Vimanavatthu7.5

Tipitaka >> Sutta Pitaka >> Khuddaka Nikaya >> Vimanavatthu >> Vimanavatthu7.5

Compared with the Pali Tipitaka at www.tipitaka.org

7.5 MANGO MANSION (79)

(Amba-vimana)

The Bhagava(Lord Buddha) was staying at Rajagaha, In Bamboo Grove. There was then a certain poor man hired by others to guard a mango grove. One day in the hot weather he saw the venerable Elder Monk Sariputta approaching worn with heat and fatigue, and he said : "Sir, you seem overdone with the heat. It were well if you came into the mango-grove and rested out of compassion for me." The Elder consented, sat down under a mango-tree, and the man brought him water to drink and water to bathe his hands and feet, rejoicing afterwards over the merit won. After dying he was reborn among the Thirty-three(heaven), and him too the venerable Elder Monk Maha-Moggallana asked:

1 Lofty is this mansion with jewelled shafts, a dozen yojanas all round, there are seven hundred splendid pinnacled halls and lovely pillars of beryl spread over with the gleaming metal.

2 They do you dwell and drink and eat while deva(angel)-like lutes make melody. Here are deva(angel)-like flavours, the five kinds of sense-pleasures, and women decked in gold to dance.

3 Because of what is your beauty such... and your beauty illumines all the quarters(directions)?"

4 That deva(angel)-youth delighted... of what deed this was the fruit(result).

5 "in the last month of the hot season when the sun was scorching hot, I, a hireling man, watered the mango-park of others.

6 Then came there the monk Sariputta, widely famed, tired in body but not tired in mind.

7 I, watering the mangoes, saw him coming and said, ' It were well that I bathed you, reverend sir ; it would bring me happiness.'

8 Out of compassion for me he laid down his bowl and robe and in the one robe sat down in the shade at the root of a tree.

9 And, with a mind of faith,gladly I bathed that Elder with clear water as in the one robe (he was sitting) in the shade at the root of the tree.

10 The mango was watered, the monk bathed, and not inconsiderable merit have I done thus he suffused his whole body with bliss.

11 This was the extent of the deed I did in that birth. Getting rid of the human body I have arisen in Nandana(Eden).

12 In the delightful Nandana(Eden) Grove the haunt of many a flock of birds, I delight, attended by nymphs with dance song."