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Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Soothill, William Edward and Kumārajīva
“Once the Buddha (Śakyamuni) was staying at the City of Royal Palaces (Rajagriha), and on the Vulture Peak (Gridhrakuta) assembled a great host of his greater monks, in all twelve thousand ... emancipated from every bond and free in mind.”
There follows a list of names of his well-known disciples, together with the names of his foster-mother and the mother of his son, with their train of disciples. Assembled also were eighty thousand Great Bodhisattvas who had attained to perfect enlightenment. A number of their names are given, including Manjuśri, Kwan-yin, the Lord of Healing and Maitreya. There were present also twenty thousand of the gods, including Brahma; also Dragon-kings, Kinnara-kings, Gandharva-kings, Asura-kings, Garuda-kings, all kings of the lower worlds and lower orders of being, each with hundreds of thousands of followers. The disciples, and the others, who might almost be described as angels, archangels, and all the hosts of the heavens and the hells, fall down in worship at the Buddha’s feet.
“At that time the World-honoured One, surrounded, worshipped, revered, honoured and extolled by the four groups of disciples, preached for all bodhisattvas, the Mahayana sutra called ‘The Meaning of Infinity’.”
Immediately afterwards he entered into the trance, or contemplation, described as “The Station of the Meaning of Infinity”, the heavens raining down on him divine flowers and the whole universe being shaken.
While the vast assembly looked on the Buddha in amaze, he
“sent forth from the curl of white hair between his eyebrows a ray of light, which illuminated eighteen thousand worlds in the eastern quarter, so that there was nowhere it did not reach, downwards to the lowest hell and upward to the highest heaven of each world. Here, in this our own world, were then made visible in those vast domains their living beings in the six states of existence; likewise were seen the Buddhas at present existing in those lands. The doctrines those Buddhas were preaching could be clearly heard; and in those worlds were revealed the monks, nuns and disciples of both sexes”,
also their Bodhisattvas, their Buddhas who had attained Nirvana, and the Stupas for the relics of those Buddhas erected after their respective departures.
Maitreya is now presented inquiring of Manjuśri the meaning of this wonderful manifestation, while he describes to him, first in prose then in verse, the marvels they are beholding:
“The ray from between his brows
Illumines the eastern quarter
Of the eighteen thousand worlds,
Colouring them all with gold.
From their Avici-hells
To the Summit of All-Existence,
The living in those worlds,
The destinies of unborn and dying,
I behold them all from here.
In those distant lands I see
Bodhisattvas like sands of Ganges,
Who in every varying degree
Seek the Buddha-Way.
Some there are who give alms,
Gold, silver and coral,
Pearls and felicitous gems,
Moonstones and cornelian,
Diamonds and precious things,
Male and female slaves,
Fine carriages and horses,
Jewelled palanquins and litters,
These alms they give with joy,
Turning to the Buddha-way,
Seeking to gain this Vehicle,
The supreme in the Triple World.
. . . . .
Also I see bodhisattvas
Give their flesh, hands and feet,
And their wives and children, as alms,
To find the Supreme Way.
Again I see bodhisattvas
Giving their heads, eyes, bodies,