Twenty Billion Bodhisattvas, Giving
Heaps of treasure before the king's own throne turn out to be only a sample — every crossroads in Wondrous Light city holds its own stock of provisions and its own twenty billion bodhisattvas, distributing everything to beings for twelve distinct and named reasons.
Heaps of Treasure Before the Throne
Before even reaching the twenty billion bodhisattvas stationed throughout the city, Good-Wealth's eye is drawn to what lies immediately before the king's own throne — jewels, garments, carriages, incense, and medicine piled without limit.
於王座前，有金、銀、瑠璃、摩尼、真珠、珊瑚、琥珀、珂貝、璧玉諸珍寶聚，衣服、瓔珞及諸飲食無量無邊種種充滿。復見無量百千萬億上妙寶車、百千萬億諸天妓樂、百千萬億天諸妙香、百千萬億病緣湯藥資生之具，如是一切悉皆珍好。無量乳牛，蹄角金色；無量千億端正女人，上妙栴檀以塗其體，天衣、瓔珞種種莊嚴，六十四能靡不該練，世情禮則悉皆善解，隨眾生心而以給施。
Before the king's own throne there were heaps of every kind of jewel — gold, silver, lapis lazuli, maṇi, pearl, coral, amber, mother-of-pearl, and jasper — and clothing, necklaces, and every kind of food and drink filled the space without measure or bound. He further saw measureless hundreds of thousands of millions of superb jeweled carriages, hundreds of thousands of millions of heavenly musical instruments, hundreds of thousands of millions of heavenly wondrous incenses, and hundreds of thousands of millions of medicines and provisions for the sick — all of it precious and fine alike. There were measureless milk-cows with golden hooves and horns; and measureless thousands of koṭis of beautiful women, their bodies anointed with the finest sandalwood, adorned with heavenly garments and necklaces of every kind, thoroughly accomplished in all sixty-four arts, well versed in every worldly custom and courtesy, giving to beings according to what each one's own heart desired.
Twenty Billion Bodhisattvas at Every Crossroads
The city's own generosity is not confined to the palace — every crossroads holds its own supply of provisions, tended by twenty billion bodhisattvas whose giving serves twelve distinct and explicitly named purposes.
城邑、聚落、四衢道側，悉置一切資生之具。一一道傍皆有二十億菩薩，以此諸物給施眾生，為欲普攝眾生故，為令眾生歡喜故，為令眾生踊躍故，為令眾生心淨故，為令眾生清涼故，為滅眾生煩惱故，為令眾生知一切義理故，為令眾生入一切智道故，為令眾生捨怨敵心故，為令眾生離身、語惡故，為令眾生拔諸邪見故，為令眾生淨諸業道故。
Throughout the cities, towns, and villages, and at the sides of every crossroads, every kind of necessity of life was set out in full. Alongside every single road there were twenty billion bodhisattvas, distributing these things to beings — in order to universally embrace beings, in order to cause beings to feel joy, in order to cause beings to leap with delight, in order to cause beings' own minds to become pure, in order to cause beings to feel cool and refreshed, in order to extinguish beings' own afflictions, in order to cause beings to know every principle of meaning, in order to cause beings to enter the path of all-knowing wisdom, in order to cause beings to abandon a mind of hatred toward enemies, in order to cause beings to leave behind evil of body and speech, in order to uproot beings' own wrong views, and in order to purify beings' own courses of karma.
二十億菩薩 — twenty billion bodhisattvas. Every prior city in this pilgrimage has held its wonders at the center, around a throne or a tower. Wondrous Light city distributes its bodhisattvas outward instead, to every single crossroads, so that generosity itself becomes as ordinary and as omnipresent as the streets themselves.
Part 1022 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle sixty-six. Part 1023 brings Good-Wealth face to face with King Great Light at last, as he bows before him and asks the question that has carried him this far.