One. And on coming to the Blessed One they will ask, saying: 'Such and such a bhikkhu, Lord, has died. What, now, is his destiny?' Then will the Blessed One explain that he has attained the fruits of conversion; that he has attained arahatship or lias entered Nirvāna, as the case may be.21
"And I, going up to them, will ask, 'Was that brother, Sirs, one of those who had formerly been at Sāvatthī?' If they reply to me, 'He has formerly been at Sāvatthī,' then shall I arrive at the conclusion, 'For a certainty did that brother enjoy either the robes for the rainy season, or the food for the incoming bhikkhus, or the food for the outgoing bhikkhus, or the food for the sick, or the food for those that wait upon the sick, or the medicine for the sick, or the constant supply of rice-milk.'22
"Then will gladness spring up within me; thus gladdened, joy will come to me; and so rejoicing all my mind will be at peace. Being thus at peace I shall experience a blissful feeling of content; and in that bliss my heart will be at rest. That will be to me an exercise of my moral sense, an exercise of my moral powers, an exercise of the seven kinds ' of wisdom! This, Lord, was the advantage I had in view for myself in asking those eight boons of the Blessed One."23
The Blessed One said: "It is well, it is well, Visakha. Thou hast done well in asking these eight boons of the Tathagata with such advantages in view. Charity bestowed upon those who are* worthy of it is like good seed sown on a good soil that yields an abundance of fruits. But alms given to those who are yet under the tyrannical yoke of the passions are like seed deposited in a bad soil. The passions of the receiver of the alms choke, .as it were, the growth of merits."24
And the Blessed One gave thanks to Visakha in these verses:25
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