CHAPTER III.
A PARABLE.
Then the venerable Sâriputra, pleased, glad, charmed, cheerful, thrilling with delight and joy, stretched his joined hands towards the Lord, and, looking up to the Lord with a steady gaze, addressed him in this strain: I am astonished, amazed, O Lord! I am in ecstasy to hear such a call from the Lord. For when, before I had heard of this law from the Lord, I saw other Bodhisattvas, and heard that the Bodhisattvas would in future get the name of Buddhas, I felt extremely sorry, extremely vexed to be deprived from so grand a sight as the Tathâgata-knowledge. And whenever, O Lord, for my daily recreation I was visiting the caves of rocks or mountains, wood thickets, lovely gardens, rivers, and roots of trees, I always was occupied with the same and ever-recurring thought: 'Whereas the entrance into the fixed points[1] of the law is nominally[2] equal, we have been dismissed by the Lord with the inferior vehicle.' Instantly, however, O Lord, I felt that it
- ↑ Or, elements.
- ↑ Tulye nâma dharmadhâtupravese vayam—niryâtitâh. The terms are ambiguous, and open to various interpretations. The Tibetan version has, according to Burnouf, 'in an equal introduction to the domain of the law,' from which at least thus much results, that the text had tulye, not tulya, as Burnouf reads. Tulye pravese I take to be a so-called absolute locative case. As to the plural 'we,' it refers to Sâriputra.
