Reply To: Sotapanna information from the Sutta-pitaka

#19414
Akvan
Participant

Hi Lal,

Sorry, let me restate the question again.

In the sutta, Bimbisara is said to have been born 7 times in the deva realm and 7 times in the human realm. According to the Sinhala and English translations these 14 births are transmigrations from one realm to the other. For e.g. Human to deva to human to deva….

If indeed the 14 births occurred in this way, wouldn’t this mean that there were 14 bava? As a human bava will make a person be born only in the human realm and if he is to be born in the deva realm after his human birth, he has to lose the human bava and gain a deva bava.

If such transmigrations did occur, then Bimbisara would have had 14 bava after becoming a sotapanna, which is contradictory to the stance that a sotapanna will have only 7 bava remaining and will attain nibbana before an 8th bava.