Saddharma Pundarika

SR No.: 007677
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: H Kern
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1884
Total Pages: 2546
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 46 MB

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SADDHARMA-PUNDARIKA.
XIV.
sattva hymns, fifty intermediate kalpas in full rolled away, during which fifty intermediate kalpas the Lord Sakyamuni remained silent, and likewise the four classes of the audience. Then the Lord produced such an effect of magical power that the four classes fancied that it had been no more than one afternoon', and they saw this Saha-world assume the appearance of hundred thousands of worlds replete with Bodhisattvas 3. The four Bodhisattvas Mahasattvas who were the chiefest of that great host of Bodhisattvas, viz. the Bodhisattva Mahâsattva called Visishtakaritra (i. e. of eminent conduct), the Bodhisattva Mahasattva called Anantakâritra (i. e. of endless conduct), the Bodhisattva Mahâsattva called Visuddhakaritra (i. e. of correct conduct), and the Bodhisattva Mahâsattva called Supratishthitakaritra (i. e. of very steady conduct), these four Bodhisattvas Mahâsattvas standing at
1 If we take kalpa or Eon (i.e. a day of twenty-four hours) to contain eighty intermediate kalpas, it is impossible that either fifty or five intermediate kalpas should be equal to an afternoon. A so-called Asankhyeya kalpa has twenty intermediate kalpas, and is, in reality, equal to six hours, so that five intermediate kalpas will embrace a time of 1 hour. If we might take an Asankhyeya to be the equivalent of a day of twenty-four hours, the reckoning would be correct, for then five intermediate kalpas would be equal to six hours; we can, however, produce no authority for Asankhyeya kalpa ever being used in the (esoteric) sense of a day and night.
Lokadhâtusatasahasråkârâparigrihîtâm, which ought to be okârap", or "karam po. Instances of the peculiar construction of parigrihita after the analogy of prâpta are found, Lalita-vistara, pp. 109, 112, 181, 368. A marginal would-be correction has 'kâsam po.
* The afternoon being at an end, the innumerable spheres of the stars become visible.
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