Reading guide
A reversal stated plainly, then challenged
The discourse doesn't merely report the formerly poor person's rebirth among the gods as a happy outcome; it immediately shows the other gods reacting with complaint, giving the status reversal real friction rather than treating it as automatically accepted.
Prejudice given voice, not glossed over
The other gods' grumbling is quoted in full, naming exactly what bothers them — that someone poor and pitiful in human life now outshines gods who presumably never suffered such lowly origins.
Sakka defending a stranger, not a personal ally
Unlike SN 11.6's bird nests or SN 11.9's seers, where Sakka's compassion has an immediate, visible object before him, here he defends a godling with no prior connection to him at all, simply on the basis of what is fair.
A verse that puns directly on the discourse's title
Sakka's closing verse names whoever has faith, ethics, and insight as adalidda — not poor — a direct wordplay against the title dalidda that the discourse itself carries, turning material poverty into a deliberate contrast with the wealth that actually counts.
A theme echoing much earlier in this collection
This discourse's insistence that genuine worth comes from conduct and insight rather than birth or material circumstance echoes a theme this collection first developed in Devatāsaṃyutta's own closing episodes, now restated here through Sakka's own voice.
Key terms
The text
§1At one time the Buddha was staying near Rājagaha, in the Bamboo Grove, the squirrels’ feeding ground. There the Buddha addressed the mendicants, “Mendicants!” “Venerable sir,” they replied. The Buddha said this:
§2“Once upon a time, mendicants, there was a poor person, destitute and pitiful. They took up faith, ethics, learning, generosity, and wisdom in the teaching and training proclaimed by the Realized One. After undertaking these things, when their body broke up, after death, they were reborn in a good place, a heavenly realm, in the company of the gods of the thirty-three. There they outshone the other gods in beauty and glory.
§3But the gods of the thirty-three complained, grumbled, and objected, ‘Oh lord, how incredible, how amazing! For when this godling was a human being in their past life they were poor, destitute, and pitiful. And when their body broke up, after death, they were reborn in a good place, a heavenly realm, in the company of the gods of the thirty-three. Here they outshine the other gods in beauty and glory.’
§4Then Sakka, lord of gods, addressed the gods of the thirty-three, ‘Good fellows, don’t complain about this god. When this godling was a human being in their past life they took up faith, ethics, learning, generosity, and wisdom in the teaching and training proclaimed by the Realized One. After undertaking these things, when their body broke up, after death, they’ve been reborn in a good place, a heavenly realm, in the company of the gods of the thirty-three. Here they outshine the other gods in beauty and glory.’
§5Then Sakka, lord of gods, guiding the gods of the thirty-three, spoke this verse: ‘Whoever has faith in the Realized One, unwavering and well grounded; whose ethical conduct is good, praised and loved by the noble ones;
§6who has confidence in the Saṅgha, and correct view: they’re said to be prosperous, their life is not in vain. So let the wise devote themselves to faith, ethical behaviour, confidence, and insight into the teaching, remembering the instructions of the Buddhas.’”
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