Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 21.djvu/446

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
398
SADDHARMA-PUNDARÎKA.
xxiii.

sattvas, in the direction of this Saha-world, and approached the Grs'dhrakti/a, the king of mountains. At his arrival, he alighted from the tower, and went, with a necklace of pearls worth a hundred thousands, to the place where the Lord was sitting. After humbly saluting the feet of the Lord, and circumambulating him seven times from left to right, he offered him the necklace of pearls in token of homage, whereafter he said to the Lord: The Lord Kamaladalavimalanakshatrar^asankusumitdbhi£7*a, the Tath&gata, &c, inquires after the Lord's health, welfare, and sprightliness; whether he feels free from affliction and at ease. That Lord has also charged me to ask : Is there something thou hast to suffer or allow[1]? the humours of the body are not in an unfavourable state? thy creatures are decent in manners, tractable, and easy to be healed? their bodies are clean ? They are not too passionate, I hope, not too irascible, not too unwise in their doings ? They are not jealous, Lord, not envious, not ungrateful to their father and mother, not impious, not heterodox, not unsubdued in mind, not unrestrained in sexual desires ? Are the creatures able to resist the Evil One? Has the Lord Prabhtitaratna, the Tathigata, &c, who is completely extinct, come to the Saha-world in order to hear the law, sitting in the centre of a StApa made of seven precious substances ? And as to that, Lord Prabhfitaratna, the Tath&gata, &c, the Lord Kamaladalavimalanakshatrar^asankusumit^bhi^»a, inquires : Is there some-


  1. Yâpanîya; it is a usual medical term applied to diseases which can be alleviated to a certain extent by means of palliatives, but can no longer be cured. It is manifest from the sequel that here also the term is derived from medical practice.