A King With No Enemies
After twenty-one stanzas of hymn, the story the whole hymn was warning could hardly be told finally begins — an ancient buddha, a world-ocean he once purified, and a cascade of scale that narrows, world by world, all the way down to one city and one untroubled king.
A World-Ocean Purified Long Ago
The story opens the way many of this pilgrimage's deepest stories open — not with a person, but with an unimaginable span of time and an unimaginable number of worlds.
「善男子！乃往古世，過世界海微塵數劫，有世界海，名：普光明真金摩尼山；其世界海中，有佛出現，名：普照法界智慧山寂靜威德王。善男子！其佛往修菩薩行時，淨彼世界海。其世界海中，有世界微塵數世界種；一一世界種，有世界微塵數世界；一一世界，皆有如來出興於世；一一如來，說世界海微塵數修多羅；一一修多羅，授佛剎微塵數諸菩薩記，現種種神力，說種種法門，度無量眾生。
"Good son, in an age long past, beyond kalpas as many as the fine motes of dust in a world-ocean, there was a world-ocean named Universal Light of True Gold and Maṇi Mountain; and within that world-ocean there appeared a buddha named King of Tranquil and Majestic Virtue, the Mountain of Wisdom that Universally Illumines the Dharma-Realm. Good son, when that buddha, in ages past, cultivated the bodhisattva practices, he purified that world-ocean. Within that world-ocean there were world-seeds as many as the fine motes of dust in a world; within each and every world-seed, there were worlds as many as the fine motes of dust in a world; within each and every world, a tathāgata appeared in the world; each and every tathāgata expounded sūtras as many as the fine motes of dust in a world-ocean; and each and every sūtra bestowed predictions upon bodhisattvas as many as the fine motes of dust in a buddha-land — manifesting every kind of spiritual power, expounding every kind of dharma-gate, and delivering measureless beings.
世界海微塵數劫⋯⋯世界微塵數世界種⋯⋯世界微塵數世界⋯⋯世界海微塵數修多羅⋯⋯佛剎微塵數諸菩薩記 — checked directly against the source, this cascade measures five different quantities against four different units of dust: a world-ocean's dust for the kalpas, a world's dust for the world-seeds, a world's dust again for the worlds within each seed, a world-ocean's dust for the sūtras, and a buddha-land's dust for the predictions. The unit does not simply grow or shrink as the scale descends from ocean to world-seed to world to sūtra to prediction — it moves world-ocean, world, world, world-ocean, buddha-land, without settling into a single consistent proportion between the size of a thing and the size of dust used to count it.
One World, One City, One King
Out of that entire cascade, the story now picks exactly one thread and follows it down to a single city, a single royal household, and a king at the height of an untroubled reign.
「善男子！彼普光明真金摩尼山世界海中，有世界種，名：普莊嚴幢。此世界種中，有世界，名：一切寶色普光明，以現一切化佛影摩尼王為體，形如天城；以現一切如來道場影像摩尼王為其下際，住一切寶華海上，淨穢相雜。此世界中，有須彌山微塵數四天下，有一四天下最處其中，名：一切寶山幢。其四天下，一一縱廣十萬由旬，一一各有一萬大城。其閻浮提中，有一王都，名：堅固妙寶莊嚴雲燈，一萬大城周匝圍遶。閻浮提人壽萬歲時，其中有王，名：一切法音圓滿蓋，有五百大臣、六萬采女、七百王子；其諸王子皆端正勇健，有大威力。爾時，彼王威德普被閻浮提內，無有怨敵。
"Good son, within that world-ocean of Universal Light of True Gold and Maṇi Mountain, there was a world-seed named Universally Adorned Banner. Within that world-seed there was a world named Universal Light of Every Jewelled Colour, whose essence was the maṇi king that manifests the reflections of every emanation-buddha, shaped like a heavenly city; its lower boundary was the maṇi king that manifests the reflected images of every tathāgata's awakening-site, and it rested upon an ocean of every kind of jewelled flower, the pure and the foul mixed together. Within that world there were four continents as many as the fine motes of dust of Mount Sumeru, and one of those sets of four continents, situated at the very centre, was named Banner of Every Jewelled Mountain. Each of its four continents measured a hundred thousand yojanas across, and each one had ten thousand great cities. Within its Jambudvīpa there was a royal capital named Firm and Wondrous Jewel-Adorned Cloud-Lamp, encircled all around by ten thousand great cities. In the age when the people of Jambudvīpa lived for ten thousand years, there was, among them, a king named Perfect Canopy of Every Dharma-Sound, who had five hundred great ministers, sixty thousand court ladies, and seven hundred princes; every one of his princes was upright and courageous, possessed of great might. At that time, that king's majestic virtue extended universally throughout Jambudvīpa, and he had no enemies.
無有怨敵 — he had no enemies. Five hundred ministers, sixty thousand court ladies, seven hundred princes, ten thousand great cities ringing the capital, and a king whose majestic virtue reaches every corner of Jambudvīpa without a single rival: the description accumulates every marker of a reign at its peak, and then simply stops. Nothing in this sentence says the peace will end. The very next words of the story — held back for Part 1151 — begin with the kalpa itself running out.
Part 1150 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle seventy-two. Part 1151 turns from this untroubled reign to its ending — the five turbidities rising as the kalpa nears its close, and a starving, desperate people converging on the very capital just described.