A Dharma-Body Forever Quiescent
Good-Wealth's praise is built on a single contradiction, stated over and over: she is attached to nothing and appears as everything. Then he asks the question, and she answers in verse of her own — beginning, as these accounts always do, with a king.
Attached to Nothing, Appearing as Everything
Ten stanzas, and five of them turn on the same reversal: what she is not attached to, or not moved by, is named first — and then what she nonetheless displays.
爾時，善財童子得此解脫已，心生歡喜，合掌向喜目觀察眾生夜神，以偈讚曰：
At that time, having attained this liberation, Good-Wealth's mind gave rise to delight, and joining his palms toward the night-spirit Joyful Eye Observing Beings, he praised her in verse, saying:
「無量無數劫，學佛甚深法，
隨其所應化，顯現妙色身。
了知諸眾生，沈迷嬰妄想，
種種身皆現，隨應悉調伏。
法身恒寂靜，清淨無二相，
為化眾生故，示現種種形。
於諸蘊界處，未曾有所著，
示行及色身，調伏一切眾。
不著內外法，已度生死海，
而現種種身，住於諸有界。
遠離諸分別，戲論所不動，
為著妄想者，弘宣十力法。
一心住三昧，無量劫不動，
毛孔出化雲，供養十方佛。
得佛方便力，念念無邊際，
示現種種身，普攝諸群生。
了知諸有海，種種業莊嚴，
為說無礙法，令其悉清淨。
色身妙無比，清淨如普賢，
隨諸眾生心，示現世間相。」
Through measureless, countless eons she has studied the buddhas' most profound dharma, and in accord with whatever needs transforming she manifests a wondrous form-body.
Fully knowing all beings, sunk in delusion and beset by false imaginings, she manifests every kind of body and tames them all as is fitting.
The dharma-body is forever quiescent, pure and without a second mark; yet for the sake of transforming beings she reveals every kind of shape.
Toward the aggregates, the elements and the sense-bases she has never had any attachment; yet she displays conduct and a form-body, and tames every multitude.
Unattached to inner and outer dharmas, she has already crossed the ocean of birth and death; and yet she manifests every kind of body, dwelling in the realms of existence.
Far removed from all discrimination, unmoved by frivolous discourse, for those attached to false imaginings she proclaims abroad the dharma of the ten powers.
Single-mindedly she abides in samādhi, unmoving for measureless eons; from her pores issue clouds of transformations, making offerings to the buddhas of the ten directions.
She has attained a buddha's power of skillful means, boundless in thought after thought; she manifests every kind of body and gathers in the throngs of beings universally.
Fully knowing the oceans of existence and the adornments of every kind of karma, she teaches the unobstructed dharma for them and makes them all pure.
Her form-body is wondrous beyond compare, as pure as Samantabhadra's own; and in accord with the minds of beings she reveals the marks of the world.
法身恒寂靜，清淨無二相，為化眾生故，示現種種形 — the dharma-body is forever quiescent, pure and without a second mark; yet for the sake of transforming beings she reveals every kind of shape. The third stanza states the doctrine that the whole verse keeps restating: stillness is not the opposite of appearing. 無二相, without a second mark, and 種種形, every kind of shape, are placed four characters apart and joined by 為…故, for the sake of.
遠離諸分別，戲論所不動，為著妄想者，弘宣十力法 — far removed from all discrimination, unmoved by frivolous discourse; for those attached to false imaginings she proclaims abroad the dharma of the ten powers. The sixth stanza applies the same structure to speech. She is beyond argument, and she argues — on behalf of people who are still inside it.
清淨如普賢 — as pure as Samantabhadra's own. The verse's last stanza reaches for the highest comparison available in this sūtra, and the first stanza of Good-Wealth's previous verse, to Vāsantī in Part 1082, reached for the other one: 如文殊師利, like Mañjuśrī. Between the two farewell verses he has compared his night-spirit teachers to both of the bodhisattvas who frame the whole chapter.
How Long Ago?
The question he asked Vāsantī, asked again — and this time the reply comes in verse rather than prose, which is rarer.
爾時，善財童子說此頌已，白言：「天神！汝發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心，為幾時耶？得此解脫，其已久如？」
When Good-Wealth had spoken this verse, he said: "Heavenly spirit! How long has it been since you gave rise to the mind of anuttara-samyak-sambodhi? And how long ago did you attain this liberation?"
爾時，喜目觀察眾生主夜神以頌答曰：
At that time, the night-spirit Joyful Eye Observing Beings answered in verse, saying:
白言：「天神！…」 — he said: "Heavenly spirit!" He addresses her as 天神, a divine spirit, rather than with the 聖者, noble one, he has used for every teacher in this pilgrimage. It is the only place in these fascicles where he changes the form of address, and it comes directly after a verse in which he compared her to Samantabhadra.
A King Born From a Lotus
Her answer begins with cosmic bookkeeping and narrows quickly to one capital and one man — and the man arrives in the world by an unusual route.
「我念過去世，過於剎塵劫，
剎號摩尼光，劫名寂靜音。
百萬那由他，俱胝四天下，
其王數亦爾，各各自臨馭。
中有一王都，號曰香幢寶，
莊嚴最殊妙，見者皆欣悅。
中有轉輪王，其身甚微妙，
三十二種相，隨好以莊嚴；
蓮華中化生，金色光明身，
騰空照遠近，普及閻浮界。
其王有千子，勇猛身端正；
臣佐滿一億，智慧善方便；
嬪御有十億，顏容狀天女，
利益調柔意，慈心給侍王。
其王以法化，普及四天下，
輪圍大地中，一切皆豐盛。
I recall a past age, beyond eons as many as the dust-motes of a buddha-land: the land was named Maṇi Light, and the eon was named Tranquil Sound.
A million nayutas and koṭis of four-continent worlds were there, and the kings of them were that many too, each governing his own.
Among them was one royal capital called Fragrance-Banner Jewel, most surpassing and wondrous in its adornment; whoever saw it rejoiced.
In it there was a cakravartin king, his body most subtle and fine, adorned with the thirty-two marks and with the minor marks; born by transformation within a lotus, his body of golden light, he rose into the sky and shone far and near, reaching universally throughout the Jambu world.
That king had a thousand sons, valiant and upright of body; his ministers numbered a full million, wise and skilled in means; his consorts numbered ten million, their faces like those of goddesses, of benefit and gentle in mind, serving the king with loving hearts.
That king transformed his people by means of the dharma, reaching universally across the four continents; and within the great earth ringed by the Cakravāḍa mountains, everything was abundant.
蓮華中化生，金色光明身 — born by transformation within a lotus, his body of golden light. 化生 is birth by spontaneous transformation, the fourth of the four modes of birth, and it is normally said of gods and of hell-beings — not of a human monarch. This king is given a buddha's thirty-two marks and minor marks as well. The verse is building a figure so exalted that the reader expects him to matter; what actually matters, three stanzas from now, is one of the women in his palace.
臣佐滿一億 … 嬪御有十億 — his ministers numbered a full million, his consorts numbered ten million. This translation renders 億 as a million throughout, following the sūtra's own scale elsewhere. The retinue is enumerated in the same breath as the thousand sons and then dropped; the account is laying out a world in order to locate one person in it.
Part 1094 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle sixty-nine. Part 1095 reaches her own place in that world — she was a jewel-maiden in that king's household, with a voice like Brahmā's and a golden light reaching a thousand yojanas — and what she did on the night everyone else in the palace was asleep.