forth a voice[1], and plant the roots of goodness of such creatures as have not (yet) planted roots of goodness.
Then the Lord addressed the Bodhisattva Mahsattva Vmsh/a£&ritra, followed by a troop, a great troop, the master of a troop, who was the very first of those afore-mentioned Bodhisattvas Mahisattvas followed by a troop, a great troop, masters of a troop: Very well, VLrish/a^iritra, very well; so you should do; it is for the sake of this Dharmaparyiya that the Tathgata has brought you to ripeness.
Thereupon the Lord .SSkyamuni, the Tathdgata, &c., and the wholly extinct Lord Prabhfltaratna, the Tathgata, &c, both seated on the throne in the centre of the Stûpa[2], commenced smiling to one another, and from their opened mouths stretched out their tongues, so that with their tongues they reached the Brahma-world, and from those two tongues issued many hundred thousand myriads of kotis of rays[3]. From each of those rays issued many hundred thousand myriads of ko/is of Bodhisattvas, with gold-coloured bodies and possessed of the thirty-two characteristic signs of a great man, and seated on thrones consisting of the interior of lotuses. Those
- ↑ From this it appears that the abode of the monks &c. in the assembly of the Lord Sâkyamuni is in the sky, at least occasionally. Their attribute of 'an invisible body' shows them to be identical with the videhas, the incorporeal ones, i. e. the spirits of the blessed departed, Arhats, Muktas, Pitaras. The Pitaras form the assembly of Dharmarâga.
- ↑ Cf. Chapter XI.
- ↑ It is quite true that the moon as well as the sun is sahasrarasmi, possessed of thousand rays, but it is difficult to understand how the Bhagavat Prabhûtaratna can show his magic power in his state of extinction.
