Every Mask Comes Off
The king praises Jewel Light for something rarer than her offering, dresses her and her sixty companions in garments that shine from within like a clear night sky, and then the night-spirit finally answers the question Part 1146 first raised — not by explaining how she knows Vairocana's past, but by revealing she was there.
A Rare Kind of Recognition
Jewel Light finishes her hymn and withdraws, and the king's praise, when it comes, is not for what she offered him but for something behind it.
「爾時，寶光明童女，以偈讚歎一切法音圓滿蓋王已，遶無量匝，合掌頂禮，曲躬恭敬，却住一面。時，彼大王告童女言：『善哉！童女！汝能信知他人功德，是為希有。童女！一切眾生，不能信知他人功德。童女！一切眾生，不知報恩，無有智慧，其心濁亂，性不明了，本無志力，又退修行；如是之人，不信不知菩薩如來所有功德神通智慧。童女！汝今決定求趣菩提，能知菩薩如是功德。汝今生此閻浮提中，發勇猛心，普攝眾生，功不唐捐，亦當成就如是功德。』
"At that time, having praised King Perfect Canopy of Every Dharma-Sound with this verse, the maiden Jewel Light circled him countless times, joined her palms, bowed her head to the ground, bent low in reverence, and withdrew to stand to one side. At that time the great king said to the maiden: 'Excellent, maiden! That you are able to believe in and recognise another's merit — this is a rare thing. Maiden, every being finds it hard to believe in and recognise another's merit. Maiden, every being, not knowing how to repay kindness, without wisdom, their minds turbid and confused, their nature unclear, originally without resolve or strength, and moreover falling back from their own practice — people such as this neither believe in nor know the merit, spiritual power, and wisdom that bodhisattvas and tathāgatas possess. Maiden, you, now, having resolved to seek bodhi, are able to know a bodhisattva's merit such as this. Now that you have been born within this Jambudvīpa, having given rise to a courageous mind and universally gathering in beings, your effort will not be spent in vain, and you too shall accomplish merit such as this.'
汝能信知他人功德，是為希有 — that you are able to believe in and recognise another's merit, this is a rare thing. The king does not praise Jewel Light's necklaces, her vow, or her devotion directly — he praises her capacity to see merit in someone else at all, and states plainly that most beings cannot do this, being too clouded, too discouraged, or too unwilling to keep practising. Recognition, in this telling, is treated as harder to come by than generosity, and rarer than the resolve to seek bodhi that immediately follows it.
Garments That Shine Like Stars
The king's answer to her recognition is a gift returned, and the gift itself behaves strangely — it does not shine until it has actually been worn.
王讚女已，以無價寶衣，手自授與寶光童女并其眷屬，一一告言：『汝著此衣。』時，諸童女雙膝著地，兩手承捧，置於頂上，然後而著；既著衣已，右遶於王，諸寶衣中普出一切星宿光明。眾人見之，咸作是言：『此諸女等，皆悉端正，如淨夜天星宿莊嚴。』
Having praised the maiden, the king, with his own hand, gave priceless jewelled garments to Jewel Light and to her attendants, saying to each one: 'Put on this garment.' At that time, each of the maidens knelt with both knees to the ground, received it with both hands, raised it above their heads, and only then put it on; having put on the garments, they circled the king to the right, and from within those jewelled garments there shone forth, universally, the light of every constellation. The people, seeing this, all said: 'These maidens are every one of them upright and fine, adorned like the constellations of a clear night sky.'
既著衣已，右遶於王，諸寶衣中普出一切星宿光明 — having put on the garments, they circled the king to the right, and from within those jewelled garments there shone forth, universally, the light of every constellation. The light is not attributed to the fabric being handled, unwrapped, or even simply worn — it appears only after the full sequence has completed: received on both knees, lifted above the head, put on, and the king circled in reverence. Whatever makes these garments shine seems to depend on the manner of receiving them as much as on the garments themselves.
Every Mask Comes Off
In a single sentence, every figure this whole ancient story has named turns out to already be someone the listeners in this very assembly know by another name entirely.
「善男子！爾時一切法音圓滿蓋王者，豈異人乎？今毘盧遮那如來、應、正等覺是也。光明王者，淨飯王是。蓮華光夫人者，摩耶夫人是。寶光童女者，即我身是。其王爾時以四攝法所攝眾生，即此會中一切菩薩是，皆於阿耨多羅三藐三菩提得不退轉，或住初地乃至十地，具種種大願，集種種助道，修種種妙行，備種種莊嚴，得種種神通，住種種解脫，於此會中處於種種妙法宮殿。」
"Good son, at that time, could that King Perfect Canopy of Every Dharma-Sound be anyone else? He is none other than Vairocana, the tathāgata, the worthy one, the perfectly and fully awakened one, of the present day. The King of Light was Śuddhodana himself. The consort Lotus-Flower Light was Māyā herself. The maiden Jewel Light is none other than myself. And the beings that king gathered in at that time by the four means of gathering are none other than every bodhisattva in this very assembly — all of whom have attained non-retrogression in anuttara-samyak-sambodhi, some abiding on the first ground and on up to the tenth, complete with every kind of great vow, having gathered every kind of aid to the path, cultivated every kind of wondrous practice, provided with every kind of adornment, attained every kind of spiritual power, abiding in every kind of liberation, and dwelling, within this very assembly, in every kind of wondrous dharma-palace."
寶光童女者，即我身是 — the maiden Jewel Light is none other than myself. This is the answer to a question this fascicle asked and then set aside: Part 1146 had the night-spirit say 我入此出生廣大喜光明解脫，憶念毘盧遮那如來⋯⋯悉皆明見, entering this liberation, I call to mind Vairocana's past and see it with total clarity — as though her knowledge came from a kind of vision granted by the liberation itself. Fourteen Parts later, the real answer turns out to be plainer: she was not recalling someone else's story through a liberation-gate. She was Jewel Light. She remembers this because she lived it.
Part 1159 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle seventy-two. Part 1160 turns from the story back to the present, as the night-spirit sings a second hymn, this time in her own voice, on the reach of her own eyes, ears, and mind across every world and every kalpa.