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SADDHARMA-PUNDARÎKA.
followed by many hundred thousand myriads of kotis of demons, viz. the chief of the demons Bali, Kharaskandha", Vemakitri”, and Rahu ; along with the four Garuda chiefs followed by many hundred thousand myriads of kotis of Garudas, viz. the Garuda chiefs Mahâtegas, Mahâkâya, Mahâpurna, and Maharddhiprâpta, and with Agâtasatru, king of Magadha, the son of Vaidehf.
Now at that time it was that the Lord surrounded, attended, honoured, revered, venerated, worshipped by the four classes of hearers, after expounding the Dharmaparyaya 3 called 'the Great Exposition,' a text of great development, serving to instruct Bodhisattvas and proper to all Buddhas, sat cross-legged on the seat of the law and entered upon the meditation termed 'the station of the exposition of Infinity;' his body was motionless and his mind had reached perfect tranquillity. And as soon as the Lord had entered upon his meditation, there fell a great rain of divine flowers, Mandaravas 4 and great Mandaravas, Mañgushakas and great Mañgashakas“, covering the Lord and the four classes of hearers, while the whole Buddha field shook in six ways: it moved,
? Burnouf has Suraskandha.
* This is a wrong Sanskritisation of a Prâkrit Vemakitti, Páli Vepakitti; the proper Sanskrit equivalent is Viprakitti.
3 I. e. turn, period, or roll of the law; it may often be rendered by'a discourse on the law. In the sense of period, term, end, it is used as the title of the closing chapter of the whole work.
• Mandarava, or rather Mandarava, derived from mandâru= mandara, Erythrina, is here a heavenly flower, or, as the Indians say, 'a cloud-flower,' meghapushpa, i.e. raindrop and hailstone. Mangusha is a name of the Rubia Manjista ; the word is also said to mean, 'a stone;' in this case perhaps a hailstone or dewdrop.
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