Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 21.djvu/280

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232
SADDHARMA-PUNDARÎKA.
xi.

with strings of fine cloth, replete with many hundred thousands of Bodhisattvas, covered with canopies, decked with a network of seven precious substances and gold[1]. And in those fields appeared the Lords, the Buddhas, teaching with sweet and gentle voice the law to creatures; and those Buddha-fields seemed replete with hundred thousands of Bodhisattvas. So, too, it was in the south-east; so in the south; so in the south-west; so in the west; so in the north-west; so in the north; so in the north-east; so in the nadir; so in the zenith; so in the ten directions of space; in each direction were to be seen many hundred thousand myriads of kotis of Buddha-fields, similar to the sands of the river Ganges, in many worlds similar to the sands of the river Ganges, Lords Buddhas in many hundred thousand myriads of ko/is of Buddha-fields.

Those Tathdgatas, &c, in the ten directions of space then addressed each his own troop of Bodhisattvas: We shall have to go, young men of good family, to the Saha-world near the Lord .SSkyamuni, the Tathdgata, &c, to humbly salute the Stflpa of the relics of Prabhfltaratna, the Tathâgata, &c. Thereupon those Lords, those Buddhas resorted with their own satellites, each with one or two, to this Saha-world. At that period this all-embracing world was adorned with jewel trees ; it consisted of lapis lazuli, was covered with a network of seven precious substances and gold, smoking with the odorous incense of magnificent jewels, everywhere strewn with Mand&rava and great Mandârava flowers,


  1. Here we see that gold does not belong to the seven ratnas. The whole list of the seven colours seems to have undergone some alterations.