Part of the Pali canon includes Vimanavatthu which comes from the Khuddaka-Nikaya. Roughly translated, Vimanavatthu means mansion story. ‘Vimana’, I need to add for the sake of clarity, has a number of different meanings one which even includes a self-moving aerial vehicle. In this story a vimana seems to mean the celestial mansion of a god (deva).
The general scheme of a vimana story deals with sentient beings who have died and get to enjoy the fruits of their good deeds, in this case, they get to enjoy a vimana as a god. The Vimanavatthu, I should mention is just the opposite of the Petavatthu which translated means ghost stories. Sentient beings who have done bad deeds are reborn as petas. Jacob Marley, in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is a perfect example of a peta.
One particular vimana story I enjoy is about the frog’s vimana (Mandukadevaputtavimana, Vv. 51). This particular story begins with the Buddha foreseeing that when he is teaching the Dharma (P., Dhamma) a frog, enchanted by his voice, will be accidentally killed by someone, but will be reborn as a god.
The frog, the story goes on to explain, happened to be where the Buddha was who was teaching Dharma on the banks of the Gaggara lotus pond. Curious about this “Dharma” the frog came out of the pond. He found a place to crouch just behind the rest of the listeners.
At this time a cowherd who was also attracted to the sight of the Buddha teaching his Dharma came to stand next to the frog. Leaning on his crook he crushed the poor frog. As a result, the frog was reborn in the realm of the “Thirty-Three with a twelve-yojana gold Mansion [vimana] and [was] attended by nymphs” (Vv. 51).
The most important part of this story is that after the frog becomes a god he reflected on what deeds he had done to deserve all of this. What he realized is that it was simply his attraction to the Buddha’s voice that was responsible.
Then the frog came down to the Buddha in his celestial mansion (this where the mansion becomes like an aerial vehicle), and descending from it honored the Buddha.
The Buddha then spoke:
Who, bright with psychic potency and entourage, with surpassing beauty making all the quarters effulgent, is honouring my feet?”
Then the frog (now a god) explained:
I was formerly a frog, a water-denizen. But while I was listing to your Dhamma a (young) cowherd killed me.
For a moment's serenity of mind, behold my psychic potency and entourage and behold my majesty, beauty, and behold my brightness.
Those who for long have heard your Dhamma, Gotama, it is they who have attained the unmoving place where they who go grieve not.
After this the frog became stream-entered, that is, he became a Noble Hearer (arya-srvavaka). After honoring the Buddha, the god (our frog) returned to his celestial world.
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