Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 21.djvu/437

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xxii.
ANCIENT DEVOTION OF BHAISHAGYARÂGA.
389

Law, who shall write it and cause it to be written, will produce an accumulation of pious merit the term of which is not to be arrived at even by Buddha-knowledge; so great is the accumulation of pious merit that will be produced by a young man of good family or a young lady who after teaching or learning it, writing it or having it collected into a volume, shall honour, respect, venerate, worship it with flowers, incense, fragrant garlands, ointment, powder, umbrellas, flags, banners, triumphal streamers, with music, with joining of hands, with lamps burning with ghee, scented oil, Kampaka oil, jasmine oil, trumpet-flower oil, Vârshikâ oil or double jasmine oil.

Great will be the pious merit, Nakshatrarâgasaṅkusumitâbhia, to be produced by a young man of good family or a young lady striving to reach the goal in the Bodhisattva-vehicle, who shall keep this chapter of the Ancient Devotion of Bhaisha^yarclf a, who shall read and learn it. And, Nakshatrarâga, should a female, after hearing this Dharmaparylya, grasp and keep it, then this existence will be her last existence as a woman. Any female, Nakshatrarâgasaṅkusumitâbhia, who in the last five hundred years of the millennium shall hear and penetrate this chapter of the Ancient Devotion of Bhaishagyarâga, will after disappearing from earth be (re)born in the world Sukh&vatl, where the Lord Amitâyus[1], the Tath&gata, &c, dwells, exists, lives surrounded by a host of Bodhisattvas. There will he (who formerly was a female) appear seated on a throne consisting of the interior of a lotus; no affection, no hatred, no infatuation, no pride, no


  1. Another name of Amitâbha.