Saddharma Pundarika

Author(s): H Kern
Publisher: Oxford

Page 27

INTRODUCTION.
XXV
déclare qu'il y a longtemps qu'il remplit les devoirs d'un Buddha, et qu'il doit les remplir longtemps encore, malgré sa mort prochaine, laquelle ne détruit pas son éternité ; quoiqu'enfin on le représente créant de son corps des Buddhas qui sont comme les images et les reproductions idéales de sa personne mortelle, nulle part Çakyamuni n'est nommé Dieu ; nulle part il ne reçoit le titre d’Adibuddha.'
To this I have nothing to object, only something to add. It is perfectly true that Sakya does not receive the simple title of Deva; why? Because that title is far too poor for so exalted a personage who is the Devåtideva, the para. mount god of gods. So he is called in the Lotus, chap. vii, st. 31', and innumerable times in the whole range of Buddhist literature, both in Pali and Sanskrit. It is further undeniable that the title of Ådibuddha does not occur in the Lotus, but it is intimated that Sakya is identical with Ådibuddha in the words : 'From the very beginning (ådita eva)have I roused, brought to maturity, fully developed them (the innumerable Bodhisattvas) to be fit for their Bodhisattva position?' It is only by accommodation that he is called Ådibuddha, he properly being anadi, i.e. existing from eternity, having no beginning. The Buddha most solemnly declares (chap. xv) that he reached Bodhi an immense time ago, not as people fancy, first at Gaya. From the whole manner in which Sakya speaks of his existence in former times, it is perfectly clear that the author wished to convey the meaning that the Lord had existed from eternity, or, what comes to the same, from the very beginning, from time immemorial, &c.
Sakya has not only lived an infinite number of Æons in the past, he is to live for ever. Common people fancy that he enters Nirvana, but in reality he only makes a show of Nirvana out of regard for the weakness of men. He, the
1 Bumonf's rendering is Déva supérieur aux Dévas.'
· Less frequent than devatideva is the synonymous devâdhideva, c. g. Lalita-vistara, p. 131; essentially the same is the term sarvadevottama, the highest of all gods, ib. p. 144.
See chap. xiv, p. 295.
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