Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 21.djvu/452

This page needs to be proofread.
404
SADDHARMA-PUNDARÎKA.
xxiii.

meditation Sarvartipasandarcana, and as to the number of Bodhisattvas Mah&sattvas of this Saha-world obtaining the meditation Sarvartipasandansana, it was beyond calculation.

Then the Bodhisattva Mah&sattva Gadgadasvara, after having paid great and ample worship to the Lord .S&kyamuni, the Tath&gata, &c, and at the Sttipa of relics of the Lord Prabhtitaratna, the TathA- gata, &c, again mounted the tower made of seven precious substances, among the stir of the fields, the rain of lotuses, the noise of hundred thousands of myriads of ko/is of musical instruments[1], and with the eighty-four hundred thousand myriads of ko/is of Bodhisattvas surrounding and following him, returned to his own Buddha-field. At his arrival there he said to the Lord Kamaladalavimalanakshatrarasankusumitbhia, the Tathdgata, &c. : O Lord, I have in the Saha-world promoted the weal of creatures; I have seen and saluted the Sttipa of relics of the Lord Prabhtitaratna, the Tath&gata, &c. ; I have seen and saluted the Lord .S&kyamuni, the Tath&gata, &c. ; I have seen M&ngusrl, the prince royal, as well as the Bodhisattva Bhaisha^yar&^a, who is possessed of mighty knowledge and impetuosity 2 , and the Bodhisattva Mah&sattva Prad&n&rAra; and these eighty-four hundred thousand myriads of kotis of Bodhi-

This quality stamps Bhaisha^yara^a as Rudra; cf. Rig-veda II, 33, 7. He is essentially the same with Dhanvantari the physician, Arcitenens Apollo. He is, moreover, the same with Gadgadasvara, who is represented as breath of life. About the system of splitting up one natural phenomenon or abstraction into more beings, see p. 4, note.


  1. After a last effort the storm subsides.