The Caravan Leader
Part 410 ended with the instruction to ask about all ten grounds while still standing on the first. Here the sūtra says why. A bodhisattva must know the obstacles of every ground, how each forms and dissolves, and where each does and does not belong — and the reason is given in a simile about a man responsible for other people's safety on a long road, who finds out what is on it before he takes a single step.
Ten Things Known Well
The list is of knowledge rather than attainment, and every item concerns the grounds as a whole rather than the one being stood on. The last clause carries the whole sequence past the tenth ground entirely.
是菩薩善知諸地障對治，善知地成壞，善知地相果，善知地得修，善知地法清淨，善知地地轉行，善知地地處、非處，善知地地殊勝智，善知地地不退轉，善知淨治一切菩薩地乃至轉入如來地。佛子！菩薩如是善知地相，始於初地起行不斷，如是乃至入第十地無有斷絕；由此諸地智光明故，成於如來智慧光明。
This bodhisattva knows well the obstacles of the grounds and their remedies; knows well the forming and the dissolving of a ground; knows well the characteristics of a ground and its fruit; knows well the attaining and the cultivating of a ground; knows well the purity of a ground's dharmas; knows well the passage of practice from ground to ground; knows well what is and what is not the place for each ground; knows well the surpassing wisdom of each ground; knows well the irreversibility of each ground; and knows well the purifying and preparing of every bodhisattva ground, on up to the passage into the ground of a tathāgata. Child of the Buddha! A bodhisattva who thus knows well the characteristics of the grounds sets out in practice from the first ground without interruption, and so on until entering the tenth ground without any break at all; and because of the light of wisdom of all these grounds, they accomplish the light of a tathāgata's wisdom.
善知地地處、非處 — knowing what is and is not the place for each ground — is the item that makes the rest practical. It is not enough to know that a ground exists and what it contains; one has to know where it belongs in the sequence, and therefore what does not belong on the ground one currently occupies. Much of the discipline of the grounds consists in declining to attempt prematurely what a later ground will make possible.
Before Setting a Foot on the Road
The simile is given in three movements — the leader's preparation, the completeness of his foreknowledge, and then the application. The detail that carries it is that all the knowing happens before departure, while there is still time for it to change what gets packed.
佛子！譬如商主善知方便，欲將諸商人往詣大城，未發之時，先問道中功德過失，及住止之處安危可不，然後具道資糧，作所應作。
Child of the Buddha! It is like a caravan leader skilled in means. Wishing to bring a company of merchants to a great city, before setting out he first enquires about the merits and the hazards of the road, and whether the resting places along it are safe or not; and only then does he furnish the provisions for the journey and do what should be done.
佛子！彼大商主雖未發足，能知道中所有一切安危之事，善以智慧籌量觀察，備其所須令無乏少，將諸商眾乃至安隱到彼大城，身及眾人悉免憂患。
Child of the Buddha! Though that great caravan leader has not yet set a foot upon the road, he is able to know every matter of safety and of danger upon it; skillfully weighing and observing with wisdom, he prepares all that is needed so that nothing is lacking, and brings the whole company of merchants safely to that great city, so that he himself and all his people alike are spared distress and harm.
佛子！菩薩商主亦復如是，住於初地，善知諸地障對治，乃至善知一切菩薩地清淨，轉入如來地，然後乃具福智資糧，將一切眾生經生死曠野險難之處，安隱得至薩婆若城，身及眾生不經患難。是故，菩薩常應匪懈勤修諸地殊勝淨業，乃至趣入如來智地。
Child of the Buddha! The bodhisattva caravan leader is just so. Abiding on the first ground, they know well the obstacles of the grounds and their remedies, and so on until they know well the purity of every bodhisattva ground and the passage into the ground of a tathāgata; and only then do they furnish the provisions of merit and wisdom, and lead all sentient beings through the wilderness of birth and death, through its dangers and its hard places, safely to the city of all-knowing wisdom, so that neither they themselves nor those beings undergo calamity. Therefore a bodhisattva should always and without slackening diligently cultivate the supreme and pure works of the grounds, on up to entering the ground of a tathāgata's wisdom.
