Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 21.djvu/483

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
xxvi.
ENCOURAGEMENT OF SAMANTABHADRA.
435

sattvarutakausalyânugate simhavikrîdite[1]. The Bodhisattva Mahâsattva, whose organ of hearing is struck by these talismanic words, Lord, shall be aware that the Bodhisattva Mahâsattva Samantabhadra is their ruling power[2].

Further, Lord, the Bodhisattvas Mahâsattvas to whom this Dharmaparyâya of the Lotus of the True Law shall be entrusted, as long as it continues having course in Gambudvîpa, those preachers, Lord, should take this view: It is owing to the power and grandeur of the Bodhisattva Mahâsattva Samantabhadra that this Dharmaparyâya has been entrusted to us. Those creatures who shall write and keep this Sûtra, O Lord, are to partake of the course of duty of the Bodhisattva Mahâsattva Samantabhadra; they will belong to those who have planted good roots under many Buddhas, O Lord, and whose heads are caressed by the hands of the Tathâgata. Those who shall write and keep this Sûtra, O Lord, will afford me pleasure. Those who shall write this Sûtra, O Lord, and comprehend it, shall, when they disappear from this world, after having written it, be reborn in the company of the


  1. In Burnouf's translation we find added: anuvarte vartani vartâli svâhâ. All terms are, or ought to be, vocatives of feminine words in the singular. Pati, as in Pâli pagâpati, Buddhistic Sansk. pragâpatî, interchanges with the ending vatî; not only in pragâvatî (e.g. in Lalita-vistara), but in some of the words occurring in the spell; so for dandapati the Tibetan text has dandâvati. As Siva in Mahâbhârata XII, 10361 is represented as the personified Danda, we may hold that all the names above belong to Siva's female counterpart, Durgâ. The epithet of Simhavikrîditâ is but a variation of Simhikâ, one of the names of Dâkshâyanî or Durgâ in her quality of mother to Râhu. Cf. the remarks on the spells in chap. XXI.
  2. As the presiding deity of lightning he is also the lord of flame, of Svâhâ, identified with Dâkshâyanî-Durgâ.