Exploration of Afterlife Beliefs : หน้า 28/130

26 This Life Next Life They have promised to do so, but they have neither come and told me, nor sent a messenger. This, Master Kassapa, is evidence to me that not one of those things exists.' 11. 'Well then, Prince, I will reply by asking you something, and do you answer as you think fit. That which, humanly speaking, is a century, this to the Three-and-Thirty Gods is one night and day. Of such a night thirty nights are the month - of such a month twelve months are the year - of such a year the celestial thousand years are the life - span of the Three-and-Thirty Gods. Those of whom you now speak will have attained rebirth into the communion of these Gods. If it should occur to them thus : - " Let us for two or three days indulge ourselves, surrounded by and steeped in the five pleasures of sense, and thereafter let us go and tell the chieftain Payasi that there is another world, rebirth other than of parents, and fruit and result of deeds well - done and ill - done " - would they then have come to you, and told you so ?' ' Certainly not, Master Kassapa ; for we should have been dead long before. But who lets Master Kassapa know all these things : - that there are Three-and-Thirty Gods, or that the Three-and-Thirty Gods live so many years ?