post on Boy Who Remembered Pāli Suttas for 1500 Years

I watched the video. It is a three-year-old girl from Sri Lanka.

This account is interesting because the girl talks about past birth in a different realm, i.e., different bhava. That is very unusual.
– Most rebirth accounts are from past births in the human realm.
– Normally, memories from different bhava (or realms) cannot be recalled. But some with punna iddhi can do that. Some petas can do that too. That is part of their suffering. They will know exactly why they are born as a peta (hungry ghost.)

Some highlights:

– Both male and female Devas wear colorful clothes and jewelry.
– They apparently have different types of food, drinks, and flowers. We need to remember that those cannot be compared to ours. Don’t think in terms of our food, drinks, flowers, jewelry, etc.
– There are devas with lower and higher levels. I had read that in the suttas too. Some have more powers than others (as a result of better kamma vipaka.)

More interestingly, she gave some accounts of things that happened in the human realm. She says there are no bhikkhus or temples in the Deva realm. She and others “came down” to worship the Buddha and religious sites.
– There were no stupas before the Parinibbana of the Buddha. After Buddha’s Parinibbana, stupas were built. As a Deva, she was able to “go inside” stupas and see those dhatu (remains of the Buddha) enclosed in golden containers.
– She also says the Buddha statues we have today do not match the features of the Buddha. That makes sense. Statues of the Buddha were built hundreds of years after the Parinibbana of the Buddha. There were Buddhist Greek Kings in India after Alexander. That is when the tradition to build Buddha statues started (Greeks are famous for making statues.) P.S. At 8.30 minutes she says that there were no Buddha statues while she was a Deva. Apparently she must have died there within a couple of hundred years after the Parinibbana of the Buddha.
– There was another interesting account regarding the death of Ven. Moggallana. He was killed by a group of people. The King caught them, buried them to their waist and had elephants kill them. That account is in the Tipitaka. She apparently remembers that incident. She did not describe what happened in detail like that. Just said the King killed those who were responsible.

‘But some with punna iddhi can do that.’

Is it done by accessing the nama gotta of the being of interest? Can someone who cultivates very high meditative states be able to access the nama gotta back in the Buddha’s time and validate the data against the sutta?

Johnny: Yes. Nama gotta (or memory records) can be accessed by either punna iddhi or by cultivating jhana.

Recalling previous lives by punna iddhi means, due to a past kamma they are able to recall. Children recalling past lives can be thought to fall under that too. Some others can recall memories in this life in great detail: “Recent Evidence for Unbroken Memory Records (HSAM)”

Those who cultivate the fourth jhana may be able to recall many past lives. Even before the Buddha, there were yogis who could recall many past lives. But those are mainly past human lives.
– A few are able to recall many, many past lives including those in different bhava. A Buddha can recall as many of those at a great speed.

Tobias asked: “Are stupas closed chambers so that no human can go inside?”

Yes. A stupa is a huge structure. Dhatu are stored in a small chamber inside. But it is fully closed. No human can go inside. The following are pictures of Stupas:
“Pictures of Stupa.”