At the time when the Master uttered these words in the hall of the potter at Rajagriha, the pilgrim Kamanita awoke in the Paradise of the West.
Wrapped in a red mantle, whose rich drapings flowed down about him, delicate and glistening as the petals of a flower, he found himself sitting with crossed legs on a huge, similarly coloured lotus rose which floated in the middle of a large pond. On the wide expanse of water such lotus flowers were to be seen everywhere, red, blue, and white, some as yet mere buds, others, although fairly developed, yet still closed; but, at the same time, countless numbers were open like his own, and on almost every one a human form was throned, whose richly draped robes seemed to grow up out of the petals of the flower.
On the sloping banks of the pond, in the greenest of grass, there laughed such a wealth of flowers as made it seem that all the jewels of earth had taken the form of flowers, and had been reborn here. Their luminous play of colour they had retained, but the hard coat of mail they had worn during their earthly existence they had exchanged for the soft and clinging, the living vesture of the plants. In keeping with this change, was the fragrance they exhaled, which was more powerful than the most splendid essence ever enclosed in crystal, while yet
150
