Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 21.djvu/96

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48
SADDHARMA-PUNDARÎKA.
ii.

63. From lust they run into distress; they are tormented in the six states of existence and people the cemetery[1] again and again; they are overwhelmed with misfortune, as they possess little virtue.

64. They are continually entangled in the thickets of (sectarian) theories, such as, 'It is and it is not; it is thus and it is not thus.' In trying to get a decided opinion on what is found in the sixty-two (heretical) theories they come to embrace falsehood and continue in it.

65. They are hard to correct, proud, hypocritical, crooked, malignant, ignorant, dull; hence they do not hear the good Buddha-call, not once in kotis of births.

66. To those, son of Sâri, I show a device and say: Put an end to your trouble. When I perceive creatures vexed with mishap I make them see Nirvâna.

67. And so do I reveal all those laws that are ever holy and correct from the very first. And the son of Buddha who has completed his course shall once be a Gina.

68. It is but my skilfulness which prompts me to manifest three vehicles; for there is but one vehicle and one track[2]; there is also but one instruction by the leaders.

69. Remove all doubt and uncertainty; and should


  1. Katâmsi vardhenti. This is a strangely altered katasîm vardhenti, Pâli katasim varddhenti; see Kullavagga XII, 1, 3, and cf. the expression katasivaddhano in Gâtaka (ed. Fausböll) I, p. 146, and the passage of Âpastamba II, 9, 23, 4 (in Bühler's transl. p. 156), where cemeteries, Smasânâni, by the commentator Haradatta, are said to denote 'fresh births.'
  2. Or, method.