[383. {386.}1 Valliphaladāyaka2]

All the people, come together,
went into the forest back then.
Searching for fruit [growing wild there,]
they obtained [such] fruit at that time. (1) [3308]

I saw [him] there, the Sambuddha,
the Self-Become, Unconquered One.
Happy, with pleasure in [my] heart,
I gave [some] valli3 fruit to him. (2) [3309]

In the thirty-one aeons since
I gave [Buddha] that fruit back then,
I’ve come to know no bad rebirth:
that is the fruit of giving fruit. (3) [3310]

Being in Best Buddha’s presence
was a very good thing for me.
The three knowledges are attained;
[I have] done what the Buddha taught! (4) [3311]

My defilements are [now] burnt up;
all [new] existence is destroyed.
Like elephants with broken chains,
I am living without constraint. (5) [3312]

The four analytical modes,
and these eight deliverances,
six special knowledges mastered,
[I have] done what the Buddha taught! (6) [3313]

Thus indeed Venerable Valliphaladāyaka Thera spoke these verses.

The legend of Valliphaladāyaka Thera is finished.

  1. Apadāna numbers provided in {fancy brackets} correspond to the BJTS edition, which contains more individual poems than does the PTS edition dictating the main numbering of this translation.↩

  2. “Creeper-Fruit Donor.”↩

  3. Valli is a generic term for any “creeper” or “vine” (Sinh. väl, liya), so the donation was some sort of fruit (or vegetable, e.g., baṭu karavila) that grows on a creeping vine.↩