The First Insult
The sūtra descends through rivers, cities and villages to a single country, gives it a king born inside a lotus and a family of impossible beauty — and then someone says six words to someone else, and everything begins to get shorter.
Down Through the Scales
Having reached one set of four continents out of a hundred thousand koṭis of nayutas, the account keeps descending, and each level is furnished before the next one opens.
「此四天下有百萬億那由他諸王國土，一一國土有千大河周匝圍遶，一一皆以妙華覆上，隨流漂動，出天樂音，一切寶樹列植其岸，種種珍奇以為嚴飾，舟船來往稱情戲樂。一一河間有百萬億城，一一城有百萬億那由他聚落；如是一切城邑、聚落，各有無量百千億那由他宮殿園林周匝圍遶。
"In this set of four continents there were a million koṭis of nayutas of royal realms, and each single realm had a thousand great rivers encircling it all around. Every one of them was covered over with wondrous flowers that drifted along with the current and gave out the music of the gods; jewel-trees of every kind were planted in ranks along their banks; every sort of rare and precious thing served as their ornament; and boats came and went upon them, to the delight and pleasure of all. Between each single river there were a million koṭis of cities, and each single city had a million koṭis of nayutas of villages; and all these cities and towns and villages had measureless hundreds of thousands of koṭis of nayutas of palaces and pleasure-groves encircling them all around.
The phrase 一一, each single, occurs four times in this one passage, and it is the hinge the whole descent turns on: 一一國土, 一一皆以, 一一河間, 一一城. Six levels are nested inside each other before the sentence stops — four continents, royal realms, rivers, cities, villages, and the palaces and groves around them. This sūtra usually uses such nesting to make a reader feel the size of things. Here it is doing the opposite. Every step is downward, and the point of the descent is that in a moment it will stop at one country, in which one thing will happen.
A King Born Inside a Lotus
The descent lands on Jambudvīpa, and on a country whose people are already doing everything right. Then the king arrives, and he does not arrive by being born to anyone.
「此四天下閻浮提內，有一國土，名：寶華燈，安隱豐樂，人民熾盛；其中眾生，具行十善。有轉輪王於中出現，名：毘盧遮那妙寶蓮華髻，於蓮華中忽然化生，三十二相以為嚴好，七寶具足，王四天下，恒以正法教導群生。
"Within Jambudvīpa in this set of four continents there was a country named Jewelled Flower Lamp, peaceful and secure, rich and happy, its people flourishing; and the beings in it practised the ten wholesome deeds in full. A wheel-turning king appeared in it, named Vairocana Wondrous Jewel Lotus Topknot, born by transformation all at once within a lotus flower, adorned and made excellent by the thirty-two marks, complete in the seven treasures. He ruled the four continents and constantly guided the host of living beings by the true dharma.
其中眾生，具行十善。有轉輪王於中出現 — the beings in it practised the ten wholesome deeds in full; a wheel-turning king appeared in it. The order is worth pausing on. In the classical account a wheel-turning king is what a virtuous population gets, not what makes one; his appearance is a symptom of collective merit rather than its cause. The sūtra puts the people's virtue in the sentence before the king, and then shows him teaching them the dharma they were already keeping.
毘盧遮那妙寶蓮華髻 — Vairocana Wondrous Jewel Lotus Topknot. The king carries the buddha's name. Part 1104 has just told us that this whole world, 毘盧遮那大威德, is named for Vairocana too, and the verse in Part 1103 that Vairocana adorned and purified the pure lands inside every mote of dust. The name is being distributed across the story at every scale — a world, a king, and eventually, the reader is being prepared to understand, a buddha.
A Thousand Sons, and a Queen With a Name
The court is described, and the description keeps insisting on sameness — the same roots of goodness, the same practices, the same moment of birth.
王有千子，端正勇健，能伏怨敵；百萬億那由他宮人、采女，皆悉與王同種善根、同修諸行、同時誕生，端正姝妙猶如天女，身真金色常放光明，諸毛孔中恒出妙香；良臣、猛將，具足十億。
The king had a thousand sons, upright and brave and strong, able to subdue any enemy; and a million koṭis of nayutas of court women and palace-maidens, all of whom had planted the same roots of goodness as the king, cultivated the same practices, and been born at the same time. They were upright and lovely as the daughters of the gods; their bodies were of true gold and constantly gave off light; and from every pore of them a wondrous fragrance came forth without ceasing. Of worthy ministers and fierce generals he had a full ten koṭis.