「佛子！是名：略說菩薩摩訶薩入菩薩初地門，廣說則有無量無邊百千阿僧祇差別事。
"Child of the Buddha! This is called, spoken in brief, the gateway by which a bodhisattva mahāsattva enters the bodhisattva's first ground; spoken at length, there are measureless, boundless hundreds of thousands of asaṃkhyeyas of distinct matters within it.
The caravan leader's foreknowledge is not for his own sake. He could travel light and alone; what makes the enquiry necessary is the company. Everything he learns about the road converts into provisions for people who do not know what is coming, and the measure of his success is stated twice as everyone arriving unharmed, himself included but not first.
This is why the sūtra can insist that a bodhisattva on the first ground study the tenth. Someone travelling alone may learn the road as they go and pay for their mistakes themselves. Someone who has undertaken to bring others through cannot. The knowledge has to be complete before departure because the vow was made on behalf of people who will be relying on it.
A King of Jambudvīpa
Each of the ten grounds closes by naming the worldly station its bodhisattva most often occupies. For the first it is kingship over Jambudvīpa — and the sūtra immediately qualifies what such a position is for, and what must not be let go of while holding it.
「佛子！菩薩摩訶薩住此初地，多作閻浮提王，豪貴自在，常護正法，能以大施攝取眾生，善除眾生慳貪之垢，常行大施無有窮盡。布施、愛語、利益、同事——如是一切諸所作業，皆不離念佛，不離念法，不離念僧，不離念同行菩薩，不離念菩薩行，不離念諸波羅蜜，不離念諸地，不離念力，不離念無畏，不離念不共佛法，乃至不離念具足一切種、一切智智。復作是念：『我當於一切眾生中為首、為勝、為殊勝、為妙、為微妙、為上、為無上、為導、為將、為帥，乃至為一切智智依止者。』
"Child of the Buddha! A bodhisattva mahāsattva abiding on this first ground most often becomes a king of Jambudvīpa, noble and sovereign, forever guarding the true Dharma, able to gather beings in by great giving, skillfully removing from beings the stain of stinginess and greed, and constantly practicing a great giving that never runs out. Giving, kind speech, beneficial conduct, and working alongside others — in all such deeds as these they never depart from the recollection of the Buddha, never depart from the recollection of the Dharma, never depart from the recollection of the Saṅgha, never depart from the recollection of the bodhisattvas who practice alongside them, never depart from the recollection of the bodhisattva practice, never depart from the recollection of the pāramitās, never depart from the recollection of the grounds, never depart from the recollection of the powers, never depart from the recollection of the fearlessnesses, never depart from the recollection of the unshared buddha-dharmas, and so on up to never departing from the recollection of being fully endowed with all modes and with all-knowing wisdom itself. And they think further: 'Among all sentient beings I ought to be the foremost, the best, the most excellent, the wondrous, the subtly wondrous, the superior, the unsurpassed — a guide, a captain, a commander — and so on up to being that upon which all-knowing wisdom itself relies.'
Note which of the four means of gathering appear here. Part 410 said plainly that beneficial conduct and working alongside others were not yet thoroughly practiced on this ground — and all four are named in this passage anyway, as things the king does. The sūtra is not contradicting itself. A bodhisattva acts in all four ways from the beginning; what the earlier passage denied was mastery, not attempt.
The closing aspiration reads uncomfortably at first — to be foremost, best, unsurpassed among all beings. But the list runs downhill into its real meaning. Guide, captain, commander are all offices of responsibility on a journey, which is exactly the simile just given; and the final term is not a rank at all but 依止, something others lean on. What is being asked for is the position of the one who carries the weight.
Part 411 Complete
This continues the First Ground of the Ten Grounds chapter. Chapter 26 continues in Part 412 as the first ground reaches its close — the bodhisattva who wishes to leave the household life is able to give up home, family, and the five desires, and having gone forth attains in a single thought a hundred samādhis, sees a hundred buddhas, shakes a hundred worlds, and lives a hundred kalpas; and beyond even that, what the power of a bodhisattva's own vows can display exceeds all counting. Vajragarbha then restates the whole ground in verse.