The Buddha Didn't Go To Heaven

Sankassa (Sanskrit Sankasya) was a town on the western edge of the Middle Land. Legend says the Buddha descended from the Tavtimsa heaven at this place after spending three months teaching abhidhamma to his mother, who had been reborn their after her death. Supposedly three ladders appeared in the sky - a golden one on the right for the god Sakka, a silver one on the left for Brahma and a jeweled one in the middle for the Buddha. Some versions of the legend say that Brahma held an umbrella over the Buddha as he descended from heaven to earth.
It is hardly surprising that the so-called miracle at Sankassa is not mentioned anywhere in the Tipitaka. The place itself is only referred twice in the scriptures and the Buddha only visited it once, passing through it while on his way to somewhere else (Vin.II,299; III,11). Apart from being incredible in itself, the Sankassa legend contradicts that Buddha’s prohibition against the public display of psychic powers or miraculous abilities (Vin.II,110-111). There is also no mention in the scriptures of the Buddha mysteriously disappearing from the scene for three months. The Sankassa legend’s association with the abhidhamma is a key to its origin and rational.
The abhidhamma is conspicuous by its absence from the Buddha’s discourses. It is not mentioned as one of the nine branches of the Buddha’s teachings (navanga, A.II,103) and the account of the first council describes the recitation of the monastic rules, vinaya, and the discourses, suttas, but not of the abhidhamma (Vin.II,285). As the abhidhamma developed in the centuries after the Buddha’s passing and the books of the Abhidhamma Pitaka were gradually composed, pressure grew to have them considered canonical and included in the Tipitaka. When this happened, an explanation of their origin was needed and thus the legend of the Buddha going to heaven to teach the Abhidhamma Pitaka was created. Interestingly, this legend is not even mentioned in the Abhidhamma Pitaka itself but only in the much later commentaries. This suggests that it was considered just a ‘popular’ legend at the time the Abhidhamma Pitaka became canonical and only became ‘official’ later. King Asoka raised a great stone pillar at Sankassa, parts of which can still be seen there. There is however, no evidence that this pillar was raised to commemorate the legend, which had probably not come into existence at that time. The earliest evidence of the Sankassa legend is a sculptural depiction of it from Sanchi which dates from about the 1st century BCE. The picture opposite is of me and Viraj in front of Asoka’s pillar capital at Sankissa.