Nine Trees in the Garden of Sunlight
Unsurpassed Victory's own confession ends on bodhisattvas whose bodies are not two and not different from a tathāgata's — before he names a twenty-fifth teacher, the bhikṣuṇī Lion's Roar, in a city named for a grove. Good-Wealth finds her by first finding her garden, and the sūtra names nine of its trees one at a time.
Not Two, Not Different
Unsurpassed Victory sets down what he himself knows and then measures it against bodhisattvas whose wisdom-body is as boundless as empty space — and whose ordinary body, he says, differs from a buddha's in no respect at all.
「善男子！我唯知此至一切處修菩薩行清淨法門無依無作神通之力。如諸菩薩摩訶薩，具足一切自在神通，悉能遍往一切佛剎，得普眼地；悉聞一切音聲言說，普入諸法智慧自在，無有乖諍，勇健無比，以廣長舌出平等音；其身妙好，同諸菩薩，與諸如來究竟無二、無有差別；智身廣大，普入三世，境界無際，同於虛空。而我云何能知能說彼功德行？
"Good son, I know only this pure dharma-gate of cultivating the bodhisattva practices while reaching every place, through a spiritual power that relies on nothing and acts from nothing. But the bodhisattva-mahāsattvas are complete in every sovereign spiritual power; they are able to travel everywhere throughout every buddha-land, and they have attained the stage of the universal eye. They hear every sound and every utterance, and they enter universally into the sovereign wisdom of all dharmas, without any discord, unrivalled in courage and strength, sending forth an equal voice with a broad and long tongue. Their bodies are wondrous and fine, the same as those of all bodhisattvas, and ultimately not two and not different at all from those of the tathāgatas. Their wisdom-body is vast, entering universally into the three times, and its own domain is boundless, the same as empty space. How, then, could I know or speak of their meritorious practice?
The Twenty-Fifth Teacher
The direction is south again, and this time the destination is a city that takes its name from a grove. The teacher named is a bhikṣuṇī — the first Good-Wealth is sent to in the whole pilgrimage.
「善男子！於此南方，有一國土，名曰：輸那；其國有城，名：迦陵迦林；有比丘尼，名：師子頻申。汝詣彼問：菩薩云何學菩薩行、修菩薩道？」時，善財童子頂禮其足，遶無量匝，慇懃瞻仰，辭退而去。
"Good son, to the south of here there is a country named Suna; in that country there is a city named Kaliṅga Grove; and in it there is a bhikṣuṇī named Lion's Roar. You should go to her and ask: how does a bodhisattva learn the bodhisattva practices, and cultivate the bodhisattva path?" At that time, Good-Wealth bowed his head at his feet, circled him measureless times, gazed up at him with earnest devotion, took his leave, and departed.
師子頻申 — 頻申 names the long stretch a lion makes as it rouses itself from rest, the gathering of power just before it moves; the name is a single image of latent strength coming awake. We render it as Lion's Roar throughout, keeping the animal and its force, though the Chinese itself points to the moment just before the sound rather than the sound.
比丘尼 — a bhikṣuṇī, a fully ordained nun. Of the twenty-four teachers Good-Wealth has already met, several have been women — three laywomen, a maiden, and a girl still living with her parents — but this is the first who holds full monastic ordination, and the first whose seat is a formal place of teaching endowed by a king.
A Garden Given Away by a King
Good-Wealth does not find the bhikṣuṇī by asking for her; he finds her because an entire city already knows where she teaches. The answer he is given names not a house or a monastery but a park — one a king gave away.
爾時，善財童子漸次遊行，至彼國城，周遍推求此比丘尼。有無量人咸告之言：「善男子！此比丘尼在勝光王之所捨施日光園中說法利益無量眾生。」
At that time, Good-Wealth journeyed onward by stages until he reached that country's city, and searched all through it for this bhikṣuṇī. Measureless people all told him: "Good son, this bhikṣuṇī is in the Garden of Sunlight, which King Victorious Light gave away in charity; she teaches the dharma there and benefits measureless beings."
時，善財童子即詣彼園，周遍觀察。見其園中有一大樹，名為：滿月，形如樓閣，放大光明照一由旬；見一葉樹，名為：普覆，其形如蓋，放毘瑠璃紺青光明；見一華樹，名曰：華藏，其形高大，如雪山王，雨眾妙華無有窮盡，如忉利天中波利質多羅樹。復見有一甘露果樹，形如金山，常放光明，種種眾果悉皆具足；復見有一摩尼寶樹，名：毘盧遮那藏，其形無比，心王摩尼寶最在其上，阿僧祇色相摩尼寶周遍莊嚴。復有衣樹，名為：清淨，種種色衣垂布嚴飾；復有音樂樹，名為：歡喜，其音美妙，過諸天樂；復有香樹，名：普莊嚴，恒出妙香，普熏十方，無所障礙。
At that time, Good-Wealth went straight to that garden and observed it all around. He saw that in the garden there was a great tree named Full Moon, its shape like a tower, releasing a great radiance that lit up a single yojana; he saw a leaf-tree named Covering All, its shape like a canopy, releasing a dark indigo radiance of beryl; he saw a flower-tree named Flower Treasury, tall and vast in form like the Snow Mountain King, raining down a multitude of wondrous flowers that never ran out, like the Pārijātaka tree in the Trāyastriṃśa heaven. He further saw an ambrosia-fruit tree, its shape like a golden mountain, constantly releasing radiance and complete in every kind of fruit; and he further saw a maṇi-jewel tree named Vairocana Treasury, its form beyond compare, with the mind-king maṇi-jewel highest upon it and maṇi-jewels of asaṃkhyeya colors and forms adorning it all around. There was also a garment-tree named Purity, hung and draped with garments of every color as its adornment; there was also a music-tree named Delight, its sounds beautiful and wondrous, surpassing every heavenly music; and there was also an incense-tree named Universal Adornment, constantly sending forth a wondrous fragrance that perfumed the ten directions universally, with nothing at all to obstruct it.
Nine trees, and the sūtra gives each one a single gift: light, shade, flowers, fruit, jewels, garments, music, fragrance — and, in the great tree that opens the list, a shape like a tower, as though architecture itself had grown. Nothing in the garden is decorative. Each tree supplies one thing a visitor might need, so that a body arriving there is clothed, fed, sheltered, and delighted before a word of dharma has been spoken.
勝光王之所捨施 — which King Victorious Light gave away in charity. The garden is not the bhikṣuṇī's property. It reaches her as an act of royal renunciation, and the whole of what follows happens on ground a king let go of.
Part 1054 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle sixty-seven. Part 1055 goes on through the Garden of Sunlight — its jewelled pools and eightfold waters, the lion seats set beneath every tree, and a ground spread with cloth so soft that a foot sinks into it and it springs back when the foot is lifted.