I have heard that only some devas could obtain merits transferred by humans. At the same time it says that "samyakdrushtika" devas adore people who do meritorious things and follow dhamma. Can only those "samyakdrushtika" devas obtain merits? Skip to main content

I have heard that only some devas could obtain merits transferred by humans. At the same time it says that "samyakdrushtika" devas adore people who do meritorious things and follow dhamma. Can only those "samyakdrushtika" devas obtain merits?


When you say devas, we need to recognize which devas mean here correctly. As you can notice, the devas are mainly two-fold; terrestrial and aerial. Most of the terrestrial devas can be misbelieving devas (asamyagdrsti). Even devas in the highest deva realm “paranimmitavasavatti” can be misbelieving, too, as it is under the domain of vasavatti devaputta mara. Given all this, only the devas who like the Buddha’s teachings (first five deva realms) could be right believing (samyagdrsti) devas. 

In answering your question whether they all can receive merits, it is a doubt. In the Janussoni Sutta https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an10/an10.177.than.html, the Buddha says that when someone is reborn in heaven, he or she doesn’t need merit for their pursuits from people in the human world. But what humans can do is to ask their blessings by sharing good karma (which in the real sense may not help them personally), but it can motivate them to give their protection to those who ask blessings.

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