Never Exhausted, Even in Telling
The bodhisattva sustains the previous Part's vast offerings throughout indescribable, indescribable kalpas, never regressing and never resting, continuing to honor the relics of every Tathāgata after their final nirvāṇa. Eleven distinct purposes are named for this sustained offering — from causing living beings to attain pure faith to upholding the Dharma of every buddha — before the passage closes with a striking claim: even across asaṃkhyeya kalpas, these offerings could never be exhausted, even in the telling of them.
Eleven Reasons for an Offering That Never Ends
The eleven purposes named here move between the practical and the devotional — causing living beings to gather wholesome roots and reach the ultimate end of whatever they undertake, but also causing them to know that a buddha's arising in the world is difficult to encounter, and to fully satisfy the Tathāgata's own immeasurable powers. The passage's closing line makes the scale explicit: not even asaṃkhyeya kalpas of telling could exhaust an account of these offerings.
「佛子！菩薩摩訶薩以如是等諸供養具，於無量無數不可說不可說劫，淨心尊重、恭敬供養一切諸佛，恒不退轉，無有休息；一一如來滅度之後所有舍利，悉亦如是恭敬供養。
"Child of the Buddha! The bodhisattva mahāsattva, with offerings such as these, throughout immeasurable, countless, indescribable, indescribable kalpas, with a pure mind honors, reveres, and makes offerings to every buddha, forever without regressing, without any rest; and after the final nirvāṇa of each and every Tathāgata, whatever relics remain, they likewise revere and make offerings to in just this way.
為令一切眾生生淨信故，一切眾生攝善根故，一切眾生離諸苦故，一切眾生廣大解故，一切眾生以大莊嚴而莊嚴故，無量莊嚴而莊嚴故，諸有所作得究竟故，知諸佛興難可值故，滿足如來無量力故，莊嚴供養佛塔廟故，住持一切諸佛法故，如是供養現在諸佛，及滅度後所有舍利。其諸供養，於阿僧祇劫說不可盡。
This is so that every living being may give rise to pure faith, so that every living being may gather wholesome roots, so that every living being may leave behind every suffering, so that every living being may attain vast and expansive understanding, so that every living being may be adorned with great adornment, so that they may be adorned with immeasurable adornment, so that whatever they undertake may reach its ultimate end, so that they may know that the arising of a buddha is difficult to encounter, so that they may fully satisfy the Tathāgata's own immeasurable powers, so that they may adorn and make offerings to the stūpas and shrines of the Buddha, so that they may uphold and maintain the Dharma of every buddha — they make offerings in just this way to every buddha now present, and to whatever relics remain after their final nirvāṇa. Those very offerings, even throughout asaṃkhyeya kalpas, could never be exhausted in the telling.
"So that they may know that the arising of a buddha is difficult to encounter" sits among more practical purposes — gathering wholesome roots, leaving behind suffering — as a reminder that part of what these offerings accomplish is simply gratitude rightly calibrated: a buddha's appearance is rare enough that recognizing its rarity is itself one of the fruits the offering is meant to produce.
Part 228 Complete
This closes Part 228. Chapter 25 continues in Part 229 with a catalog of twelve further qualifications on this dedication — a mind free of attachment and mental image, aligned with the very nature of dharmas, and abiding wherever the Buddha abides.