I Should Not Have Troubled You to Come
The vehicle-giving litany turns to the poor and the solitary, and the bodhisattva's response to their arrival is startling in its humility: he bows, reproaches himself for having let them travel to him at all, and insists he should have gone to them instead. What follows escalates without pause — jeweled carts laden with attendants, courtesans, young maidens, and at last the bodhisattva's own consecrated prince and closest, most cherished kin, all given away.
Bowing to Those Who Arrive
Every prior recipient in this litany — buddhas, teachers, the saṃgha — held a position the giver could reasonably honor by custom. Here the recipients are simply the poor and the solitary, and the bodhisattva's posture toward them inverts the expected hierarchy entirely: he is the one who bows, the one who apologizes, the one who insists the fault of a difficult journey was his own for not having come first. The extravagant gifts that follow are offered from that same posture of self-reproach, not from a position of condescension.
「佛子！菩薩摩訶薩以眾寶車施諸福田乃至貧窮、孤獨者時，隨其所求，一切悉捨，心生歡喜，無有厭倦，仍向彼人自悔責言：『我應往就供養供給，不應勞汝遠來疲頓。』言已拜跪，問訊起居，凡有所須，一切施與；或時施彼摩尼寶車，以閻浮提第一女寶充滿其上；或復施與金莊嚴車，人間女寶充滿其上；或復施與妙瑠璃車，內宮妓女充滿其上；或施種種奇妙寶車，童女充滿，如天采女；或施無數寶莊嚴車，寶女滿中，柔明辯慧；或施所乘妙栴檀車，或復施與玻瓈寶車，悉載寶女，充滿其上，顏容端正，色相無比，袨服莊嚴，見者欣悅；或復施與碼碯寶車，灌頂王子身載其上；或時施與堅固香車，所有男女悉載其中；或施一切寶莊嚴車，載以難捨親善眷屬。
"Child of the Buddha! When the bodhisattva mahāsattva gives every kind of jeweled cart to every field of merit, down even to the poor and the solitary, according with whatever they ask for, they give up everything entirely, their mind filled with joy, never once growing weary, and they even turn to that very person and reproach themselves, saying: 'I ought to have gone to you myself to make offerings and provide for you; I should not have troubled you to come from afar, weary and worn.' Having said this, they bow and kneel, inquiring after their well-being, and give them everything they need entirely. At times they give a maṇi-jewel cart, filled with the foremost jewel-woman of Jambudvīpa upon it; or they give a golden, adorned cart, filled with a human jewel-woman upon it; or they give a wondrous lapis lazuli cart, filled with palace courtesans upon it; or they give every kind of rare and wondrous jeweled cart, filled with young maidens, like heavenly court-women; or they give countless jeweled, adorned carts, filled with jewel-women, gentle, bright, and eloquent; or they give the very wondrous sandalwood cart they themselves ride, or they give a crystal jeweled cart, laden entirely with jewel-women filling it, their countenance upright and proper, their form incomparable, adorned in fine garments, delighting all who see them; or they give an agate jeweled cart, with their own anointed prince riding upon it; or at times they give the firm, fragrant cart, with every one of their sons and daughters riding within it; or they give every kind of jeweled, adorned cart, laden with their own dearly loved, close relatives and kin whom they find hard to part with.
This passage belongs to a family of images this literature returns to elsewhere — a king or prince who gives away spouse, children, and kingdom entirely, most famously in the story of Prince Sudāna's own total renunciation. Read here within the ten dedications, the extremity is not meant as a literal instruction but as a limit-case: if a wholesome root can be dedicated even through this, the passage argues, there is nothing that could not, in principle, be given without loss to the giving itself.
Part 275 Complete
This closes Part 275. Chapter 25 continues in Part 276 as this giving to the poor and destitute is dedicated toward twenty distinct vehicles of Dharma, closing the sixth dedication's extended treatment of vehicle-giving.