The Spirit's Vow
Good-Wealth finally asks how long ago Māyā attained this liberation-gate, and her answer reaches back to a kalpa named Pure Light, where a nameless spirit of an awakening-site makes a vow whose two figures the very next Part will reveal.
The Spirit's Vow
Māyā's claim to universal motherhood closes, and Good-Wealth's question sends her account back to a single kalpa, a single awakening-site, and a vow made without yet knowing who either figure in it would become.
如於此三千大千世界，如是於此世界海十方無量諸世界一切劫中，諸有修行普賢行願，為化一切諸眾生者，我自見身悉為其母。」爾時，善財童子白摩耶夫人言：「大聖得此解脫，經今幾時？」答言：「善男子！乃往古世，過不可思議非最後身菩薩神通道眼所知劫數，爾時有劫名：淨光，世界名：須彌德，雖有諸山五趣雜居，然其國土眾寶所成，清淨莊嚴無諸穢惡。有千億四天下，有一四天下，名：師子幢，於中有八十億王城。有一王城，名：自在幢；有轉輪王，名：大威德。彼王城北，有一道場，名：滿月光明；其道場神，名曰：慈德。時，有菩薩，名：離垢幢，坐於道場，將成正覺。有一惡魔，名：金色光，與其眷屬無量眾俱，至菩薩所。彼大威德轉輪聖王已得菩薩神通自在，化作兵眾，其數倍多，圍遶道場；諸魔惶怖，悉自奔散；故彼菩薩得成阿耨多羅三藐三菩提。時，道場神見是事已，歡喜無量，便於彼王而生子想，頂禮佛足，作是願言：『此轉輪王，在在生處，乃至成佛，願我常得與其為母。』作是願已，於此道場，復曾供養十那由他佛。
"Just as throughout this great trichiliocosm, so too throughout every kalpa in the measureless worlds of the ten directions within this entire world-ocean, whoever cultivates Samantabhadra's own practices and vows in order to teach and transform every being — I myself see my own body as the mother of every one of them." At that time, Good-Wealth said to Lady Māyā: "Great sage! How long has it been since you attained this liberation-gate?" She answered, saying: "Good son! Long ago, in ages past, beyond a number of kalpas inconceivable and unknown even to the spiritual powers and dharma-eye of a bodhisattva not yet in his final existence, there was at that time a kalpa named Pure Light, and a world named Sumeru Virtue; although its mountains held the five destinies dwelling mixed together, its land was formed of every kind of jewel, pure and adorned, with no defilement or evil at all. There were a thousand koṭis of fourfold continents, and within one of them, named Lion Banner, there were eighty koṭis of royal cities. There was one royal city, named Sovereign Banner, and a wheel-turning king, named Great Awesome Virtue. North of that royal city there was an awakening-site, named Full Moon's Light, and the spirit of that awakening-site was named Compassionate Virtue. At that time, there was a bodhisattva, named Stainless Banner, sitting at the awakening-site, about to accomplish perfect awakening. There was an evil māra, named Golden Light, who together with his measureless retinue came to the bodhisattva's own place. That wheel-turning sage-king Great Awesome Virtue, having already attained the bodhisattva's own sovereign spiritual power, conjured forth an army manifold greater in number, surrounding the awakening-site; every māra, terrified, fled away of their own accord; and it was for this reason that the bodhisattva accomplished anuttara-samyak-sambodhi. At that time, the spirit of the awakening-site, having seen this, was joyful beyond measure, and conceived the thought of that king as her own son; she bowed at the buddha's own feet, and made this vow, saying: 'May I forever be able to become the mother of this wheel-turning king, in whatever place he takes birth, all the way to his becoming a buddha.' Having made this vow, at this very awakening-site, she went on to make offerings to ten nayutas of buddhas.
願我常得與其為母 — may I forever be able to become the mother of this wheel-turning king. The spirit of the awakening-site makes this vow watching a king she has just seen, not a buddha she has yet to meet — and the text withholds, for now, exactly who that king and that spirit will turn out to be.
Part 1245 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle seventy-six. Part 1246 reveals who the awakening-site spirit and the wheel-turning king really were, and what that vow set in motion across every world since.