Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 21.djvu/173

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v.
ON PLANTS.
125

23. Whether walking, standing, or sitting, I am exclusively occupied with this task of proclaiming the law. I never get tired of sitting on the chair I have ascended.

24. I recreate the whole world like a cloud shedding its water without distinction; I have the same feelings for respectable people as for the low; for moral persons as for the immoral;

25. For the depraved as for those who observe the rules of good conduct; for those who hold sectarian views and unsound tenets as for those whose views are sound and correct.

26. I preach the law to the inferior (in mental culture) as well as to persons of superior understanding and extraordinary faculties; inaccessible to weariness, I spread in season the rain of the law.

27. After hearing me, each according to his faculty, the several beings find their determined place in various situations, amongst gods, men, beautiful beings[1], amongst Indras, Brahmas, or the monarchs, rulers of the universe.

28. Hear, now, I am going to explain what is meant by those plants of different size, some of them being low in the world, others middle-sized and great.

29. Small plants are called the men who walk in the knowledge of the law, which is free from evil after the attaining of Nirvâna, who possess the six transcendent faculties and the triple science.


  1. Manorameshu, perhaps women are meant. A var. lect. has manoratheshu, i.e. amongst fancies, fanciful beings, chimeras. This reading would rather lead us to see in those beautiful or charming beings some kind of geniuses, cherubim, alias Vidyâdharas.