[8]
"O lady, you stand aboard a boat with a covering of gold;
you plunge into the lotus pond and pluck the lotus with your hand.
Your dwellings, gabled mansions (kūṭāgāra), are well apportioned, measured out part by part;
blazing brilliantly, they shine all around to the four quarters.
By what is such beauty (vaṇṇa) yours? By what does this prosper for you here,
and by what do there arise for you whatever enjoyments are dear to the mind?
I ask you, goddess (devī) of great power:
what merit (puñña) did you do when you were a human being?
By what are you of majesty thus ablaze,
and why does your beauty illumine all the quarters?"
That deity (devatā), elated at being questioned by the Fully Awakened One (sambuddha) himself,
when asked the question, declared of what deed (kamma) this was the fruit:
"When I was a human being among humans,
in a former birth (jāti), in the human world,
I saw bhikkhus thirsty and weary,
and rising up I gave them water to drink.
Whoever rises up and gives water to drink
to those who are weary and thirsty—
for him there come to be rivers of cool water,
abounding in flowers, with many white lotuses.
Streams flow round him at all times—
cool-watered rivers spread with sand—
mango trees and sāls, tilakas and rose-apples,
uddālakas and pāṭalī trees in bloom.
Endowed in aspect with such stretches of ground,
that supreme mansion (vimāna) is greatly resplendent.
Of that same deed this is the ripening (vipāka);
those who have made merit obtain such as this.
My dwellings, gabled mansions, are well apportioned, measured out part by part;
blazing brilliantly, they shine all around to the four quarters.
By that is such beauty mine; by that does this prosper for me here,
and there arise for me whatever enjoyments are dear to the mind.
By that am I of majesty thus ablaze,
and my beauty illumines all the quarters.
This is the result of that deed:
that when I rose up, the Buddha drank the water."
The Nāvāvimāna (Boat Mansion), the eighth.
English translation from the Pali (Siam Raṭṭha edition) — under review, not for citation.