Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 21.djvu/136

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88
SADDHARMA-PUNDARÎKA.
iii.

and covered with choice carpets showing the images of cranes and swans, and worth thousands of kotis.

83. The carts are yoked with white bullocks, well fed, strong, of great size, very fine, who are tended by numerous persons.

84. Such excellent carts that man gives to all his sons, who, overjoyed and charmed, go and play with them in all directions.

85. In the same manner, Sâriputra, I, the great Seer, am the protector and father of all beings, and all creatures who, childlike, are captivated by the pleasures of the triple world, are my sons.

86. This triple world is as dreadful as that house, overwhelmed with a number of evils, entirely inflamed on every side by a hundred different sorts of birth, old age, and disease.

87. But I, who am detached from the triple world and serene, am living in absolute retirement[1] in a wood[2]. This triple world is my domain, and those who in it are suffering from burning heat are my sons.

88. And I told its evils because I had resolved upon saving them, but they would not listen to me, because all of them were ignorant and their hearts attached to the pleasures of sense.

89. Then I employ an able device, and tell them of the three vehicles, so showing them the means of evading[3] the numerous evils of the triple world which are known to me.

90. And those of my sons who adhere to me,


  1. Ekântasthâyin.
  2. Vana, a wood, also means a cloud, the cloudy region.
  3. Nirdhâvanârthâya; a var. lect. has nirvâpanârthâya, i. e. to allay.