ཚའ་མཐའ་མད intro.6

intro.6

The Pure Abodes are subdivided into two levels, and this is where the accounts of different early Buddhist schools seem to differ most. According to Theravāda sources,⁸ there are the levels of the Pure Abodes proper, with the addition of the Heaven of the Insentient Beings⁹ and the Heaven of Great Reward, respectively. These last two have their own karmic cause, namely, the attainment of a meditative absorption called the attainment of the meditative state without consciousness, an ordinary attainment of the fourth meditative absorption that can be realized by meditators who are not noble ones.¹⁰ In the Pure Abodes proper, on the other hand, only non-returners can be born, and from there they attain nirvāṇa. The account of the (Mūla-)Sarvāstivāda school seems to have two additional heavens beyond the Heaven of Perfect Virtue, which are absent from the Theravāda sources, namely, the Cloudless Heaven and the Heaven Born from Merit. According to the Mahāvyutpatti, the Cloudless Heaven and the Heaven Born from Merit are the karmic result of attaining the fourth meditative absorption. According to the Theravāda account, however, the fourth meditative absorption (ordinary and non-ordinary) is associated only with the sublevels above the Heaven of Great Reward. The Sūtra on the Limits of Life mentions these two additional heavens but does not specify whether they are the karmic result of accomplishing the third or the fourth stage of meditative absorption.