perfect enlightenment[1]. But those laws (of perfect enlightenment) had not yet dawned upon him. He stayed on the terrace of enlightenment at the foot of the tree of enlightenment during one intermediate kalpa. He stayed there a second, a third intermediate kalpa, but did not yet attain supreme, perfect enlightenment. He remained a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, a seventh, an eighth, a ninth, a tenth intermediate kalpa on the terrace of enlightenment at the foot of the tree of enlightenment[2], continuing sitting cross-legged without in the meanwhile rising. He stayed, the mind motionless, the body unstirring and untrembling, but those laws had not yet dawned upon him.
Now, monks, while the Lord was just on the summit of the terrace of enlightenment, the gods of Paradise (Trâyastrimsas) prepared him a magnificent royal throne, a hundred yoganas high, on occupying which the Lord attained supreme, perfect enlightenment; and no sooner had the Lord occupied the seat of enlightenment than the Brahmakâyika gods scattered a rain of flowers all around the seat of enlightenment over a distance of a hundred yoganas; in the sky they let loose storms by which the flowers, withered, were swept away. From the beginning of the rain of flowers, while the Lord was sitting on the seat of enlightenment, it poured without interruption during fully ten intermediate kalpas[3],
- ↑ It is difficult not to see that we have here, as well as in the opening of the Mahâvagga and in Lalita-vistara, chap. 21, a description of the rising of the sun, the beginning of a kalpa, a myth of the creation of the visible world.
- ↑ The so-called Bo-tree.
- ↑ An intermediate kalpa is the twentieth part of an incalculable kalpa, which in reality is equal to one day of twenty-four hours,
