Vv 59Second Needle Mansion
Pāli / Sanskrit:Dutiyasūcivimānavatthu
Offering a needle to an Arahant brought much happiness to a deva.
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– STORIES OF HEAVENLY MANSIONS
– B. HEAVENLY MANSIONS OF MALE BEINGS
– THE GREAT CHARIOT CHAPTER
5.9
BJT 953"This heavenly mansion is lofty, with pillars of maṇi-jewels, twelve leagues in circumference, with seven hundred magnificent spired buildings having pillars made of beryl, inlaid with gold, and beautiful.
BJT 954There you dwell, there you drink, and there you eat. There are celestial vīṇā lutes producing sweet sounds, there are celestial flavors, here are the five kinds of sensual pleasures, and there are women adorned with gold who dance.
BJT 955By what have you obtained such a complexion as this? By what has this come to be accomplished for you here? And by what do agreeable pleasures arise for you?
BJT 956O divine being of great might, I ask you: 'When you were a human being, what meritorious deed did you perform? By what do you have such splendid might blazing thus, and your complexion illuminating all the directions?'"
BJT 957That divine being, delighted at being questioned by the venerable Moggallāna, being asked the question, explained the result and the deed to which it belonged:
BJT 958"I, when I was a human being in the human realm, in a former life in the world of human beings, …
BJT 959… I saw a bhikkhu, one free from defilement, pure, undisturbed. With faith arisen, I with my own hand offered a needle to him.
BJT 960By that have I obtained such a complexion as this. By that has this come to be accomplished for me here. And by that do agreeable pleasures arise for me.
BJT 961Venerable bhikkhu of great might, I declare to you the meritorious deed I performed when I was a human being. By that do I have such splendid might blazing thus, and my complexion illuminating all the directions."
The Second Needle Mansion.
Translated by Bhikkhu Indacanda, 2011. Based on the Buddha Jayanthi edition of the Pali canon, as corrected by Bhikkhu Indacanda. Full text, translation, and notes are available at the translator's website: http://tamtangpaliviet.net/.
Used by kind permission of the translator.
Prepared for SuttaCentral by Blake Walsh.
The “…” is an abbreviation carried over from the Pāli original itself, called peyyāla. The early canon was memorized and recited, so passages repeated verbatim from a preceding discourse were commonly contracted to an elision mark rather than written out in full. Venerable Thích Minh Châu's translation preserves this convention. Some texts therefore look short — but that is the canonical form, not missing content or a truncated translation. The elided passages can be read in full in the preceding discourses of the same chapter.
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