[39]
"In the crimson mansion (mañjiṭṭhaka), spread with golden sand,
you take your delight while the fivefold music is well played.
Descending from that mansion, conjured into being, made of gems,
you plunge into the sāla grove, in flower at every season.
At the foot of whichever sāla tree you stand, devatā,
that very tree, foremost of trees, bends down and sheds its flowers.
Stirred by the wind, the sāla grove, shaken, thronged by birds,
wafts its fragrance to every quarter, like the mañjūsaka tree.
You breathe that pure fragrance; you behold a beauty not of human kind.
Devatā, when you are asked, declare: of what deed (kamma) is this the fruit?"
"When I was a human being among humans,
I was a slave-woman in my master's household.
Seeing the Buddha seated, I strewed him with sāla flowers;
and a well-wrought chaplet fashioned of sāla flowers
I presented to the Buddha with my own hands, my heart confident.
Having done that wholesome deed, praised by the Buddha,
free from sorrow, happy, I rejoice, free from affliction."
The Mañjiṭṭhaka Vimāna, the first.
English translation from the Pali (Siam Raṭṭha edition) — under review, not for citation.