Just as in this world, portents such as earthquakes and meteors herald the deaths of kings but not of commoners, so too the five signs do not manifest for all devas, but only those of great power. And just as among humans, only learned astrologers can interpret the signs, so too only the wise among the devas understand the five signs. Likewise, at the moment of their rebirth, devas of little merit ask “Who know where I have arisen?” and feel afraid until the dancers and musicians tell him where he is.665 But a wise one knows “I have given gifts, guarded my morality and practiced meditation. I have come to the devaloka to experience happiness.”
Vipassī Bodhisatta recognized the five signs and he knew, “Now in my next existence I will become a Buddha” and he was not afraid. The devas of the ten thousand fold world-system (dasasahassacakkavāḷa) assembled and entreated him, “Dear sir, you have completed the ten pāramīs not for the not for the sake of enjoying existence as Sakka, nor as Māra, nor as Brahmā, nor as a cakkavatti (a universal monarch) but for the sake of transcending the world and attaining Buddhahood. Now is the time for Buddhahood.”
The Great Being (mahāsatta) did not immediately give his consent. He said, “It may be time, it may not be time,” because first it was necessary to perform the five-fold investigation (pañcamahāvilokana). The Bodhisatta inquired as to time, continent, clan, nation and mother. (1) During periods when the human life-span exceeds one hundred thousand years, the time for a Buddha is not suitable because beings do not know aging and death and cannot see the three characteristics of suffering, impermanence and not-self. During periods when the human life-span is less than one hundred years the time is also not suitable because beings then are full of defilement and cannot be admonished. Trying to teach them is like “striking blows with a stick on water.” In Vipassī’s time the life-span was eighty thousand years, so suitable for a Buddha to arise. (2) There are four continents (dīpa lit. “islands”) together with their retinue of lesser islands. On three continents Buddhas are never born, they are always born on Jambudīpa. (3) Of all the countries in Jambudīpa, Buddhas are always born in the “Middle Country” (majjhimadesa—roughly, the Ganges valley and adjacent lands). Here also are born all paccekabuddhas, chief disciples, great disciples and cakkavattis as well as other powerful khattiyas, brahmins and house-holders. Vipassī was to be born into the city of Bandhumatī in the Middle-Country. (4) Buddhas are always born into a clan (kula) belonging to whichever caste is most highly esteemed at the time. At that time, the khattiyas (“warrior-nobles”) were the most esteemed. Vipassī was to be born as the son of King Bandhumā. (5) A Buddha’s mother cannot be a loose woman (lolā) or a drunkard. She will have perfected her pāramīs for a hundred thousand kappas and keep unbroken morality. Bandhumatī was a queen such as this, and she was to become Vipassī’s mother.
Having made the five investigations, Vipassī Bodhisatta announced “Now is the time, dear sirs, for me to become a Buddha,” and he dismissed the assembled devas saying, “Go thou”(gacchatha, tumhe). Those devas having departed, he entered Nandana Grove surrounded by the Tusita devas. Every devaloka has a Nandana Grove and there the devas go to die. They wander about remembering their past meritorious deeds. So too did Vipassī, and while wandering there he died.
The Bodhisatta Vipassī descended from Tusita and entered into his mother’s womb, with mindfulness and full awareness (sato sampajāno). Thus is the natural law (dhammatā).
It is a natural law that when a Bodhisatta enters his mother’s womb a brilliant light exceeding that of the devas appears, and the entire ten thousand fold world-system trembles and shakes.
It is a natural law that after seven days, the mother of the Bodhisatta dies and is reborn in Tusita. She dies not die because of the birth, nor from the effects of aging. The Bodhisatta had stayed in her womb as if dwelling in a magnificent cetiya (stupa). It is not possible for another to dwell there afterward. The mother of the Bodhisatta being still in the prime of life, when the passions of beings are strong, it would not be possible for her to guard her womb. So she dies, this is the natural law. (DN-a 14)
The Buddhavaṃsa (v. 67) gives another, more poetic, version of the deva’s appeal to the Bodhisatta:
kālo deva mahāvīra, uppajja mātukucchiyaṃ.
sadevakaṃ tārayanto, bujjhassu amataṃ padaṃ
“It is time, great hero god. Arise in the mother's womb!
