[503. {506.}1 Mātuluṅgaphaladāyaka2]

I saw the Leader of the World,
shining like a dinner-plate tree,3
like the moon on the fifteenth day,4
blazing forth like a tree of lamps. (1) [5425]

Having taken a citron fruit
I [then] gave it to the Teacher,
he Worthy of Gifts,5 the Hero,
[feeling well-] pleased by [my] own hands. (2) [5426]

In the thirty-one aeons since
I gave [him] that fruit at that time,
I’ve come to know no bad rebirth:
that is the fruit of giving fruit. (3) [5427]

My defilements are [now] burnt up;
all [new] existence is destroyed.
Like elephants with broken chains,
I am living without constraint. (4) [5428]

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! (5) [5429]

The four analytical modes,
and these eight deliverances,
six special knowledges mastered,
[I have] done what the Buddha taught! (6) [5430]

Thus indeed Venerable Mātuluṅgaphaladāyaka Thera spoke these verses.

The legend of Mātuluṅgaphaladāyaka 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. “Citron Fruit Donor”↩

  3. kaṇṇikāra, kaṇikāra = Sinhala kinihiriya, Pterospermum acerifolium, produces a brilliant mass of yellow flowers; Engl. a.k.a. karnikar, bayur tree, maple-leaf bayur, caniyar (now archaic?), dinner-plate tree; Bodhi tree of Siddhattha Buddha.↩

  4. i.e., when it is full, puṇṇamāse va cchandimā↩

  5. dakkhiṇeyyassa, elsewhere “Worthy of Homage” “Worthy of Respect”↩