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434
SADDHARMA-PUNDARÎKA.
xxvi.

seen my proper body and heard from me this en- tire Dharmapary£ya, he, content, in high spirits, ravished, rejoiced, joyful, and delighted, will the more do his utmost to study this Dharmapary&ya, and immediately after beholding me he will acquire meditation and obtain spells, termed the talisman * of preservation, the talisman of hundred thousand ko/is, and the talisman of skill in all sounds.

Again, Lord, the monks, nuns, male or female lay devotees, who at the end of time, at the end of the period, in the second half of the millennium, shall study this Dharmaparyiya, when walking for three weeks, (or) twenty-one days, to them will I show my body, at the sight of which all beings rejoice. Mounted on that same white elephant with six tusks, and surrounded by a troop of Bodhisattvas, I shall on the twenty-first day betake myself to the place where the preachers are walking ; there I shall rouse, excite, and stimulate them, and give them spells whereby those preachers shall become inviolable, so that no being, either human or not human, shall be able to surprise them, and no women able to beguile them. I will protect them, take care of their safety, avert blows 2 , and destroy poison. I will, besides, O Lord, give those preachers words of talismanic spells, such as, Ada^dfe da^iapati, da#d&vartani da«dakujale da»dasudh&ri dh&ri sudh&rapati, bud- dhapasyani dh&ram, ivartani sawvartani sangha- parlkshite sanghanirghitani dharmaparikshite sarva-

that the Bodhisattva entered the womb of his mother M4y£ Devf in the shape of an elephant with six tusks ; see Lalita-vistara, p. 63. According to the description of the elephant, it must, originally, be a name of lightning.

Avarta.

Or punishment.