Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 21.djvu/469

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
xxv.
ANCIENT DEVOTION.
421

mans. Therefore you will not obtain the permission to go and see the Tathâgata. Then the two young princes Vimalagarbha and Vimalanetra, stretching their joined hands, said to their mother: Though born in a family that adheres to a false doctrine, we feel as sons to the king of the law. Then, young men of good family, the queen Vimaladattd said to the young princes: Well, young gentlemen, out of compassion for your father, the king Subhavyûha, display some miracle, that he may become favourably inclined to you, and on that account grant you the permission of going to the Lord Galadharagargitaghoshasusvaranakshatrarâgasaṅkusumitâbhia, the Tathâgata, &c.

Immediately the young princes Vimalagarbha and Vimalanetra rose into the atmosphere to a height of seven Tâl trees[1] and performed miracles such as are allowed by the Buddha, out of compassion for their father, the king Subhavyûha. They prepared in the sky a couch and raised dust; there they also emitted from the lower part of their body a shower of rain, and from the upper part a mass of fire; then again they emitted from the upper part of their body a shower of rain, and from the lower part a mass of fire[2]. While in the firmament they became now big, then small; and now small, then big. Then they vanished from the sky to come up again from the earth and reappear in the air. Such, young men of good family, were the miracles produced by the


  1. Or seven spans, whatever may be meant by it.
  2. A similar miracle was performed by the Buddha, according to the traditions of the Southern Buddhists, when he had to show his superiority to the six heretical doctors; see Bigandet, Life of Gaudama, vol. i, p. 218.