Ninety-Seven Bodies, Closing on Samantabhadra
The body-catalogue that began in Part 1165 runs through its final forty-nine items — a field of merit, a smile that gives rise to faith, a body born into the tathāgata's own family — before a run of seven offering-clouds gives way to a single closing body: the very image of Samantabhadra Bodhisattva.
Twenty-Four More — a Field of Merit, a Smile That Gives Rise to Faith
The catalogue continues past light and adornment into bodies defined by what they do for beings directly — extinguishing affliction, never wearying the eye, breaking into a smile.
照現無垢法色身、無比色身、差別莊嚴色身、普照十方色身、隨時示現應眾生色身、寂靜色身、滅一切煩惱色身、一切眾生福田色身、一切眾生見不虛色身、大智慧勇猛力色身、無障礙普周遍色身、妙身雲普現世間皆蒙益色身、具足大慈海色身、大福德寶山王色身、放光明普照世間一切趣色身、大智慧清淨色身、生眾生正念心色身、一切寶光明色身、普光藏色身、現世間種種清淨相色身、求一切智處色身、現微笑令眾生生淨信色身、一切寶莊嚴光明色身、不取不捨一切眾生色身、
A body illuminating and manifesting the stainless dharma; a body beyond compare; a body of distinct and varied adornment; a body universally illuminating the ten directions; a body manifesting at the right moment, responding to beings; a tranquil body; a body extinguishing every affliction; a body that is a field of merit for every being; a body that is never seen in vain by any being; a body of the courageous power of great wisdom; a body universally pervading without obstruction; a body of wondrous clouds, universally appearing in the world so that all receive benefit; a body complete in the ocean of great loving-kindness; a body of the king of jewelled mountains of great merit; a body emitting light that universally illuminates every destiny in the world; a body of the purity of great wisdom; a body giving rise to right mindfulness in the minds of beings; a body of the light of every jewel; a body of the treasury of universal light; a body manifesting every kind of pure mark in the world; a body seeking the ground of all-knowing wisdom; a body manifesting a smile that causes beings to give rise to pure faith; a body of light adorned with every jewel; a body neither grasping nor abandoning any being;
現微笑令眾生生淨信色身 — a body manifesting a smile that causes beings to give rise to pure faith. Amid seventy-plus items built from light, oceans, treasuries, and jewelled mountains, this is the smallest gesture named in the entire catalogue — not a cosmic display but a single human expression, doing exactly what the vast displays around it are also said to do: bringing beings to faith.
The Final Twenty-Five — Seven Clouds, Then Samantabhadra
The list runs to its end, and in its last stretch turns unexpectedly toward offering itself — cloud after cloud of incense, flowers, and garlands — before naming, as its very last body, another bodhisattva entirely.
無決定無究竟色身、現自在加持力色身、現一切神通變化色身、生如來家色身、遠離眾惡遍法界海色身、普現一切如來道場眾會色身、具種種眾色海色身、從善行所流色身、隨所應化示現色身、一切世間見無厭足色身、種種淨光明色身、現一切三世海色身、放一切光明海色身、現無量差別光明海色身、超諸世間一切香光明色身、現不可說日輪雲色身、現廣大月輪雲色身、放無量須彌山妙華雲色身、出種種鬘雲色身、現一切寶蓮華雲色身、興一切燒香雲遍法界色身、散一切末香藏雲色身、現一切如來大願身色身、現一切語言音聲演法海色身、現普賢菩薩像色身。
A body without fixed determination, without any final limit; a body manifesting the power of sovereign empowerment; a body manifesting every kind of spiritual transformation; a body born into the tathāgata's own family; a body far removed from every evil, pervading the ocean of the dharma-realm; a body universally appearing in the assembly of every tathāgata's awakening-site; a body complete in an ocean of every kind of colour; a body flowing forth from wholesome conduct; a body manifesting according to whoever should be transformed; a body every world beholds without ever wearying; a body of every kind of pure light; a body manifesting the ocean of the three times; a body emitting an ocean of every light; a body manifesting a measureless and distinct ocean of light; a body of fragrant light surpassing every world; a body manifesting clouds of suns beyond telling; a body manifesting clouds of vast moons; a body emitting measureless clouds of wondrous flowers like Mount Sumeru; a body bringing forth every kind of cloud of garlands; a body manifesting every cloud of jewelled lotus flowers; a body raising every cloud of burning incense throughout the dharma-realm; a body scattering every treasury-cloud of powdered incense; a body manifesting the great vow-body of every tathāgata; a body manifesting every language and voice, proclaiming the ocean of dharma; a body manifesting the very image of Samantabhadra Bodhisattva.
現不可說日輪雲色身⋯⋯散一切末香藏雲色身 — checked directly against the source, seven items running use 雲, cloud, once each: suns, moons, flowers, garlands, lotuses, burning incense, powdered incense — the classic vocabulary of an offering scene, the kind Samantabhadra's own vows are elsewhere built from. That this exact cluster of clouds sits immediately before the catalogue's very last item, a body in Samantabhadra's own image, reads less like coincidence than like ninety-six bodies quietly building toward the one name the whole list was arranged to end on.
Part 1166 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle seventy-three. Part 1167 turns from what these bodies are to what they do — reaching every being, in every land, in thought after thought — before the night-spirit takes up Good-Wealth's question about time itself.