III
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Soothill, William Edward and Kumārajīva
“Śariputra! After the extinction of Flower-Light Buddha, the Correct Law will abide in his world during thirty-two minor kalpas, and then the Semblance Law will also abide in his world during thirty-two kalpas”; in other words, the usual formalism will set in, leading to decay and disappearance.
Then the monks and nuns, male and female disciples, gods, nagas, yakshas, gandharvas, asuras, garudas, kinnaras, mahoragas, and others, all the great assembly of beings, human and not human, rejoice greatly, each doffing his robe and offering it in homage to the Buddha. Brahma and the gods offer celestial robes and celestial flowers, their robes remaining aloft, circling around, while countless celestial instruments make music in the sky.
“Of old, at Varanasi, Thou didst roll
The Law-wheel of the Four Noble Truths,
And discerningly preach the Laws
Of the rise and the extinction
Of the Five human Aggregates.
Now again Thou dost roll the most wonderful,
Mighty, Supreme, Wheel of the Law,
The Law beyond measure profound.
. . . . .
The great, wise Śariputra
Now has heard his prediction;
We also in like manner know
We too will become Buddhas,
Who in all worlds are ever
Most honoured and peerless.”
Again the troublesome question is raised, why the Buddha should have taught the Hinayana doctrines, only now to repudiate them and offer Mahayana doctrines in their stead. Śariputra says that while he himself has no doubt or regrets, yet here are twelve hundred disciples, “who of yore abode in the four stages of (hinayana) learning, and were always told by the Buddha—‘My Law is able to give freedom from re-birth, decrepitude, disease and death and the final attainment of Nirvana’.” How is it that he now discards all this as valueless? What becomes of the merit these disciples have laid up with so much zeal and struggle? Has the Buddha indeed been deceiving them is the meaning of his inquiry.
To this the Buddha replies:
“Have I not before said that the Buddhas, the World-honoured Ones, with a variety of reasonings, parables and terms, preach the Law as may be expedient, with the aim of final Perfect Enlightenment? All their teachings are for the purpose of transforming (their disciples into) bodhisattvas. But, Śariputra! Let me again in a parable make this meaning still more clear, for intelligent people, through a parable, reach understanding.”