"To Harm Another for One's Own Benefit Is Never Justified"
The king who banned killing throughout his realm now confronts a different cruelty: those who castrate other people and animals. Rather than punishing the perpetrator, the bodhisattva reasons with him directly — offering his own treasuries as a substitute for whatever gain he sought, then persuading him with the plain observation that "to harm another for one's own benefit is never, in the end, justified." Ten dedication-vows follow, moving from bodily integrity to courage, unobstructed wisdom, and finally the unsurpassed title of Great Hero.
Persuasion Before Prohibition
Where the ban on killing in the previous section was issued as a decree, this passage shows the bodhisattva working person to person: he speaks directly to someone committing this cruelty, asks him plainly why, and offers a genuine alternative before ever invoking his authority as king. The argument he makes is not that the practice is forbidden but that it is simply pointless — "even were you to gain something by it, of what use could it be?"
「佛子！菩薩摩訶薩見有眾生心懷殘忍，損諸人畜所有男形，令身缺減，受諸楚毒；見是事已，起大慈悲而哀救之，令閻浮提一切人民皆捨此業。菩薩爾時，語其人言：『汝何所為作是惡業？我有庫藏百千萬億，一切樂具悉皆充滿，隨汝所須盡當相給。汝之所作，眾罪由生，我今勸汝莫作是事。汝所作業不如道理，設有所獲，於何可用？損他益己，終無是處。如此惡行、諸不善法，一切如來所不稱歎。』作是語已，即以所有一切樂具盡皆施與。復以善語為說妙法，令其歡悅。所謂：示寂靜法，令其信受，滅除不善，修行淨業，互起慈心，不相損害。彼人聞已，永捨罪惡。菩薩爾時，以此善根如是迴向，所謂：『願一切眾生具丈夫形，成就如來馬陰藏相；願一切眾生具男子形，發勇猛心修諸梵行；願一切眾生具勇猛力，恒為主導，住無礙智，永不退轉；願一切眾生皆得具足大丈夫身，永離欲心，無所染著；願一切眾生悉得成就善男子法，智慧增長，諸佛所歎；願一切眾生普得具於大人之力，常能修習十力善根；願一切眾生永不失壞男子之形，常修福智未曾有法；願一切眾生於五欲中無著無縛，心得解脫，厭離三有，住菩薩行；願一切眾生成就第一智慧丈夫，一切宗信，伏從其化；願一切眾生具足菩薩丈夫智慧，不久當成無上大雄。』是為菩薩摩訶薩禁絕一切毀敗男形善根迴向；為令眾生具丈夫形，皆能守護諸善丈夫，生賢聖家，智慧具足，常勤修習丈夫勝行，有丈夫用，巧能顯示七丈夫道，具足諸佛善丈夫種、丈夫正教、丈夫勇猛、丈夫精進、丈夫智慧、丈夫清淨，普令眾生究竟皆得。
"Child of the Buddha! The bodhisattva mahāsattva sees sentient beings whose minds harbor cruelty, harming the manhood of humans and animals alike, causing their bodies to be maimed and made to endure every bitter torment; having seen this, he gives rise to great compassion, grieving for them and rescuing them, causing every person throughout Jambudvīpa to relinquish this practice entirely. The bodhisattva then speaks to such a person, saying: 'For what reason do you commit this evil deed? I possess treasuries of hundreds of thousands of koṭis, filled entirely with every kind of pleasure and provision, and whatever you need I will give to you in full. What you do gives rise to manifold offenses; I now urge you not to do this thing. What you are doing accords with no principle at all — even were you to gain something by it, of what use could it be? To harm another for one's own benefit is never, in the end, justified. Such evil conduct and every unwholesome dharma of this kind are praised by no tathāgata at all.' Having spoken thus, he gives that person every one of his own pleasures and provisions entirely. He further speaks to them with kind words, expounding the wondrous Dharma, causing them to become joyful — namely, revealing the dharma of tranquility, causing them to accept it with faith, extinguishing what is unwholesome, cultivating pure karma, giving rise to loving-kindness toward one another, and no longer harming each other. That person, having heard this, forever relinquishes wrongdoing and evil. The bodhisattva then, with this wholesome root, dedicates it in this way, namely: 'May all sentient beings be endowed with the form of a great man, accomplishing the Tathāgata's own mark of concealment like a horse's; may all sentient beings be endowed with manhood, giving rise to a courageous mind and cultivating every form of pure conduct; may all sentient beings be endowed with courageous strength, forever taking the lead, abiding in unobstructed wisdom, never regressing; may all sentient beings all obtain a body fully endowed as a great man, forever leaving behind the mind of desire, unstained by anything; may all sentient beings all accomplish the dharma of a good man, their wisdom increasing, praised by every buddha; may all sentient beings universally obtain the strength of a great man, forever able to cultivate the wholesome roots of the ten powers; may all sentient beings never lose or have their manhood destroyed, forever cultivating merit and wisdom, an unprecedented dharma; may all sentient beings, amid the five desires, be unattached and unbound, their minds attaining liberation, wearied of and detached from the three states of existence, abiding in the bodhisattva's own practice; may all sentient beings accomplish the foremost great man of wisdom, honored and trusted by all, who submit and follow his transformation; may all sentient beings be fully endowed with a bodhisattva's own great-man wisdom, and before long become the unsurpassed Great Hero.' This is the bodhisattva mahāsattva's dedication of wholesome roots when forbidding and putting an end to every destruction of manhood; it is so that sentient beings may be endowed with the form of a great man, all able to protect every good and great man, be born into the household of the worthy and noble, be fully endowed with wisdom, forever diligently cultivate the supreme practice of a great man, possess a great man's own function, skillfully able to reveal the seven paths of the great man, be fully endowed with every buddha's own good lineage of the great man, the great man's own right teaching, the great man's own courage, the great man's own diligence, the great man's own wisdom, and the great man's own purity, universally causing sentient beings to ultimately obtain all of this.
Fascicle twenty-seven closes on a scene of rescue directed not at a victim already harmed but at a person about to cause harm — the bodhisattva's compassion reaches toward the perpetrator as much as anyone else, offering an alternative rather than only condemnation. That "such evil conduct... is praised by no tathāgata at all" is stated as simple fact rather than threat: the cruelty is not merely forbidden but has no place at all within what any buddha recognizes as worth doing.
Fascicle 27 Complete — Part 308
This closes fascicle twenty-seven of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra. The sixth dedication continues into fascicle twenty-eight in Part 309.