Twenty Bodies From a Single Bone
Following Dharma-Treasury Bodhisattva and Radiant King Bodhisattva, the bodhisattva gives the beggar the very bones of his own limbs and joints, nine minds arising together in the act — love, joy, faith, courage, loving-kindness. The dedication that follows is the longest single list of bodies in this litany yet: twenty of them, moving from a body that never again suffers of bone, flesh, and blood, to Nārāyaṇa strength in every joint, to the body of the Tathāgata's own household, forever free of birth and death.
What the Bones Were Holding Up
Bones are what a body's shape depends on, and the twenty vows here read almost as an inventory of everything a skeleton had been quietly supporting all along: firmness, continuity, strength that never tires, a shape that holds together without dispersing. Having given away the very structure of the body, the dedication asks in return for every kind of structural integrity — physical, moral, and finally the structure of belonging to "the Tathāgata's own household" itself.
「佛子！菩薩摩訶薩布施乞者肢節諸骨，如法藏菩薩、光明王菩薩，及餘無量諸大菩薩。施其身分肢節骨時，見乞者來，生愛樂心、歡喜心、淨信心、安樂心、勇猛心、慈心、無礙心、清淨心、隨所乞求皆施與心。菩薩摩訶薩施身骨時，以諸善根如是迴向，所謂：『願一切眾生得如化身，不復更受骨肉血身；願一切眾生得金剛身，不可破壞，無能勝者；願一切眾生得一切智圓滿法身，於無縛、無著、無繫界生；願一切眾生得智力身，諸根圓滿，不斷不壞；願一切眾生得法力身，智力自在，到於彼岸；願一切眾生得堅固身，其身貞實，常無散壞；願一切眾生得隨應身，教化調伏一切眾生；願一切眾生得智熏身，具那羅延肢節大力；願一切眾生得堅固相續不斷絕身，永離一切疲極勞倦；願一切眾生得大力安住身，悉能具足精進大力；願一切眾生得遍世間平等法身，住於無量最上智處；願一切眾生得福德力身，見者蒙益，遠離眾惡；願一切眾生得無依處身，皆得具足無依著智；願一切眾生得佛攝受身，常為一切諸佛加護；願一切眾生得普饒益諸眾生身，悉能遍入一切諸道；願一切眾生得普現身，普能照現一切佛法；願一切眾生得具足精進身，專念勤修大乘智行；願一切眾生得離我慢貢高清淨身，智常安住，無所動亂；願一切眾生得堅固行身，成就大乘一切智業；願一切眾生得佛家身，永離世間一切生死。』是為菩薩摩訶薩施身骨時善根迴向，為令眾生得一切智永清淨故。
"Child of the Buddha! The bodhisattva mahāsattva gives the beggar the very bones of his own limbs and joints, just as Dharma-Treasury Bodhisattva, Radiant King Bodhisattva, and countless other great bodhisattvas have done. When giving the bones of his own limbs and joints, seeing the beggar come, he gives rise to a mind of love and delight, a mind of joy, a mind of pure faith, a mind of peace and happiness, a mind of courage, a mind of loving-kindness, a mind unobstructed, a mind of purity, and a mind that gives whatever is begged entirely. When the bodhisattva mahāsattva gives the bones of his body, with every wholesome root, he dedicates it in this way, namely: 'May all sentient beings obtain a body like a transformation, never again receiving a body of bone, flesh, and blood; may all sentient beings obtain the vajra body, unable to be broken, defeated by nothing; may all sentient beings obtain the perfect and complete Dharma-body of omniscience, born within the realm free of bondage, free of attachment, and free of entanglement; may all sentient beings obtain the body of the power of wisdom, every faculty perfect and complete, never severed and never destroyed; may all sentient beings obtain the body of the power of the Dharma, their power of wisdom sovereign and free, reaching the further shore; may all sentient beings obtain the firm and unbreakable body, its substance genuine and true, forever without dispersal or destruction; may all sentient beings obtain the body that accords with all, teaching and subduing every sentient being; may all sentient beings obtain the body infused with wisdom, endowed with the Nārāyaṇa strength of every limb and joint; may all sentient beings obtain the body firm, continuous, and unbroken, forever free of every exhaustion and weariness; may all sentient beings obtain the body of great strength, abiding securely, fully endowed with the great strength of diligence; may all sentient beings obtain the Dharma-body equal throughout the world, abiding in the immeasurable, most supreme place of wisdom; may all sentient beings obtain the body of the power of merit, benefiting whoever beholds it, keeping them far from every evil; may all sentient beings obtain the body with no place to rely upon, all fully endowed with the wisdom that relies on nothing at all; may all sentient beings obtain the body embraced by every buddha, forever protected and sustained by every buddha; may all sentient beings obtain the body that universally benefits every sentient being, able to enter entirely into every destiny; may all sentient beings obtain the body that manifests universally, able to illuminate and manifest every buddha-dharma entirely; may all sentient beings obtain the body fully endowed with diligence, single-mindedly and diligently cultivating the wisdom-practice of the Great Vehicle; may all sentient beings obtain the pure body free of pride and arrogance, its wisdom forever abiding securely, unshaken and undisturbed by anything; may all sentient beings obtain the body of firm practice, accomplishing every deed of omniscience in the Great Vehicle; may all sentient beings obtain the body of the Buddha's own household, forever leaving behind every birth and death of the world.' This is the bodhisattva mahāsattva's dedication of wholesome roots when giving the bones of his body; it is so that sentient beings may obtain omniscience, forever pure.
The list closes on "the body of the Buddha's own household, forever leaving behind every birth and death of the world" — a fitting place to arrive after a gift of bones specifically, since it is birth and death, more than any other process, that bones are used to mark and measure. What began as the most literal kind of skeleton ends as membership in a family that birth and death no longer define.
Part 300 Complete
This closes the section on giving the bones (施身骨) within the sixth dedication. Chapter 25 continues in Part 301 as the bodhisattva mahāsattva, following Pure-Treasury Bodhisattva and Golden-Flank Deer King Bodhisattva, gives away his own skin to a man who comes with a sharp knife to beg for it.