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

Page 447

XXIII.
GADGADASVARA.
403
verted by a Pratyekabuddha ; under the shape of a Tathagata to such as must be converted by a Tathagata. Nay, he will show to those who must be converted by a relic of the Tathagata himself such a relic, and to those who must be converted by complete extinction he will show himself completely extinct”. Such is the powerful knowledge, Padmasri, the Bodhisattva Mahâsattva is possessed of.
Thereafter the Bodhisattva Mahasattva Padmasri said to the Lord : The Bodhisattva Mahâsattva Gadgadasvara then has planted good roots, Lord. What meditation is it, Lord, whereby the Bodhisattva Mahâsattva Gadgadasvara, with unshaken firmness, has converted (or educated) so many creatures ? Whereupon the Lord Sakyamuni, the Tathagata, &c., replied to the Bodhisattva Mahâsattva Padmasrt: It is, young man of good family, the meditation termed Sarvardpasandarsana. By steadiness in it has the Bodhisattva Mahâsattva Gadgadasvara so immensely promoted the weal of creatures.
While this chapter of Gadgadasvara was being expounded?, all the eighty-four hundred thousand myriads of kotis of Bodhisattvas Mahâsattvas who, along with the Bodhisattva Mahâsattva Gadgadasvara, had come to the Saha-world, obtained the
i Gadgadasvara, being both inspiration and expiration, appears under the form of a dead corpse, and thereby converts fickle and thoughtless men.
It need not be observed that the chapter was not expounded, the Buddha being one of the dramatis persona, one of the interlocutors, but not the narrator. This confusion between epical and dramatical exposition is one of the most striking features of the Lotus. The Saddharma, the law of nature, may be said to have been expounded by the Tathagata, not, however, the composition which bears that title.
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