15. If such a one, by his paying that worship to
the objects of veneration during eighteen thousand
ko/is of vEons, happens to hear this Stitra, were it
only once, he shall obtain an amazingly great
advantage.
I announce to thee, Bhaisha^yar^a, I declare to thee, that many are the Dharmapary&yas which I have propounded, am propounding, and shall propound. And among all those Dharmaparyâyas, Bhaishafya- râa, it is this which is apt to meet with no acceptance with everybody, to find no belief with everybody. This, indeed, Bhaisha^yarâa, is the transcendent spiritual esoteric lore of the law, preserved by the power of the Tathâgatas, but never divulged; it is an article (of creed)[1] not yet made known. By the majority of people, Bhaishafyari^a, this Dharmaparyâya is rejected during the lifetime of the TathAgata ; in far higher degree such will be the case after his complete extinction.
Nevertheless, Bhaishagyarâga, one has to consider those young men or young ladies of good family to be invested with the robes of the Tathâgata; to be regarded and blessed by the Tathâgatas living in other worlds, that they shall have the force of individual persuasion, the force that is rooted in virtue,
- ↑ Or point of view, standpoint.
the exemplary preachers who are likened to the Tathâgata, and sent by him (Tathâgata-bhûta and Tathâgata-dûta), spoken of in the preceding verses as well as in the prose passages above. Instead of models, I have used the phrase, objects of veneration, for clearness sake. Burnouf's original rendering 'images' is, so far as I can see, preferable to his correction of it into 'books.' There is no question of books, only of a single work, the Lotus; and it is clear that we must try to make the contents of the last two stanzas agree with the final part of the preceding prose.
