Eleven Images of Rescue
The kalpa runs out, the five turbidities rise, and the peaceful kingdom of Part 1150 fills with a starving, ruined people who converge on the capital and press eleven different images of what they need their king to become onto him at once.
The Kalpa Nears Its End
The peace described in Part 1150 lasts exactly one sentence into this Part before the kalpa itself begins to fail, and with it, everything the people had.
「時，彼世界劫欲盡時，有五濁起。一切人眾，壽命短促，資財乏少，形色鄙陋，多苦少樂，不修十善，專作惡業，更相忿諍，互相毀辱，離他眷屬，妒他榮好，任情起見，非法貪求。以是因緣，風雨不時，苗稼不登，園林、草樹一切枯槁，人民匱乏，多諸疫病，馳走四方，靡所依怙，咸來共遶王都大城，無量無邊百千萬億，四面周匝高聲大呼；
"At that time, when that world's kalpa was about to come to an end, the five turbidities arose. All the people had short lifespans, meagre wealth and resources, ugly and coarse forms, much suffering and little joy; they did not cultivate the ten wholesome deeds but devoted themselves entirely to evil karma, quarrelled and raged against one another, reviled and insulted one another, drove away their own kin, envied the glory and success of others, gave rise to views however they pleased, and sought after things against the dharma. Because of these causes and conditions, the wind and rain came at the wrong times, the crops and grain would not ripen, every grove, meadow, grass, and tree withered entirely, the people fell into want, and many kinds of plague arose; they fled in every direction with nowhere to turn or rely upon, and came together, surrounding the great royal capital — measureless, boundless, in the hundreds of thousands of millions — crying out loudly on every side.
不修十善⋯⋯非法貪求 — counted directly against the source, twelve distinct faults are named for "all the people" before the famine itself is even mentioned: short lives, poverty, ugliness, suffering, neglect of the ten wholesome deeds, devotion to evil karma, mutual quarrelling, mutual insult, abandoning kin, envy, unrestrained views, and unlawful greed. Only after this full list does the passage turn to consequence — mistimed weather, failed crops, withered land, plague. The moral description of the people comes first and is twelve items long; the physical catastrophe that follows from it is described in five.
Eleven Images of Rescue
Their bodies described one way, in gestures of grief, the crowd then speaks — and asks the king to be eleven different things to them, one after another, in the same breath.
或舉其手，或合其掌，或以頭扣地，或以手搥胸，或屈膝長號，或踊身大叫；頭髮蓬亂，衣裳弊惡，皮膚皴裂，面目無光，而向王言：『大王！大王！我等今者，貧窮孤露，飢渴寒凍，疾病衰羸，眾苦所逼，命將不久，無依無救，無所控告。我等今者來歸大王，我觀大王仁慈智慧，於大王所生得安樂想、得所愛想、得活命想、得攝受想、得寶藏想、遇津梁想、逢道路想、值船筏想、見寶洲想、獲財利想、昇天宮想。』
Some raised their hands, some pressed their palms together, some struck their heads upon the ground, some beat their chests with their hands, some bent their knees and wailed at length, some leapt up and cried out loudly; their hair dishevelled, their clothing tattered and worn, their skin cracked and chapped, their faces without any lustre, they said to the king: 'Great king! Great king! We, now, are poverty-stricken and utterly exposed, hungry, thirsty, cold, and freezing, sick and wasted away, pressed by every kind of suffering, our lives soon to end, with nothing to rely upon and no one to save us, nowhere to bring our complaint. We now come to take refuge in you, great king; beholding your benevolence and wisdom, great king, toward you we form the thought of peace and happiness, the thought of what is beloved, the thought of life itself, the thought of being received and embraced, the thought of a treasury of jewels, the thought of meeting a ford, the thought of encountering a road, the thought of coming upon a raft, the thought of sighting an island of jewels, the thought of gaining wealth and profit, and the thought of ascending to a heavenly palace.'
得安樂想⋯⋯昇天宮想 — counted directly against the source, eleven separate 想, thoughts or images, close the people's plea, each following the pattern 得／遇／逢／值／見／獲／昇 plus an object plus 想. None of them ask the king to fix the famine directly; every one is a comparison — he is like peace itself, like what is beloved, like a ford, a road, a raft, an island of jewels, a heavenly palace. The list moves from abstract states (peace, love, life) through concrete rescue-objects (a ford, a road, a raft) to a final image of arrival (a heavenly palace), as though the crowd's own desperation were building its own itinerary out of him.
A Million Gates of Compassion
The king's answer to all eleven images at once is not a single response but the opening of an inconceivable number of them, and then a decision to speak in exactly ten parts.
「爾時，大王聞此語已，得百萬阿僧祇大悲門，一心思惟，發十種大悲語。其十者何？所謂：
"At that time, the great king, having heard these words, attained a million asaṃkhyeyas of gates of great compassion; with single-minded reflection, he uttered ten kinds of words of great compassion. What were these ten? Namely:
得百萬阿僧祇大悲門⋯⋯發十種大悲語 — attained a million asaṃkhyeyas of gates of great compassion, yet uttered only ten kinds of words of great compassion. The gap between the two numbers is the whole point of the sentence: an inconceivable attainment — a million asaṃkhyeyas, itself already one of this sūtra's largest named quantities — is compressed, by 一心思惟, single-minded reflection, into exactly ten sayable words. What the king actually says to the crowd in front of him will be Part 1152's subject, and it will be a small, countable thing built out of something too large to count.
Part 1151 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle seventy-two. Part 1152 delivers the ten words of great compassion themselves — each one opening with 哀哉眾生, pity these beings, and naming a different kind of suffering before asking how the king might rescue them from it.