I Should Give Up My Own Body and Life
The prince's plea meets a crime too grave to pardon and a warning that pleading for the condemned is itself a capital offence; his answer is to offer his own body and life in their place, and the king, enraged, orders his execution too, until the queen wins him one final half-month.
A Crime That Warrants Death
The prince asks for mercy, and the answer he receives closes off even the asking — the condemned are guilty of treason, and pleading for them carries the same sentence.
便詣王所而白王言：『獄中罪人苦毒難處，願垂寬宥，施以無畏。』「時，王即集五百大臣而問之言：『是事云何？』諸臣答言：『彼罪人者，私竊官物，謀奪王位，盜入宮闈，罪應刑戮。有哀救者，罪亦至死。』
He then went to where the king was, and said to the king: "The prisoners in the jail suffer in a place hard to bear; I beg you to grant them clemency, and to give them freedom from fear." At that time, the king at once gathered his five hundred great ministers, and asked them: "What of this matter?" The ministers answered: "Those condemned have secretly stolen the crown's own property, plotted to seize the throne, and broken into the palace itself; their crime warrants execution. Whoever pleads for their rescue shall likewise face death."
有哀救者，罪亦至死 — whoever pleads for their rescue shall likewise face death. This single sentence turns the prince's next line into a decision made with full knowledge of its cost — he has just been told, in the plainest terms, that mercy for these particular prisoners is itself a capital act, before he says a single word about giving up his own life.
I Should Give Up My Own Body and Life
The prince's answer does not stay with the prisoners in front of him — it widens, in a single breath, to every being trapped in the same condition they are in.
「時，彼太子悲心轉切，語大臣言：『如汝所說，但放此人；隨其所應，可以治我。我為彼故，一切苦事悉皆能受，粉身沒命，無所顧惜，要令罪人皆得免苦。何以故？我若不救此眾生者，云何能救三界牢獄諸苦眾生？一切眾生在三界中，貪愛所縛，愚癡所蔽，貧無功德，墮諸惡趣，身形鄙陋，諸根放逸，其心迷惑，不求出道，失智慧光，樂著三有，斷諸福德，滅諸智慧，種種煩惱濁亂其心，住苦牢獄，入魔網，生老病死憂悲惱害，如是諸苦常所逼迫。我當云何令彼解脫？應捨身命而拔濟之！』
"At that time, the prince's compassion grew only more urgent, and he said to the ministers: 'As you have said — then simply release these people, and deal with me however is fitting instead. For their sake, I am able to bear every kind of suffering entirely, my body ground to dust, my life ended, without a single regret — only let every condemned person be freed from suffering. Why is this so? If I do not rescue these beings, how could I ever rescue the suffering beings imprisoned within the three realms themselves? Every being within the three realms is bound by craving and desire, covered over by delusion, poor in merit, fallen into the evil destinies, their bodily forms coarse and base, their faculties unrestrained, their minds confused, never seeking the path of release, having lost the light of wisdom, delighting in attachment to the three states of existence, cutting off every merit, extinguishing every wisdom — every kind of affliction muddying and disturbing their minds, dwelling in the prison of suffering, caught within Māra's own net, pressed always by the sufferings of birth, old age, sickness, death, sorrow, grief, and harm. How, then, should I set them free? I should give up my own body and life to rescue and deliver them!'
一切眾生在三界中⋯⋯如是諸苦常所逼迫 — counted directly, sixteen conditions describe every being within the three realms, from craving and delusion through to the plain list of birth, old age, sickness, death, sorrow, grief, and harm at the very end. The prince never answers the ministers' actual question about these particular prisoners' guilt. He answers a larger question instead — 我若不救此眾生者，云何能救三界牢獄諸苦眾生, if I do not rescue these beings, how could I ever rescue the suffering beings of the three realms — and the sixteen conditions are offered as the reason the smaller rescue and the larger one cannot be separated.
Half a Month Before the Sentence
The court's response escalates fast — a warning, a royal fury, a mother's desperate ride to the throne room, and, at the very end, one small concession wrung out of all of it.
「時，諸大臣共詣王所，悉舉其手高聲唱言：『大王當知，如太子意，毀壞王法，禍及萬人。若王愛念不責治者，王之寶祚亦不久立。』王聞此言，赫然大怒，令誅太子及諸罪人。「王后聞之，愁憂號哭，毀形降服，與千采女馳詣王所，舉身投地頂禮王足，俱作是言：『唯願大王，赦太子命！』王即迴顧，語太子言：『莫救罪人；若救罪人，必當殺汝！』爾時，太子為欲專求一切智故，為欲利益諸眾生故，為以大悲普救攝故，其心堅固無有退怯，復白王言：『願恕彼罪，身當受戮！』王言：『隨意！』爾時，王后白言：『大王！願聽太子，半月行施，恣意修福，然後治罪。』王即聽許。
"At that time, the ministers all together went before the king, and, raising their hands together, cried out in loud voices: 'Great king, you should know that if the prince's own wish is followed, the king's law will be destroyed, and calamity will reach ten thousand people. If the king, out of fondness, does not punish this, the king's own royal fortune, too, will not long endure.' Hearing these words, the king blazed with great fury, and ordered the execution of the prince along with all the condemned. The queen, hearing this, grieved and wailed aloud, disfigured herself and dressed in mourning, and together with a thousand court ladies rushed to where the king was; casting her whole body to the ground, she bowed at the king's feet, and together they all said: 'We beg only that the great king pardon the prince's life!' The king then turned and said to the prince: 'Do not save the condemned; if you save the condemned, you shall certainly be put to death.' At that time, the prince, wishing only to seek all-knowing wisdom, wishing to bring benefit to every being, and wishing, through great compassion, to universally rescue and gather them in, his mind firm and without the slightest retreat or timidity, said again to the king: 'I beg you to pardon their crime; let my own body receive the execution instead.' The king said: 'As you wish.' At that time, the queen said: 'Great king! I beg you to allow the prince half a month to practise giving, to cultivate merit freely as he wishes, and only then to carry out the punishment.' The king at once granted this.
莫救罪人；若救罪人，必當殺汝 — do not save the condemned; if you save the condemned, you shall certainly be put to death. The king states the threat directly to his own son, in the second person, only after the ministers have already stated it as a general rule. The prince's reply does not argue with the threat or try to escape it — 願恕彼罪，身當受戮, he simply asks that the crime be forgiven and offers his own body for the execution instead, repeating almost exactly what he said to the ministers before the king ever entered the conversation.
Part 1171 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle seventy-three. Part 1172 opens the great giving-assembly the prince holds in his final half-month — and the buddha who arrives there, surrounded by the kings of every class of heavenly and earthly being, each one attending him in a different way.