[For] helping [the world] with its gods to cross over [saṃsāra], awake to the deathless state!”666
The Majjhima Commentary gives some details about Gotama Buddha’s prior existence as a Tusita deva, in the context of discussing his recollection of past lives according to name, clan, appearance, nutriment, pleasure and pain and life-span. In Tusita, his name was Setaketu. Among devas, there is only one clan (ekagotto). His appearance was golden coloured (suvaṇṇavaṇṇa). His nutriment was divine ambrosia (dibbasudhāhāra). His pleasure was the experience of divine happiness (dibbasukhapaṭisaṃvedī) and his suffering was merely the suffering of conditioned existence itself (dukkhaṃ pana saṅkhāradukkhamattameva). His span of life was the full 576,000,000 years (MN-a 4).
When the Buddha went up to Tāvatiṃsa to teach the Abhidhamma to the assembled devas, his mother descended from Tusita to listen, and was seated in the place of honour to the right of the Buddha (Dhp-a 14:2). There might be a trace of confusion in the tradition between Tāvatiṃsa and Tusita. A verse in the commentary has Sāriputta remarking, at the time of the Buddha’s descent from Tāvatiṃsa, “Never have I seen, nor has anyone heard, such lovely teachings, from the one descended from Tusita with his retinue” (ibid.). The same verse occurs without context in the Suttanipāta and the commentary explains that this refers to the Buddha’s initial descent at the time of his conception. That text, however, does not account for the mention of a “retinue” (gaṇi) very well, taking it as referring to his retinue of devas while still in Tusita, and his retinue of arahants on earth (Sn-a 4: 16).
The being, who will become the next Buddha, Metteyya, is now dwelling as a deva in Tusita. His name there is Nātha and he is said to be continuously teaching Abhidhamma to the assembled devas.667
3:5:28 OTHER PERSONS REBORN IN TUSITA
Several other persons are mentioned in the texts as having been reborn into Tusita. These were always persons with a strong devotion to the Dhamma, and in those cases where we are told their level of attainment, often sakadāgāmī.668 This was the case of the brothers Purāṇa and Isidatta, (AN 6:44) as well as Anāthapiṇḍika’s daughter, Sumanā. Despite being a sakadāgāmī she pined to death for want of a husband. On her death bed she addressed her father as “little brother” and he thought she was delirious until the Buddha explained that she was referring to the fact that she was the elder in the spiritual sense, as Anāthapiṇḍika was only a sotāpanna (first stage of awakening) (Dhp-a 1: 13).
When Anāthapiṇḍika himself died, he also was reborn in Tusita with a three gāvuta body, shining like a mass of gold and enjoying a vimāna and a pleasure garden. Reflecting on how he had come to this happy condition, he felt gratitude to his teachers and appeared in his deva form on earth to pay his respects to the Buddha and Sāriputta, illuminating the whole of the Jetavana monastery (MN-a 143).
The Dhammapada Commentary tells the story of a lay disciple who was given the choice of devalokas:
A certain righteous lay disciple together with his entire family was much given to the distribution of alms. At last he grew ill and lay on his death-bed. He requested that eight or sixteen bhikkhus come to recite for him.669
As the bhikkhus were chanting the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, at that very moment six chariots arrived from the six deva worlds, each a yojana and a half long, richly adorned and drawn by a thousand Sindh horses. The devas all cried out, “Let us take you to our devaloka! Look, your vessel of clay is broken; take up a vessel of gold! Arise into our devaloka to experience bliss!”
The lay disciple, not wanting to interrupt the Dhamma rec
itation, cried out “Wait! Wait!” The bhikkhus thought they were being addressed by him, and thinking, “We are not wanted here,” (lit. idāni anokāso “here there is no space”) got up from their seats and left. His daughters asked him why he had told the bhikkhus to stop their recitation. “I was not speaking to them, but to the devas. Six deva chariots are poised in the air above and calling to me, each to his own world.” But his daughters were not able to see the chariots.