王有正妃，名：圓滿面，是王女寶，端正殊特，皮膚金色，目髮紺青，言同梵音，身有天香，常放光明照千由旬。其有一女，名：普智焰妙德眼，形體端嚴，色相殊美，眾生見者情無厭足。
The king had a chief consort named Perfect and Complete Countenance, who was the king's jewel-woman. She was upright and extraordinary; her skin was the colour of gold, her eyes and hair a deep indigo-blue; her speech was like the voice of Brahmā, her body carried a heavenly fragrance, and she constantly gave off a light that shone a thousand yojanas. And they had a daughter named Eye of Wondrous Virtue and the Flame of Universal Wisdom, upright and dignified in form, of surpassingly beautiful appearance, at whom beings could look and never have their fill.
皆悉與王同種善根、同修諸行、同時誕生 — all of whom had planted the same roots of goodness as the king, cultivated the same practices, and been born at the same time. Three clauses, each opening 同, same. The court is not a collection of people who happen to serve a king; it is a company that made itself together in the past and arrived together in the present. This is how this sūtra prefers to explain proximity. People are near each other now because of what they did together then, and the arrangement of a palace is the visible shape of an old agreement.
是王女寶 — she was the king's jewel-woman. The previous sentence has already said the king was 七寶具足, complete in the seven treasures, and the jewel-woman is one of those seven. So the text gives one item of the royal regalia a personal name, 圓滿面, Perfect and Complete Countenance, and then a face, skin, hair, voice, and scent. It is also a note worth keeping for what comes: in Part 1099 the night-spirit Joyful Eye said 我於爾時為王寶女, at that time I was that king's jewel-woman, using the same two characters reversed. Two night-spirits in a row have now told a story that runs through a wheel-turning king's household.
普智焰妙德眼 — Eye of Wondrous Virtue and the Flame of Universal Wisdom. The teacher telling this story is named 普救眾生妙德, Wondrous Virtue Who Universally Rescues Beings, and the daughter she has just introduced carries 妙德 in her name too. The sūtra has not said who this girl became, and there is no need to guess; it is enough to notice that the storyteller has put a character of her own name into the child.
The First Insult
Everything so far has been a golden age. Now a single sentence of direct speech enters the account, and it is not a teaching.
爾時，眾生壽命無量，或有不定而中夭者；種種形色、種種音聲、種種名字、種種族姓，愚、智、勇、怯、貧、富、苦、樂，無量品類皆悉不同。時，或有人語餘人言：『我身端正，汝形鄙陋。』作是語已，遞相毀辱，集不善業；以是業故，壽命、色力、一切樂事悉皆損減。
At that time the lifespan of beings was measureless, though some were unfixed and died before their time. In every kind of shape and colour, every kind of voice, every kind of name, and every kind of clan and lineage — foolish and wise, brave and timid, poor and rich, suffering and happy — they were of measureless sorts and all of them unalike. Then a certain person said to another person: 'My body is well-formed; your shape is base and ugly.' Having said this, they reviled and humiliated one another and gathered up unwholesome deeds; and because of those deeds, their lifespans, their beauty and strength, and every pleasant thing were all of them diminished.
我身端正，汝形鄙陋 — my body is well-formed; your shape is base and ugly. Eight characters, and they are the first quoted speech in this account of the past. The whole apparatus that came before — a hundred thousand koṭis of nayutas of continents, a million koṭis of royal realms, a thousand rivers to each, a king with a thousand sons and ten koṭis of generals — turns out to have been built so that one person could say this to one other person. The sūtra's vast numbers exist to be collapsed onto a single remark.
The sentence before it explains why the remark was available. 種種形色、種種音聲、種種名字、種種族姓 — every kind of shape and colour, of voice, of name, of clan — followed by four pairs of opposites, 愚、智、勇、怯、貧、富、苦、樂, foolish and wise, brave and timid, poor and rich, suffering and happy. Difference is listed first, flatly, as a fact about a world where lifespans were still measureless. Nothing has gone wrong yet. What goes wrong is the use somebody makes of a difference that was simply there.
以是業故，壽命、色力、一切樂事悉皆損減 — because of those deeds, their lifespans, their beauty and strength, and every pleasant thing were all of them diminished. The punishment fits the crime with a precision that is almost grim. The man boasted about his 身端正, his well-formed body; what the deed takes away is 色力, beauty and strength. And it takes it from everyone, because the verb has no single subject. Contempt is not an offence against one person here. It is a change in the physics of the world.
Part 1105 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle seventy. Part 1106 turns from the decline to what stood north of that city — an awakening-tree named Banner of the Sound of the Dharma-Cloud of Universal Light, rooted in a maṇi king, and the fragrance-pool before it out of which a great lotus rises.