Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
When a god shows the five signs of approaching death, other gods wish them well by hoping they'll go to a "good place" — which the Buddha clarifies means being reborn human, gaining "good fortune" as a human means finding faith in his teaching, and becoming "well grounded" means that faith settling in so firmly nothing can dislodge it.
Five signs of a god's mortality
The discourse opens with an almost domestic inventory of decline: “their flower-garlands wither; their clothes become soiled; they sweat from the armpits; their physical appearance deteriorates; and they no longer delight in their heavenly throne.” Whatever the cosmological differences between gods and humans, the signs given here are recognizably bodily and recognizably ordinary — wilting, soiling, sweating, fading, losing pleasure in one's own place. There's no thunder or cosmic disturbance; a god's death, on this account, looks a great deal like the ordinary signs of physical decline familiar to anyone paying attention to their own body.
Three wishes, and a mendicant's question
When other gods recognize these signs in one of their own, they offer a threefold well-wish: “May you go from here to a good place! When you have gone to a good place, may you be blessed with good fortune! When you have been blessed with good fortune, may you become well grounded!” The sequence builds — each wish depends on the one before it. At this point an unnamed mendicant interrupts with exactly the question a careful listener would want answered: what do the gods actually mean by these three phrases? The Buddha's answer resolves all three in terms of a single human life: a “good place” is being reborn human at all; “good fortune” is that human then gaining faith in the Buddha's teaching; being “well grounded” is that faith becoming “settled, rooted, and planted deep… strong and can't be shifted by any ascetic or brahmin or god or Māra or divinity or by anyone in the world.”
A surprising ranking
It would be easy to assume that rebirth as a god represents unambiguous good fortune, and that a god's death is simple misfortune. This discourse complicates that picture: the very gods who are dying wish, above all, for a return to human existence with faith intact — not for a higher heaven, and not merely for another stretch as a god. The verse extends the well-wishing into concrete guidance for the human life being hoped for: giving up bad conduct of body, speech, and mind; doing abundant good by the same three doors, "limitless, free of attachments"; making merit through giving; and establishing other people in the same teaching. The closing line — “Come back, god, again and again!” — reads almost as an invitation rather than a lament, addressed to a friend departing for what the text treats as more promising ground.
What "well grounded" is guarding against
The description of settled faith explicitly lists everyone who might otherwise dislodge it — “any ascetic or brahmin or god or Māra or divinity or by anyone in the world” — a comprehensive sweep that includes rival teachers, other gods, and the tempter Māra himself. The point isn't faith as a fragile first impression but faith as something that has become, in the discourse's own words, rooted and unshakeable: the kind that survives contact with any opposing voice, however exalted.
Key terms
The text
§1This was said by the Buddha, the Perfected One: that is what I heard.
§2“Mendicants, when a god is due to pass away from the realm of the gods, five harbingers appear. Their flower-garlands wither; their clothes become soiled; they sweat from the armpits; their physical appearance deteriorates; and they no longer delight in their heavenly throne. When the other gods know that that godling is due to pass away, they wish them well in three ways: ‘Sir, may you go from here to a good place!
§3When you have gone to a good place, may you be blessed with good fortune!
§4When you have been blessed with good fortune, may you become well grounded!’”
§5When he said this, one of the mendicants said to the Buddha, “Sir, what do the gods reckon to be going to a good place?
§6What do they reckon to be blessed with good fortune?
§7What do they reckon to become well grounded?”
§8“It is human existence, mendicant, that the gods reckon to be going to a good place.
§9When a human being gains faith in the teaching and training proclaimed by the Realized One, that is what the gods reckon to be blessed with good fortune.
§10When that faith in the Realized One is settled, rooted, and planted deep; when it’s strong and can’t be shifted by any ascetic or brahmin or god or Māra or divinity or by anyone in the world, that is what the gods reckon to become well grounded.”
The Buddha spoke this matter. On this it is said:
§12“When, with the fading of life,
a god passes from the realm of the gods,
the gods utter three cries
of well-wishing:
§13‘Go, worthy sir, from here to a good place,
in the company of humans.
As a human being, gain supreme faith
in the true teaching.
§14May that faith of yours be settled,
with roots planted deep,
unfaltering all life long
in the true teaching so well proclaimed.
§15Having given up bad conduct
by way of body,
speech, and mind,
and whatever else is corrupt;
§16and having done much good,
by way of body,
speech, and mind,
limitless, free of attachments;
§17then, having made much worldly merit
by giving gifts,
establish other colleagues
in the true teaching, the spiritual life.’
§18It is due to such sympathy
that when the gods know a god
is due to pass away, they wish them well:
‘Come back, god, again and again!’”
§19This too is a matter that was spoken by the Blessed One: that is what I heard.
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