The lay disciple asked, “My dear, which is the most delightful (ramaṇīyo) deva world?” “Dear father, the Tusita world is the most delightful. All the Bodhisattas, and the Buddha’s mother and father, dwell in Tusita.” Their father then told her, “Take a flower garland and throw it into the air, saying ‘Let this garland adhere to the chariot from Tusita.’” She did so. The wreath hung from the pole of the Tusita deva’s chariot, but the people there saw only a wreath suspended in the air. The lay disciple told them it was hanging on the chariot pole and said, “If you think of me, and wish to be reborn near me, please do acts of merit like I did.” So saying, he died and mounted into the chariot.
Immediately, he arose in the form of a deva three gavutas in height, decorated with sixty cart-loads of adornments, attended by a thousand accharās in a golden vimāna twenty-five yojana in size which appeared for him. (Dhp-a 1:11)
We have already seen how Queen Mallikā arose in Tusita after spending seven days in niraya.670 Another person who spent one week in a lower form before taking birth as a Tusita deva was the bhikkhu Tissa:
The bhikkhu Tissa was given some fine robe cloth by his sister. Before he had a chance to make it up into a robe, he died suddenly from indigestion and was reborn as a louse living in that same robe-cloth. After the cremation ceremony, the bhikkhus decided to divide the cloth among themselves. The louse heard this and grew agitated, running this way and that through the cloth crying “They are going to steal my property!”
In his perfumed inner chamber, the Buddha heard this sound with his divine ear element (dibba sotadhātu). He thereupon instructed Ānanda to have the robe-cloth set aside for seven days, and to allow its division only on the eighth day.
Later, when asked by the bhikkhus to explain this command, the Buddha told them that the bhikkhu Tissa had been reborn as a louse and if they had divided his property at that time he would have developed ill-will against them and on that account been reborn in niraya. But now he had died as a louse and arisen in Tusita devaloka (Dhp-a 18:3).
SUMMARY
Tusita has a special place in the cosmology because of its connection with the Dhamma. Pious Buddhists, like the dying layman in the story cited above, may have an aspiration to be reborn there, and thus into the presence of a Bodhisatta. Many beings with the first or second stages of awakening are reborn there. This is why it is called “the most delightful” of the saggas, even though on a scale based on purely worldly considerations, the happiness of the two higher saggas surpasses it (MN 97). Tusita nevertheless is a world within the plane of sense-desire, and the beings there are still “subject to the bondage of sensuality, under Māra’s dominion” (SN 5:7). Despite being a special place of contentment and wisdom, Tusita is still a part of saṃsāra. At best, we may consider it a way station on the path to nibbāna.
3:5:29 THE NIMMĀNARATI DEVAS
The fifth sensual sagga is the realm of the Nimmānarati devas. These are the devas “who delight in creating.” The name derives from the Pali verb nimmināti, “to build, fashion or make, to make or create by miracle,” and the noun rati, “fondness, pleasure” (PED) Their peculiar characteristic is the power to create any object they desire. “Whatever the Nimmānarati devas will for themselves as a sense object, that they create and enjoy, play and make sport with” (Vv-a 16). “Whatever natural or artificial object (pakatipaṭiyattārammaṇato) they desire, that they instantly create and greatly enjoy any pleasure they wish” (Vibh 18:6). Their king (devarājā) is named Sunimmita (DN 11). Like the devarājās of the other realms, he surpasses his subjects in ten respects: in divine span of life, in divine beauty, in divine happiness, in divine glory (dibba yasa—possibly means a greater retinue), in divine power (dibba ādhipateyya—or “divine dominion”), and in divine forms, sounds, scents, taste and tactile objects (AN 8: 36). When the lay woman Visākhā, called “chief among the supporters of the Saṅgha”, died she was reborn as Sunimmita’s chief consort (Vv-a 44). A day in the Nimmānarati devaloka is equivalent to 800 years in the human realm, and their life-span is 8000 such years, or 2,304,000,000 years in human terms (AN 3:71, eng. 3:70). When the beings there make love, they do so merely by smiling upon on another (AK 3: 5, eng. p. 465).
3:5:30 MANĀPAKĀYIKA DEVAS
The manāpakāyika devas are a special class of female Nimmānarati devas (AN-a 5: 33). The name means “of pleasing form” (manāpa + kāya). An encounter of some of these with bhikkhu Anuruddha is recorded. (Anuruddha was the foremost of the Buddha’s disciples in the development of the divine-eye (dibbacakkhu) attainment, which allows powers of vision beyond the ordinary, such as the ability to see otherwise invisible beings).
