Nine Heavens That Cannot Compare
Beings beyond counting converge on the king from every land and every custom, and the joy that rises in him for a single moment is measured against nine named heavens, ascending from Trāyastriṃśa to the summit of the form realm — and found to outlast every one of them.
Ten Minds, and a Crowd Beyond Counting
Every kind of land, race, dress, and desire converges on the assembly at once, and the king's own answer to seeing them is not one feeling but ten, arising together.
「爾時，閻浮提無量無數百千萬億那由他眾生——種種國土、種種族類、種種形貌、種種衣服、種種言辭、種種欲樂，俱來此會，觀察彼王，咸言：『此王是大智人、是福須彌、是功德月，住菩薩願，行廣大施。』時，王見彼諸來乞者，生悲愍心，生歡喜心，生尊重心，生善友心，生廣大心，生相續心，生精進心，生不退心，生捨施心，生周遍心。
"At that time, measureless, countless hundreds of thousands of millions of nayutas of beings throughout Jambudvīpa — of every kind of land, every kind of race, every kind of appearance, every kind of dress, every kind of speech, and every kind of desire and pleasure — all came together to this assembly, and beholding that king, all said: 'This king is a person of great wisdom; he is Sumeru of merit; he is the moon of merit; he abides in the bodhisattva's own vow, and practises vast and great giving.' At that time, the king, seeing all those who had come to ask of him, gave rise to a mind of pity, a mind of joy, a mind of reverence, a mind of good friendship, a mind of vastness, a mind of continuity, a mind of vigour, a mind that never retreats, a mind of giving, and a mind that reaches everywhere.
生悲愍心⋯⋯生周遍心 — counted directly against the source, exactly ten minds rise in the king at the sight of the crowd, mirroring the ten words of compassion he spoke in Part 1152 and the twenty-one vow-minds Vairocana himself raised in Part 1146. Each time this fascicle reaches for a response to suffering, it reaches for a list rather than a single feeling — as though no one mind were ever considered adequate to the occasion on its own.
Nine Heavens That Cannot Compare
To measure the size of a single moment of the king's joy, the passage climbs the entire architecture of Buddhist heaven, one level at a time, only to find every level falls short.
「善男子！爾時，彼王見諸乞者，心大歡喜經須臾頃；假使忉利天王、夜摩天王、兜率陀天王，盡百千億那由他劫所受快樂，亦不能及。善化天王於無數劫所受快樂，自在天王於無量劫所受快樂，大梵天王於無邊劫所受梵樂，光音天王於難思劫所受天樂，遍淨天王於無盡劫所受天樂，淨居天王不可說劫住寂靜樂，悉不能及。
"Good son, at that time, the joy that arose in the king's mind for the space of a single moment, upon seeing those who had come to ask of him, was such that even if the king of Trāyastriṃśa, the king of the Yāma Heaven, and the king of the Tuṣita Heaven were to exhaust the pleasure they experience over hundreds of thousands of koṭis of nayutas of kalpas, they still could not match it. The pleasure the king of the Nirmāṇarati Heaven experiences over countless kalpas, the pleasure the king of the Paranirmita-vaśavartin Heaven experiences over measureless kalpas, the brahma-pleasure the Great Brahmā King experiences over boundless kalpas, the heavenly pleasure the king of the Ābhāsvara Heaven experiences over inconceivable kalpas, the heavenly pleasure the king of the Śubhakṛtsna Heaven experiences over inexhaustible kalpas, and the tranquil pleasure the king of the Śuddhāvāsa Heaven abides in for unspeakable kalpas — none of these, either, could match it.
忉利天王⋯⋯淨居天王 — nine heaven-kings are named in a row, climbing in the sūtra's own standard order from Trāyastriṃśa at the base of the desire realm to the Śuddhāvāsa Heaven at the very summit of form. The same climb, nearly heaven for heaven, appears already in this translation at Part 325, in the Ten Dedications chapter — there measuring a bodhisattva's joy at meeting beggars, here measuring a king's joy at meeting a starving multitude. Across more than eight hundred parts and a different chapter entirely, the sūtra reaches for the identical formula to make the identical kind of claim.
