The Prince Who Heard Them Crying
Four similes on time give way to a story: an ancient kalpa in which ten thousand buddhas once appeared, a king whose violent age forced him to build prisons, and a crown prince who, hearing the condemned crying out from his own palace, walks in among them and promises every one his freedom.
Ten Thousand Buddhas in a Single Kalpa
Before a single character in the story is named, the setting itself is built layer by layer — a kalpa, a world, ten thousand buddhas, and the first of them named in full.
「佛子！菩薩智慧雖復如是甚深難測，我當承佛威神之力為汝解說，令未來世諸菩薩等滿足大願、成就諸力。「佛子！乃往古世，過世界海微塵數劫，有劫名：善光，世界名：寶光。於其劫中，有一萬佛出興于世。其最初佛，號：法輪音虛空燈王如來、應、正等覺，十號圓滿。彼閻浮提，有一王都，名：寶莊嚴；其東不遠，有一大林，名曰：妙光；中有道場，名為：寶華。彼道場中，有普光明摩尼蓮華藏師子之座。時，彼如來於此座上，成阿耨多羅三藐三菩提，滿一百年坐於道場，為諸菩薩、諸天、世人及閻浮提宿植善根已成熟者演說正法。
"Child of the Buddha, although the bodhisattva's wisdom is profound and hard to fathom in just this way, sustained by the Buddha's own majestic spiritual power I shall now explain it for you, so that bodhisattvas of ages to come may fulfil their great vows and accomplish these powers. Child of the Buddha, in an age long past, beyond kalpas as many as the fine motes of dust in a world-ocean, there was a kalpa named Wholesome Light, and a world named Jewel Light. Within that kalpa, ten thousand buddhas arose in the world. The very first of them was named King of the Lamp of Empty Space, the Sound of the Dharma-Wheel, the tathāgata, the worthy one, the perfectly and fully awakened one, complete in all ten epithets. In that Jambudvīpa, there was a royal capital named Jewel-Adorned; not far to its east, there was a great forest named Wondrous Light, and within it an awakening-site named Jewelled Flower. Within that awakening-site there stood a lion-seat that was a treasury of maṇi lotus-flowers of universal light. At that time, that tathāgata, upon this very seat, accomplished anuttara-samyak-sambodhi, and sat at the awakening-site for a full hundred years, expounding the true dharma for every bodhisattva, every god, every person of the world, and for those in Jambudvīpa whose wholesome roots planted in former lives had already come to ripeness.
有一萬佛出興于世 — ten thousand buddhas arose in the world. Before this sentence, the passage has already spent a kalpa's name and a world's name; after it, a city, a forest, an awakening-site, and a seat are each named in turn before the story descends to a single human generation. Ten thousand buddhas are mentioned only once, in passing, before the account narrows to the very first of them — a scale acknowledged and then set aside, so the story can actually be told about one buddha and, soon, about one prince.
A King Who Built Prisons
The story leaves the buddha's own century-long teaching and drops into an ordinary king's difficulty — an age of violence, and the blunt instrument he reaches for to contain it.
「是時，國王名曰：勝光。時世人民壽一萬歲，其中多有殺、盜、婬佚、妄語、綺語、兩舌、惡口、貪、瞋、邪見、不孝父母、不敬沙門婆羅門等。時，王為欲調伏彼故，造立囹圄，枷鎖禁閉，無量眾生於中受苦。「王有太子，名為：善伏，端正殊特，人所喜見，具二十八大人之相。
"At that time, there was a king named Victorious Light. In that age, people lived for ten thousand years, and among them there was much killing, theft, sexual misconduct, lying, idle talk, divisive speech, harsh speech, covetousness, wrath, wrong view, lack of filial devotion toward parents, and lack of reverence toward renunciants and brāhmaṇas. At that time, wishing to tame and subdue them, the king built prisons, and with shackles and chains confined them, so that measureless beings suffered within. The king had a crown prince named Well-Subdued, upright and of an exceptional bearing, a joy for anyone to behold, complete with the twenty-eight marks of a great being.
殺、盜、婬佚、妄語、綺語、兩舌、惡口、貪、瞋、邪見、不孝父母、不敬沙門婆羅門 — counted directly, twelve faults are named for this age, the classical ten unwholesome deeds extended by two more specific to this story: disrespect toward parents and toward renunciants and brāhmaṇas. And where every earlier description of a great being in this fascicle has specified thirty-two marks, this prince is given 二十八, twenty-eight — a different number, checked directly against the source and kept as written rather than silently corrected to the more familiar count.
The Prince Who Heard Them Crying
The story's register shifts sharply here, from formula to something almost unbearably concrete — and the prince's response is immediate, before he has consulted anyone at all.
在宮殿中，遙聞獄囚楚毒音聲，心懷傷愍。從宮殿出，入牢獄中，見諸罪人杻械、枷鎖遞相連繫，置幽闇處，或以火炙，或以煙熏，或被榜笞，或遭臏割，裸形亂髮，飢渴羸瘦，筋斷骨現，號叫苦劇。太子見已，心生悲愍，以無畏聲安慰之言：『汝莫憂惱！汝勿愁怖！我當令汝悉得解脫。』
While within the palace, he heard from afar the anguished cries of the prisoners, and his heart was moved with pity. Leaving the palace, he entered the prison, and saw the condemned bound together with fetters and chains, one to the next, placed in dark and hidden places — some scorched by fire, some choked by smoke, some flogged with rods, some cut at the kneecaps; naked, their hair in disarray, starved, thirsty, and wasted, their sinews torn and their bones showing through, crying out in the depths of suffering. Seeing this, the prince's heart gave rise to compassion, and in a fearless voice he spoke words of comfort to them: "Do not be troubled! Do not be afraid! I shall cause every one of you to be entirely set free."
或以火炙，或以煙熏，或被榜笞，或遭臏割 — scorched by fire, choked by smoke, flogged with rods, cut at the kneecaps. This fascicle has so far favoured abstraction — oceans, kalpas, dharma-realms, a wisdom beyond every distinction. Here, for the first time since the night-spirit began her answer, the language turns to a body's actual suffering, itemised rather than gestured at. The shift is not softened by anything philosophical before or after it; the prince simply promises freedom, in the plainest words used in this whole fascicle so far.
Part 1170 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle seventy-three. Part 1171 continues the prince's story as his ministers name the price of mercy — the prisoners' crimes carry a sentence of death, and freeing them will cost the prince something of his own.