who shall not reject nor repudiate the preaching of these young men of good family, O monks, shall quickly gain supreme, perfect enlightenment, and obtain Tathâgata-knowledge.
In the sequel also, monks, have these young men of good family repeatedly revealed this Dharmaparyâya of the Lotus of the True Law under the mastership of that Lord. And the 60 x 60 hundred thousand myriads of ko/is of living beings, equal to the sands of the river Ganges who by each of the sixteen novices, the Bodhisattvas Mahâsattvas, in the quality of Bodhisattva, had been roused to enlightenment, all those beings followed the example of the sixteen novices in choosing along with them the vagrant life of mendicants, in their several existences; they enjoyed their sight and heard the law from their mouth. They propitiated forty kotis 2 of Buddhas, and some are doing so up to this day.
I announce to you, monks, I declare to you : Those sixteen princes, the youths, who as novices under the mastership of the Lord were interpreters of the law, have all reached supreme, perfect enlightenment, and all of them are staying, existing, living even now, in the several directions of space, in different Buddha-fields, preaching the law to many hundred thousand myriads of kotis of disciples and Bodhisattvas, to wit: In the east, monks, in the world 8 Abhirati the Tathâgata named Akshobhya,
Or, as above in note 2, page 176.
Var. lect. has 40 x 100,000 x 10,000 ko/is.
Lokadhdtu; it appears from this passage that this term, though it may be rendered by ' world' or 'universe,' in reality means what
is implied by its etymology, viz. a fixed point of the world. It is needless to remark that the points of the compass are meant.