Like Finding Lost Family in the Wilderness
Having measured the king's joy against nine entire heavens, the passage measures it again — this time against something any listener could recognise without any cosmology at all.
「善男子！譬如有人仁慈孝友，遭逢世難，父母、妻息、兄弟、姊妹竝皆散失，忽於曠野道路之間而相值遇，瞻奉撫對，情無厭足。時，彼大王見來求者，心生歡喜，亦復如是。「善男子！其王爾時，因善知識，於佛菩提，解欲增長，諸根成就，信心清淨，歡喜圓滿。
"Good son, it is like a person of benevolence, kindness, filial devotion, and brotherly love who, encountering some worldly calamity, becomes separated from parents, spouse and children, brothers and sisters, all scattered and lost — and then, suddenly, in the midst of some wild and desolate road, comes upon them again, and gazes upon them, embraces them, and attends upon them, with feeling that knows no satiety. The joy that arose in the great king's mind upon seeing those who came to ask of him was just like this. Good son, the king, at that time, through the power of a good spiritual friend, had his understanding and aspiration toward the buddha's bodhi increase, his faculties come to accomplishment, his faith become pure, and his joy become complete.
忽於曠野道路之間而相值遇 — suddenly, in the midst of some wild and desolate road, comes upon them again. After nine heavens measured in kalpas beyond naming, the passage turns to a scale any person could have lived through — a family scattered by disaster, found again by chance on an empty road. The two comparisons are not offered as alternatives to each other; they sit side by side, one cosmic and one entirely domestic, as though neither alone were sufficient to convey what the king felt.
Twenty-Three Reasons Why
Asked why this king's joy runs this deep, the passage answers with the longest list yet — not about what he does, but about what kind of bodhisattva he already is.
何以故？此菩薩勤修諸行，求一切智，願得利益一切眾生，願獲菩提無量妙樂，捨離一切諸不善心，常樂積集一切善根，常願救護一切眾生，常樂觀察薩婆若道，常樂修行一切智法，滿足一切眾生所願，入一切佛功德大海，破一切魔業惑障山，隨順一切如來教行，行一切智無障礙道，已能深入一切智流，一切法流常現在前，大願無盡，為大丈夫，住大人法，積集一切普門善藏，離一切著，不染一切世間境界，知諸法性猶如虛空。
Why is this so? Because this bodhisattva diligently cultivates every practice, seeks all-knowing wisdom, vows to bring benefit to every being, vows to attain the measureless wondrous joy of bodhi, casts aside every unwholesome mind, constantly delights in amassing every wholesome root, constantly vows to rescue and protect every being, constantly delights in contemplating the path of all-knowing wisdom, constantly delights in cultivating the dharma of all-knowing wisdom, satisfies the wishes of every being, enters the great ocean of every buddha's merit, breaks the mountain of every hindrance from Māra's own karma, accords with the conduct taught by every tathāgata, practises the unobstructed path of all-knowing wisdom, has already entered deeply into the stream of all-knowing wisdom, and has the stream of every dharma constantly present before him; his great vow is inexhaustible, he is a great hero, he abides in the dharma of a great being, he amasses the treasury of every universal gate of goodness, he is free of every attachment, he is untainted by any domain of the world, and he knows that the nature of every dharma is like empty space.
知諸法性猶如虛空 — he knows that the nature of every dharma is like empty space. Counted directly, this closing list holds twenty-three clauses, and its very last one repeats, almost word for word, a line from Part 1149's own hymn — 了達法性如虛空, fully realising that the nature of dharmas is like empty space — spoken there of the night-spirit's own domain, twenty fascicle-parts before this king ever appeared in her story. The praise she sang in verse for herself, before her story began, turns out to double as the closing description of the very king that story was about to introduce.
Part 1155 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle seventy-two. Part 1156 turns from the crowd as a whole to one figure within it — an elder's daughter named Jewel Light, who arrives at the assembly with sixty companions of her own.