A Body Like a Nyagrodha Tree
Good-Wealth's question about how long Gopā has held this liberation opens an entirely new account — an ancient world, a royal city foremost among eighty, and a crown prince introduced mark by mark in the same formal vocabulary this pilgrimage has used for a buddha's own body.
A Body Like a Nyagrodha Tree
Gopā answers how long with a story, not a number — an ancient world, a royal line, and a crown prince whose body is catalogued mark by mark before he is given a single line to speak.
爾時，善財童子白瞿波言：「聖者得此解脫，其已久如？」答言：「善男子！我於往世，過佛剎微塵數劫，有劫名：勝行，世界名：無畏。彼世界中，有四天下，名為：安隱。其四天下閻浮提中，有一王城，名：高勝樹，於八十王城中最為上首。彼時，有王名曰：財主，其王具有六萬采女、五百大臣、五百王子；其諸王子皆悉勇健，能伏怨敵。其王太子，名：威德主，端正殊特，人所樂見，足下平滿，輪相備具，足趺隆起，手足指間皆有網縵，足跟齊正，手足柔軟，伊尼耶鹿王腨，七處圓滿，陰藏隱密，其身上分如師子王，兩肩平滿，雙臂𦟛長，身相端直，頸文三道，頰如師子，具四十齒悉皆齊密，四牙鮮白，其舌長廣出梵音聲，眼目紺青，睫如牛王，眉間毫相，頂上肉髻，皮膚細軟如真金色，身毛上靡，髮帝青色，其身洪滿如尼拘陀樹。
At that time, Good-Wealth said to Gopā: "Noble one, how long have you held this liberation?" She answered, saying: "Good son, in an age past, beyond kalpas as many as the fine motes of dust in a buddha-land, there was a kalpa named Victorious Practice, and a world named Fearless. Within that world there was a fourfold continent named Peaceful and Secure; and within the Jambudvīpa of that fourfold continent, there was a royal city named Lofty Victorious Tree, the very foremost among eighty royal cities. At that time, there was a king named Wealth Lord, and that king had sixty thousand court ladies, five hundred great ministers, and five hundred princes; and every one of those princes was courageous and strong, able to subdue any enemy. That king's crown prince was named Awesome Virtue Lord, upright and exceptional in form, a joy for anyone to see — the soles of his feet level and full, complete with the mark of a wheel; the arches of his feet raised; the fingers and toes of his hands and feet webbed like a net; his heels even and upright; his hands and feet soft and supple; his calves like those of the king of antelopes; the seven places of his body full and even; his male organ withdrawn and hidden; the upper part of his body like that of a lion-king; his shoulders level and full; his two arms long and rounded; his bodily form upright and straight; three lines at his neck; his cheeks like a lion's; endowed with forty teeth, every one of them even and close-set; his four eye-teeth bright white; his tongue long and broad, giving forth the Brahmā-voice; his eyes deep indigo-blue; his lashes like those of the king of oxen; a curl of white hair between his brows; a fleshy protuberance on the crown of his head; his skin fine and soft, the colour of true gold; his body-hair curling upward; his hair the colour of dark blue; and his body full and ample, like a nyagrodha tree.
足下平滿⋯⋯其身洪滿如尼拘陀樹 — the soles of his feet level and full⋯⋯his body full and ample, like a nyagrodha tree. This is the same formal vocabulary of bodily marks this pilgrimage has used before, back in Part 985, to describe a buddha glimpsed in a forest — webbed fingers, three lines at the neck, seven places full and even, a body upright as a nyagrodha tree from top to bottom. Here the same language describes not a buddha but a prince, before the story has said a single word about who he will become.
Part 1208 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle seventy-five. Part 1209 follows the prince to a garden, in a procession of ten thousand court ladies and a jewelled carriage.