Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 21.djvu/389

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xviii.
ADVANTAGES OF A RELIGIOUS PREACHER.
341

21. The divine ear is not yet operating in him; his ear continues in its natural state. Such as here told are the good qualities belonging to the wise man who shall be a keeper of this Sûtra.

Further, Satatasamitâbhiyukta, the Bodhisattva Mahâsattva who keeps, proclaims, studies, writes this Dharmaparyâya becomes possessed of a perfect organ of smell with eight hundred good qualities. By means of that organ he smells the different smells that are found in the triple world, within and without, such as fetid smells, pleasant and unpleasant smells, the fragrance of diverse flowers, as the great-flowered jasmine, Arabian jasmine, Michelia Champaka, trumpet-flower; likewise the different scents of aquatic flowers, as the blue lotus, red lotus, white esculent water-lily and white lotus. He smells the odour of fruits and blossoms of various trees bearing fruits and blossoms, such as sandal, Xanthochymus, Tabernæmontana, agallochum[1]. The manifold hundred-thousand mixtures of perfumes he smells and discerns, without moving from his standing-place. He smells the diverse smells of creatures, as elephants, horses, cows, goats, beasts, as well as the smell issuing from the body of various living beings in the condition of brutes. He perceives the smells exhaled by the body of women and men, of boys and girls. He smells, even from a distance, the odour of grass, bushes, herbs, trees. He perceives those smells such as they really are, and is not surprised nor stunned by them. Staying on this very earth he smells the odour of gods and the


  1. There is something strange in enumerating these plants, after speaking of fruits.