30. Come, let us go and visit kotis of fields, along the four quarters; a Buddha will certainly now have made his appearance in this world.
Thereupon, monks, the great Brahma-angels in the fifty hundred thousand myriads of kotis of spheres mounted all together their own divine aerial cars, took with them divine bags, as large as Mount Sumeru, with celestial flowers, and went through the four quarters successively until they arrived at the north-western quarter, where those great Brahma-angels, stationed in the north-western quarter, saw the Lord Mahâbhigñâgñânâbhibhû [&c., as above till compassion to us].
On that occasion, monks, after presenting their own cars to the Lord the Brahma-angels celebrated the Lord, face to face, with the following seasonable stanzas:
31. Homage to thee, matchless great Seer, chief god of gods, whose voice is sweet as the lark's[1]. Leader in the world, including the gods, I salute thee, who art so benign and bounteous to the world.
32. How wonderful, O Lord, is it that after so long a time thou appearest in the world[2]. Eighty hundred complete Æons this world of the living was without Buddha[3].
- ↑ Kalaviṅka, which I have freely rendered in this manner, commonly denotes a sparrow, but the corresponding Pâli word kuravika is supposed to be the Indian cuckoo, the koil, which in Indian poetry may be said to answer to our nightingale; in so far one might perhaps render kalaviṅka by nightingale.
- ↑ Consequently it was not for the first time that he appeared.
- ↑ I do not understand this reckoning, unless Æon (kalpa) here be taken in the sense of intermediate kalpa. A mahâkalpa is the period elapsing from the commencement of the worlds destruction (i. e. sunset) to its complete restoration (i. e. sunrise). So, indeed,
