Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 21.djvu/333

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xiv.
ISSUING OF BODHISATTVAS.
285

the head of the great host, the great multitude of Bodhisattvas stretched out the joined hands towards the Lord and addressed him thus: Is the Lord in good health? Does he enjoy well-being and good ease? Are the creatures decorous, docile, obedient, correctly performing their task ! , so that they give no trouble to the Lord?

And those four Bodhisattvas Mahisattvas addressed the Lord with the two following stanzas:

1. Does the Lord of the world, the illuminator, feel at ease ? Dost thou feel free from bodily disease, O Perfect One ?

2. The creatures, we hope, will be decorous, docile, performing the orders 2 of the Lord of the world, so as to give no trouble.

And the Lord answered the four Bodhisattvas Mah&sattvas who were at the head of that great host, that great multitude of Bodhisattvas: So it is, young men of good family, I am in good health, well-being, and at ease. And these creatures of mine are decorous, docile, obedient, well performing what is ordered; they give no trouble when I correct them 8 ; and that, young men of good family, because these creatures, owing to their being already prepared under the ancient, perfectly enlightened Buddhas, have but to see and hear me to put trust

Suvixodhaka^. The rendering doubtful ; see next note.

Susodhaka. This, as well as suvijodhaka, properly means 'well cleaning,' and applies, at least originally, to servants or pupils who are charged with sweeping the house or precincts. I have tried to give the expression a spiritual look; Burnouf renders it by 'faciles a purifier,' which is quite plausible, because in a similar compound, subodha, we find bodha used in a passive sense, the word meaning 'easy to be understood.'

Na kz. khedam ganayanti vixodhyamanSs.