Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 21.djvu/332

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284
SADDHARMA-PUNDARÎKA.
xiv.

sattva hymns, fifty intermediate kalpas in full rolled away, during which fifty intermediate kalpas the Lord .S&kyamuni remained silent, and likewise the four classes of the audience. Then the Lord produced such an effect of magical power that the four classes fancied that it had been no more than one afternoon 1 , and they saw this Saha-world assume the appearance of hundred thousands of worlds* replete with Bodhisattvas 8 . The four Bodhisattvas Mah&sattvas who were the chiefest of that great host of Bodhisattvas, viz. the Bodhisattva Mahisattva called Vmsh/ai&ritra (i. e. of eminent conduct), the Bodhisattvfe Mah&sattva called Anantaritra (i. e. of endless conduct), the Bodhisattva Mah&sattva called Vmiddhai&ritra (i. e. of correct conduct), and the Bodhisattva MahAsattva called Supratish/^ita^&ritra (i. e. of very steady conduct), these four Bodhisattvas Mahdsattvas standing at

If we take kalpa or JEon (i.e. a day of twenty-four hours) to contain eighty intermediate kalpas, it is impossible that either fifty or five intermediate kalpas should be equal to an afternoon. A so-called Asakhyeya kalpa has twenty intermediate kalpas, and is, in reality, equal to six hours, so that five intermediate kalpas will embrace a time of 1^ hour. If we might take an Asahkhyeya to be the equivalent of a day of twenty-four hours, the reckoning would be correct, for then five intermediate kalpas would be equal to six hours; we can, however, produce no authority for Asakhyeya kalpa ever being used in the (esoteric) sense of a day and night.

Lokadhitu.ratasahasrdk&r&parigri'hfta'm, which ought to be °karap°, or °k£ra*« p°. Instances of the peculiar construction of parigrihfta after the analogy of pr&pta are found, Lalita-vistara, pp. 109, 112,181, 368. A marginal would-be correction has °kasaj» p°.

The afternoon being at an end, the innumerable spheres of the stars become visible.