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234
SADDHARMA-PUNDARÎKA.
XI.
At that moment the whole sphere was replete with Tathagatas, but the beings produced from the proper body of the Lord Şakyamuni had not yet arrived, not even from a single point of the horizon. Then the Lord Sâkyamuni, the Tathâgata, &c., proceeded to make room for those Tathagata-frames that were arriving one after the other. On every side in the eight directions of space (appeared) twenty hundred thousand myriads of kotis of Buddha-fields of lapis lazuli, decked with a network of seven precious substances and gold, decorated with a fringe of little bells, strewn with Mandarava and great Mandarava flowers, covered with heavenly awnings, hung with wreaths of heavenly flowers, smoking with heavenly odorous incense. All those twenty hundred thousand myriads of kotis of Buddha-fields were without villages, towns, boroughs, &c.; without Kåla-mountain, &c.; without great oceans, &c.; without bodies of gods, &c. All those Buddha-fields were so arranged by him as to form one Buddha-field, one soil, even, lovely, set off with trees of seven precious substances, trees five hundred yoganas in height and circumference, provided with boughs, flowers, and fruits in proportion? At the foot of each tree stood prepared a throne, five yoganas in height and width, consisting of celestial gems, glittering and beautiful. The Tathagatas arriving one after the other occupied the throne near the foot of each tree, and sat cross-legged. In like manner the Tathagata Sâkyamuni prepared twenty hundred thousand myriads of kotis of other
1 The reading is somewhat.doubtful: arohaparinkhonupūrva(var. lect. Chah, anupūrva-)sâkhâpatrapushpaphalopeta(k).
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