At one time a large number of manāpakāyika devas approached the elder bhikkhu Anuruddha. After bowing to him, they stood to one side and said, “We, Bhante Anuruddha, are the devas called ‘manāpakāyika’. We can exercise mastery and control over three things. We can assume whatever colour we wish for. We can acquire any pleasure we wish for. We can obtain any sound we wish for.” (The commentary explains the latter as “the sound of a voice, the sound of music, and ornamental sounds.”)
Then the elder Anuruddha thought, “May these devas become blue, of blue colour with blue clothes and blue ornaments.” Then those devas, knowing the thought of the bhikkhu, became blue in colour, with blue clothes and ornaments.
Then the elder Anuruddha thought, “May these devas become yellow, of yellow colour with yellow clothes and yellow ornaments.” Then those devas, knowing the thought of the bhikkhu, became yellow in colour, with yellow clothes and ornaments.
And the same thing occurred when Anuruddha wished for them to become red and then white.
Then one of those devas sang, another danced, and another made music by snapping her fingers. Just as when a highly skilled five piece musical ensemble performs, the sound is pleasurable, enticing, beautiful, lovely and intoxicating, so too was the ornamental sound (alaṅkārānaṃ saddo) of those devas. Thereupon the elder Anuruddha restrained his sense-faculties (indriyāni okkhipi).
Then those devas (seeing that Anuruddha had closed his eyes) said, “The venerable one is not enjoying this” and disappeared from that place.671
Rebirth among the manāpakāyika devas is said to be the special reward of women who fulfill the duties of a wife well. This is given in a list of eight qualities:
1. Going to whatever husband her parents have arranged for her, she undertakes whatever duties need to be done and is pleasant in her conduct and speech
2. She honours those whom her husband honours.
3. She attends with skill and diligence to her domestic chores.
4. She manages the household servants and slaves well.
5. She protects the family wealth.
6. She is a faithful lay follower and takes refuge in the Buddha, Dhamma and Saṅgha.
7. She keeps the five precepts.
8. She is generous, delighting in giving.672
3:5:31 NIMMĀNARATI AND THE NATURE OF SENSE-DESIRE
With the Nimmānarati we have reached the second highest level of the kāmabhūmi, the plane of sense desire. It includes all the various beings at the different levels we have considered so far, from the lowest niraya through the worlds of humans and devas. Beings in this sphere of existence relate to the world primarily through the senses, and are most strongly motivated by the desire for pleasant sense objects and the escape from unpleasant ones. As we ascend through the worlds of the devas, the experience of sensuality becomes more refined, subtle and exquisite. At the level of the
Nimmānarati devas, there is a fundamental difference from the levels below. Those in the lower realms, including humans and the devas of the first four levels, can only enjoy those sense-objects which are presented to them, whereas the devas of the Nimmānarati level can create whatever they desire (DN 33).
According to the Abhidhamma, all sense experience is the result of past kamma.673 This causal link is more immediate and obvious in the deva worlds than it is among humans. We have seen how the vimānas, pleasure-groves and other delights of the sensual saggas appear, as it were miraculously, fully formed by the force of the kusala kamma (“skilful deeds”) of the beings reborn there. Among the Nimmānarati devas the process is more immediate still. The power of their meritorious kamma is so great that they can manifest any desired object at will.
The very first line of the Dhammapada states:
All things originate with the mind, the mind is the chief, all things are mind-made.
At the level of the Nimmānarati devas, this fundamental law of saṃsāric reality is clearly manifested.
3:5:32 PARANIMMITAVASAVATTI DEVAS
The Paranimmitavasavatti Devas constitute the highest level of the sensual desire plane, which is bounded by Avīci niraya below and this realm above (DN-a 15). The name means “those who wield power over the creations of others” (para = “other” nimmita = “created object” vasa = “power or authority” and vatti means “to wield or exercise”). One day in the Paranimmitavasavatti world equal 1600 years in human terms, and their life-span is 16,000 deva years, each of 360 such days (AN 3:71, Eng. AN 3:70). This works out to being 9,216,000,000 human years. Their king (devarāja) is named Vasavatti and he is reckoned supreme among those who enjoy sense pleasures (Vibh-a 17:5).
The Buddhist Cosmos Page 51