[20] 3.
[Sakka, king of the devas:]
"As you were walking for alms
and standing in silence,
a poor and wretched woman,
sheltering at another's house,¹
with confident heart gave you rice-scum (ācāma)
with her own hands —
having abandoned the human body,
to what quarter, pray, has she gone?"
[The Elder Mahākassapa:]
"As I was walking for alms
and standing in silence,
a poor and wretched woman,
sheltering at another's house,
with confident heart gave me rice-scum
with her own hands —
having abandoned the human body,
freed, she has passed away from here.
There are devas of great power
named Nimmānarati — those who rejoice in their own creations;
there that woman dwells in happiness:
the giver of rice-scum rejoices."
[Sakka:]
"Oh, the gift of that poor wretch,
well established in Kassapa!
By a gift itself brought from others
the offering (dakkhiṇā) has indeed succeeded!
She who might hold the rank of chief queen
of a universal monarch (cakkavatti),
a woman lovely in every limb,
of flawless beauty in her husband's eyes —
is not worth the sixteenth part
of this gift of rice-scum.
A hundred nikkhas of gold, a hundred horses,
a hundred chariots drawn by mules,
a hundred thousand maidens
adorned with jewelled earrings —
these are not worth the sixteenth part
of this gift of rice-scum.
A hundred Himalayan elephants,
sturdy, with tusks like chariot-poles,
mātaṅga elephants with golden girths,
clothed in caparisons of gold —
these are not worth the sixteenth part
of this gift of rice-scum.
Even should one here exercise sovereignty
over the four great continents,
that is not worth the sixteenth part
of this gift of rice-scum."
¹ Variant reading: apassitā ("leaning against").
The Ācāmadāyikā Mansion (Vimāna), the third.
English translation from the Pali (Siam Raṭṭha edition) — under review, not for citation.