At the time when the Master uttered these words in the hall of the potter at Rajagriha, the pilgrim Kamanita awoke in the Paradise of the West.
Wrapped in a red mantle, whose rich drapings flowed down about him, delicate and glistening as the petals of a flower, he found himself sitting with crossed legs on a huge, similarly coloured lotus rose which floated in the middle of a large pond. On the wide expanse of water such lotus flowers were to be seen everywhere, red, blue, and white, some as yet mere buds, others, although fairly developed, yet still closed; but, at the same time, countless numbers were open like his own, and on almost every one a human form was throned, whose richly draped robes seemed to grow up out of the petals of the flower.
On the sloping banks of the pond, in the greenest of grass, there laughed such a wealth of flowers as made it seem that all the jewels of earth had taken the form of flowers, and had been reborn here. Their luminous play of colour they had retained, but the hard coat of mail they had worn during their earthly existence they had exchanged for the soft and clinging, the living vesture of the plants. In keeping with this change, was the fragrance they exhaled, which was more powerful than the most splendid essence ever enclosed in crystal, while yet possessing the whole heartsome freshness of the natural odour of flowers.
From this enchanting bank the ravished glance swept away between masses of splendid trees, some loftily piercing the sky, others with broader summit and deeper shade, many clad in emerald foliage, numbers resplendent with jewelled blossoms, standing now singly, now in groups, anon forming deep, forest glades, on to where craggy heights of the most alluring description displayed their graces of crystal, marble, and alabaster, here naked, there covered with dense shrubbery or veiled in airy drapery of flowers. But at one spot groves and rocks disappeared entirely to make room for a beautiful river, which poured its waters silently into the lake like a stream of starry light.
Over the whole region the sky formed an arch, the deep blue of which grew deeper as it neared the horizon, and under this dome hung white, massy cloudlets on which reclined lovely genii, who drew from their instruments the magic strains of rapturous melodies that filled the whole of space.
But in that sky there was no sun to be seen, and, indeed, there was no need for any sun. For from the cloudlets and the genii, from the rocks and flowers, from the waters, and from the lotus roses, from the garments of the Blest, and, in even greater degree, from their faces, a marvellous light shone forth. And just as this light was of radiant clearness—without, however, dazzling in the least—so the soft, perfume-laden warmth was freshened by the constant breath of the waters, and the inhaling of this air alone was a pleasure which nothing on earth could equal.
When Kamanita had so far grown accustomed to the sight of all these splendours that they no longer overpowered him, but began to seem like his natural surroundings, he directed his attention to those other beings who, like himself, sat round about on floating lotus thrones. He soon perceived that those clad in red were male, those in white of the female sex, while of the figures wrapped in blue cloaks some, as it appeared to him, belonged to the one, some to the other, sex. But all, without exception, were in the fullest bloom of youth, and seemed to be of a most friendly disposition.
A neighbour in a blue cloak inspired him with particular confidence, so that the desire to begin a conversation awoke in his breast.
"I wonder whether it is permissible to question this blest one?" he thought. "I would so much like to know where I am."
To his great astonishment the reply came at once, without a sound, and without even the faintest movement of the blue-clad figure's lips.
"Thou art in Sukhavati, the abode of bliss."
Unconsciously Kamanita went on with his unspoken questioning.
"Thou wast here, most sacred one, when I opened my eyes, for my glance fell at once on thee. Didst thou awake at the same time as I, or hast thou been long here?"
"I have been here from time immemorial," answered the neighbour in blue, "and I would believe that I had been here from all eternity, if I hadn't so often seen a lotus rose open and a new being appear—and but for the perfume of the Coral Tree."
"What is there about that particular perfume?"
"That thou wilt soon discover for thyself. The Coral Tree is the greatest wonder of this Paradise."
The music of the heavenly genii, which seemed quite naturally to accompany this soundless conversation, adapting itself with its melodies and strains to every succeeding sentence, as if to deepen its meaning and to make clear what the words could not convey, wove, at these words, a strangely mystical sound-picture, and it appeared to the listening Kamanita as if in his mind endless depths revealed themselves, in whose shadows dim memories stirred without being able to awake.
"The greatest wonder?" said he, after a pause. "I imagined that of all wonderful things here the most wonderful was that splendid stream which empties itself into our lake."
"The heavenly Gunga," nodded the blue.
"The heavenly Gunga," repeated Kamanita dreamily, and again there came over him, only in added degree, that feeling of something which he ought to know, and yet was not able to know, while the mysterious music seemed to seek, in the deepest depths of his own personality, for the sources of that stream.