Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 21.djvu/206

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158
SADDHARMA-PUNDARÎKA.
vii.

Tathâgata, &c, was seated on the summit of the terrace of enlightenment They went up to the Lord in order to honour, respect, worship, revere, and venerate him, saluted his feet with their heads, made three turns round him keeping him to the right[1], lifted up their joined hands, and praised the Lord, face to face, with the following stanzas:

8. Thou art the great physician[2], having no superior, rendered perfect in endless Æons[3]. Thy benign wish of saving all mortals (from darkness) has to-day been fulfilled.

9. Most difficult things hast thou achieved[4] during the ten intermediate kalpas now past; thou hast been sitting all that time without once moving thy body, hand, foot, or any other part[5].

10. Thy mind also was tranquil and steady, motionless, never to be shaken; thou knewest no distraction[6]; thou art completely quiet and faultless.

11. Joy with thee[7]! that thou so happily and safely,


  1. And, moving from east to south, and so forth.
  2. Like Apollo. Therefore the Buddha immediately after his bodhi, i.e. awakening, pronounces the four Âryasatyâni, which are nothing else but the well-known four chief points in the medical art,—the disease, the cause of the disease, necessity to remove that cause, and the remedy.
  3. And, of infinite body; and, whose pharmacology is boundless; anantakalpa is the term used.
  4. Out of a figure similar and akin to Hercules, the active Nârâyana has become a sage tranquil, peaceful, and refraining from action.
  5. Desa. This immovability must be taken cum grano salis, in so far as the sun is represented to continue in the same portion of the ecliptic for one day.
  6. Vikshepa as an astronomical term means celestial latitude; the sun knows no deviation from the ecliptic, of course.
  7. Dishtyâsi.