Dictionary of Pali Proper Names v1.c14.976

v1.c14.976

The chief event of the sixteenth year, which the Buddha spent at Ālavī, is the conversion of the yakkha Ālavaka. In the seventeenth year the Buddha is back at Sāvatthi, but he visits Ālavī again out of compassion for a poor farmer who becomes a sotāpanna after hearing him preach.⁴⁸ He spends the rainy season at Rājagaha. In the next year he again comes to Ālavī from Jetavana for the sake of a poor weaver’s daughter. She had heard him preach, three years earlier, on the desirability of meditating upon death. She alone gave heed to his admonition and, when the Buddha knows of her imminent death, he journeys thirty leagues to preach to her and establish her in the sotāpattiphala.⁴⁹