[526. {529.}1 Āmaṇḍaphaladāyaka2]

The Victor, Padumuttara,
was a Master of Everything.
RIsing up from meditation,3
the World-Leader walked back and forth. (1) [5611]

Having taken a khāri-load,
I was carrying fruit [just] then.
I saw the Buddha, Stainless One,
the Great Sage, walking back and forth. (2) [5612]

Happy, with pleasure in [my] heart,
hands pressed together on [my] head,
saluting [him], the Sambuddha,
I gave [him] a castor-oil fruit.4 (3) [5613]

In the hundred thousand aeons,
since I gave that fruit at that time,
I’ve come to know no bad rebirth:
that’s the fruit of castor-oil [fruit]. (4) [5614]

My defilements are [now] burnt up;
all [new] existence is destroyed.
Like elephants with broken chains,
I am living without constraint. (5) [5615]

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! (6) [5616]

The four analytical modes,
and these eight deliverances,
six special knowledges mastered,
[I have] done what the Buddha taught! (7) [5617]

Thus indeed Venerable Āmaṇḍaphaladāyaka Thera spoke these verses.

The legend of Āmaṇḍaphaladāyaka 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. “Āmaṇḍa-Fruit Donor”↩

  3. lit., “from samādhi”↩

  4. āmaṇḍaṃ, which PSI defines as “a kind of plant, Palma Christi,” Sinhala eraṇḍu. The latter (also ēraṇḍu, Pāli eraṇḍa) = datti, croton, i.e., (see Cone, s.v.) the castor oil plant (Ricinus communis, the seeds of which are used to make an oil). BJTS gloss gives kaekiri on v. [1187], which is something like a cucumber (genera Cucumis), which I suspect is wrong; here a footnote on the Sinh. gloss of v. [5613] questions mas komaḍu? eraṇḍu? (“watermelon? castor oil plant?”). Whatever the identity of the fruit, the point is that the protagonist gave the Buddha one of the fruits he was carrying.↩