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146
SADDHARMA-PUNDARÎKA.
vi.

of sewers[1], nice, covered with flowers. And there will men have their abode in palaces (or towers) given them for their use. In it will be many disciples, innumerable, so that it would be impossible to terminate the calculation. Many hundred thousand myriads of kotis of Bodhisattvas also will be there. The lifetime of that Lord is to last twelve intermediate kalpas; his true law is to continue twenty intermediate kalpas, and its counterfeit as many. That Lord will, while standing poised in the firmament[2], preach the law to the monks, and educate many thousands of Bodhisattvas and disciples.

And on that occasion the Lord uttered the following stanzas:

17. I have something to announce, monks, something to make known; listen then to me: The senior Subhûti, my disciple, shall in days to come be a Buddha.

18. After having seen of most mighty Buddhas thirty myriads of kotis in full, he shall enter upon the straight[3] course to obtain this knowledge.

19. In his last bodily existence shall the hero, possessed of the thirty-two distinctive signs, become a great Seer, similar to a column of gold, beneficial and bounteous to the world.

20. The field where that friend of the world[4] shall save myriads of kotis of living beings will be most beautiful, pretty, and delightful to people at large.


  1. Doubtful, the MSS. having gûthodigilla and gûthodigalla.
  2. Properly, standing as a great meteor, mahâvaihâyasam sthitvâ; vaihâyasa is exactly the Greek μετέωρος.
  3. Anuloma, direct, straight; the reverse of vakragati, the retrograde motion of planets, &c.
  4. Lokabandhu.