[85] 11.
"Lofty is this mansion (vimāna) with its pillars of gems,
twelve yojanas all around;
its seven hundred gabled halls (kūṭāgāra) are magnificent,
with pillars of beryl, spread with lovely coverings, beautiful.
There you dwell, you drink, and you eat;
divine lutes (vīṇā) sound forth sweetly;
here are divine tastes, the five strands of sensual pleasure (kāmaguṇa),
and women decked in gold dance.
By what is your complexion (vaṇṇa) such? By what does this prosper for you here,
and there arise for you whatever enjoyments are dear to the mind?
I ask you, deva of great majesty:
when you were a human being, what merit did you do?
By what is your majesty thus blazing,
and your complexion radiant in all directions?"
That young deva (devaputta), delighted at being questioned by Moggallāna,
when asked the question, declared of what deed this was the fruit:
"Having taken a garland that had been badly placed and set it well in place,
establishing it at the stūpa of the Well-Gone One (Sugata),
I am of great psychic power (iddhi) and great majesty,
endowed with divine sensual pleasures.
By that is my complexion such; 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 blazing,
and my complexion is radiant in all directions."
The Sunikkhitta Vimāna, the eleventh.
Summary (uddāna):
The two poor men, the two monasteries, the hired servant, the cowherd and Kaṇṭhaka,
Anekavaṇṇa and Maṭṭhakuṇḍalī, Serissaka, and Sunikkhitta:
the seventh chapter, that of men.
The fourth recitation section (bhāṇavāra).
_______________________
THE PETAVATTHU
of the Khuddaka Nikāya, in the Suttanta Piṭaka
__________
Homage to that Blessed One, the Arahant, the Fully Self-Enlightened One.
English translation from the Pali (Siam Raṭṭha edition) — under review, not for citation.