Twenty-Nine Names for a Buddha-Land
The description of buddha-lands turns from the past to the present, where every buddha's own world is described as immeasurable in form, color, fragrance, and adornment, before the passage closes with a sequence of twenty-nine named qualities — from the merely adorned and pure to the utterly supreme and beyond any analogy at all. The bodhisattva then formally dedicates every adornment of every buddha-land, past, future, and present, entirely toward a single world.
A Single World, Adorned by All
The twenty-nine names move without a single repeated word from the concrete (adorned, pure, luminous) through the relational (unopposed, lovable) to a closing run of nine consecutive superlatives, each pushing past the last — superior, exceptional, most supreme, utterly supreme, elevated, unsurpassed, unequaled, incomparable, and finally beyond any analogy whatsoever. The dedication that follows then does something remarkable with this entire catalogue: it asks that everything named be gathered into a single world, and that this same single world stand for every world throughout the Dharma-realm at once.
此諸菩薩具大威德，宿植善根，知一切法如幻如化，普行菩薩諸清淨業，入不思議自在三昧，善巧方便能作佛事，放佛光明普照世間，無有限極。現在一切諸佛世尊，悉亦如是。莊嚴世界無量形相、無量光色，悉是功德之所成就——無量香、無量寶、無量樹、無數莊嚴、無數宮殿、無數音聲。隨順宿緣諸善知識，示現一切功德莊嚴，無有窮盡。
These very bodhisattvas are endowed with great and awesome virtue, having planted wholesome roots in ages past; they know that every dharma is like an illusion, like a transformation; they universally practice every pure bodhisattva deed; they enter the inconceivable, sovereign samādhi; through skillful means they are able to carry out the Buddha's own work; they emit the Buddha's own light, universally illuminating the world without any limit or bound at all. Every buddha, every World-Honored One of the present, is likewise entirely the same. Their adorned worlds, with immeasurable forms and immeasurable colors of light, are entirely accomplished through merit — immeasurable fragrances, immeasurable jewels, immeasurable trees, countless adornments, countless palaces, countless sounds. According with the good spiritual friends of past conditions, they manifest every kind of merit-adornment without end.
所謂：一切香莊嚴、一切鬘莊嚴、一切末香莊嚴、一切寶莊嚴、一切幡莊嚴、一切寶繒綵莊嚴、一切寶欄楯莊嚴、阿僧祇金網莊嚴、阿僧祇河莊嚴、阿僧祇雲雨莊嚴、阿僧祇音樂奏微妙音，如是等無量無數莊嚴之具，莊嚴一切——盡法界、虛空界，十方無量種種業起，佛所了知、佛所宣說一切世界——其中所有一切佛土。所謂：莊嚴佛土、清淨佛土、平等佛土、妙好佛土、威德佛土、廣大佛土、安樂佛土、不可壞佛土、無盡佛土、無量佛土、無動佛土、無畏佛土、光明佛土、無違逆佛土、可愛樂佛土、普照明佛土、嚴好佛土、精麗佛土、妙巧佛土、第一佛土、勝佛土、殊勝佛土、最勝佛土、極勝佛土、上佛土、無上佛土、無等佛土、無比佛土、無譬諭佛土。
Namely: every kind of fragrance-adornment, every kind of garland-adornment, every kind of powdered-incense-adornment, every kind of jewel-adornment, every kind of pennant-adornment, every kind of jeweled-silk-adornment, every kind of jeweled-balustrade-adornment, asaṃkhyeya golden-net-adornments, asaṃkhyeya river-adornments, asaṃkhyeya cloud-and-rain-adornments, asaṃkhyeya kinds of music playing wondrous sounds — every such ornament, immeasurable and countless, adorning everything entirely — throughout the entire Dharma-realm and realm of empty space, throughout the ten directions, every kind of karmic activity arising, every world known by the Buddha and expounded by the Buddha — within them, every buddha-land there is. Namely: the adorned buddha-land, the pure buddha-land, the equal buddha-land, the wondrous and excellent buddha-land, the awesome and virtuous buddha-land, the vast buddha-land, the peaceful and blissful buddha-land, the indestructible buddha-land, the inexhaustible buddha-land, the immeasurable buddha-land, the unmoving buddha-land, the fearless buddha-land, the luminous buddha-land, the unopposed buddha-land, the lovable buddha-land, the universally illuminating buddha-land, the stately buddha-land, the refined and resplendent buddha-land, the wondrously skillful buddha-land, the foremost buddha-land, the superior buddha-land, the exceptional buddha-land, the most supreme buddha-land, the utterly supreme buddha-land, the elevated buddha-land, the unsurpassed buddha-land, the unequaled buddha-land, the incomparable buddha-land, and the buddha-land beyond any analogy.
如是過去、未來、現在一切佛土所有莊嚴，菩薩摩訶薩以己善根發心迴向：『願以如是去、來、現在一切諸佛所有國土清淨莊嚴，悉以莊嚴於一世界，如彼一切諸佛國土所有莊嚴，皆悉成就，皆悉清淨，皆悉聚集，皆悉顯現，皆悉嚴好，皆悉住持。如一世界；如是，盡法界、虛空界，一切世界悉亦如是，三世一切諸佛國土種種莊嚴皆悉具足。』
Every such adornment possessed by every buddha-land of the past, future, and present — the bodhisattva mahāsattva, with their own wholesome root, gives rise to the mind and dedicates it: "May every pure adornment possessed by the lands of every buddha of the past, future, and present be, in just this way, entirely used to adorn a single world, just as every adornment possessed by every one of those buddha-lands — may all of it be accomplished entirely, be pure entirely, be gathered entirely, be manifested entirely, be made stately and excellent entirely, and be upheld entirely. Just as with a single world; in just this way, throughout the entire Dharma-realm and realm of empty space, every world is likewise entirely the same, and every kind of adornment of every buddha-land throughout the three periods of time is entirely and fully endowed."
Naming twenty-nine distinct qualities only to fold them all into "a single world" is not a contradiction but the passage's actual point: the inexhaustible treasury of merit is inexhaustible precisely because a single world can hold the adornment of every buddha-land across all three periods of time without becoming any less single. What is dedicated is not divided among its recipients — it is given whole, to each, at once.
Part 254 Complete
This closes Part 254. Chapter 25 continues in Part 255 as the bodhisattva dedicates further wholesome roots toward filling every buddha-land with great bodhisattvas of true nature and penetrating wisdom, mindful of buddha, Dharma, and saṃgha alike.