Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 21.djvu/306

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258
SADDHARMA-PUNDARÎKA.
xii.

world Bhadra; and the lifetime of that Lord Ra^misatasahasraparipftroadhva^a shall be unlimited.

When the noble matron Gautamt, the nun, with her suite of six thousand nuns, and YarodharA, the nun, with her suite of four thousand nuns, heard from the Lord their future destiny to supreme, perfect enlightenment, they uttered, in wonder and amazement, this stanza :

1. O Lord, thou art the trainer, thou art the leader ; thou art the master of the world, including the gods ; thou art the giver of comfort, thou who art worshipped by men and gods. Now, indeed, we feel satisfied.

After uttering this stanza the nuns said to the Lord: We also, O Lord, will exert ourselves to divulge this Dharmapary£ya in the last days, though in other worlds.

Thereafter the Lord looked towards the eighty hundred thousand Bodhisattvas who were gifted with magical spells and capable of moving forward the wheel that never rolls back. No sooner were those Bodhisattvas regarded by the Lord than they rose from their seats, raised their joined hands towards the Lord and reflected thus: The Lord invites us to make known the Dharmapary&ya. Agitated by that thought they asked one another: What shall we do, young men of good family, in order that this DharmaparyAya may in future be made known as the Lord invites us to do ? Thereupon those young men of good family, in consequence of their reverence for the Lord and their own pious vow in their previous course, raised a lion s roar[1] before the Lord: We, O Lord, will in future, after the


  1. One might say, a cry of martial exultation.