[79] 5.
"Lofty is this mansion (vimāna) with its pillars of gems,
twelve yojanas all around;
seven hundred magnificent gabled halls (kūṭāgāra),
with pillars of beryl, delightfully spread, splendid.
There you dwell, you drink and you eat,
and divine lutes (vīṇā) sound forth sweetly;
here are the five sensual pleasures (kāmaguṇa), divine in savor,
and women clad in gold dance.
Because of what is your complexion such? …
and your complexion shines forth in all directions?"
That deva (devaputta), delighted, questioned by Moggallāna,
… of what deed (kamma) this is the fruit:
"In the last month of the hot season, when the day-maker [the sun] was blazing,
I, a man hired by others, was watering a mango grove.
Then along that way came a bhikkhu, renowned as 'Sāriputta,'
wearied in body, yet unwearied in mind.
Seeing him coming, I, the waterer of the mangoes, said:
'It would be good, venerable sir, if I might bathe you — that would bring happiness to me.'
Out of compassion for me he laid down bowl and robe
and sat at the foot of a tree, in the shade, in a single robe.
And with clear water, with a mind of serene confidence,
I bathed the Elder (thera) at the foot of the tree, in the shade, in his single robe.
'The mango has been watered and the ascetic (samaṇa) bathed,
and no small merit (puñña) has been earned by me' —
thus he suffused his whole body with rapture (pīti).
Just that much was the deed I did in that birth.
Having abandoned the human body, I have arisen in Nandana.
In Nandana, excellent and delightful, thronged with flocks of birds of many kinds,
I delight amid dance and song, attended by celestial nymphs (accharā)."
The Ambavimāna (Mango Mansion), the fifth.
English translation from the Pali (Siam Raṭṭha edition) — under review, not for citation.