's exactly why Lesson 14 introduced the absolutive as connective glue between clauses rather than as a minor side form.
The Verses: A Note on Meter
The two verses use Pāli's ordinary narrative vocabulary but occasionally adjust a vowel's length to fit the verse's syllable-weight pattern from Lesson 4 — apāpuṇī lengthens the final vowel of the aorist pāpuṇi you just met in the prose line above, purely for the meter, not as a different word or a different grammatical form. This kind of small metrical stretch is common in verse across the Canon and is worth recognizing on sight rather than treating as an unrelated new vocabulary item every time it appears.
Continuing From Here
Future readings will keep drawing from Sīlaniddesa and, as translation continues, from whatever this project takes up next.