The First Ground Complete
Vajragarbha's verse finishes the ground it has been retracing — the vows and the ten things whose inexhaustibility makes them inexhaustible, the giving that keeps back nothing, the fire that refines gold, the caravan leader who learns the road for other people's sake, and the king who gives up his throne to practice. Then he stops, and says what he has given is a small portion. With this, fascicle thirty-four ends.
The Vows, and What Cannot Run Out
The verse reaches the great vows and handles them in a few lines each, then arrives at the ten conditions of exhaustion and states the whole device in a single compressed sentence — a sentence the prose had needed a long passage to build.
不污諸佛家，不捨菩薩戒，不樂於世事，常利益世間。
修善無厭足，轉求增勝道，如是好樂法，功德義相應。
恒起大願心，願見於諸佛，護持諸佛法，攝取大仙道。
常生如是願，修行最勝行，成熟諸群生，嚴淨佛國土。
一切諸佛剎，佛子悉充遍，平等共一心，所作皆不空；
一切毛端處，一時成正覺。如是等大願，無量無邊際。
They do not defile the family of the buddhas, do not abandon the bodhisattva precepts, take no delight in worldly affairs, and constantly benefit the world. Cultivating goodness and never satisfied, they turn to seek an ever more surpassing path; loving and delighting in the Dharma thus, they accord with the meaning of merit. Constantly arousing the mind of great vows, they vow to behold all the buddhas, to guard and uphold the Dharma of the buddhas, and to gather in the path of the great seer. Constantly giving rise to such vows, they cultivate the most supreme practice, ripen the multitude of beings, and adorn and purify buddha-lands. In every buddha-land the children of the Buddha fill all places; equal, together of one mind, nothing that they do is empty; and at every hair's tip alike, all at one time, they accomplish perfect awakening. Great vows such as these are measureless and without any bound.
虛空與眾生，法界及涅槃，世間佛出興，佛智心境界。
『如來智所入，及以三轉盡，彼諸若有盡，我願方始盡；
如彼無盡期，我願亦復然。』如是發大願，心柔軟調順。
Empty space and sentient beings, the dharma-realm and nirvāṇa, the arising of buddhas in the world, a buddha's wisdom and the domain of mind — 'that into which a tathāgata's wisdom enters, and the exhausting of the three turnings: were any one of these to be exhausted, then and only then would my vow be exhausted; but as they have no term of ending, so likewise is it with my vow.' Making great vows in this way, their mind becomes pliant and well attuned.
「一切毛端處，一時成正覺」 — at every hair's tip alike, all at one time, they accomplish perfect awakening. In the prose this was the tenth great vow, unfolded at length. Here it takes ten characters, and the compression makes the claim harder to soften. Awakening is not somewhere one arrives; it is happening at every point of space at once, and the bodhisattva's vow is to be doing it there.
Giving, Refining, and the Road
The verse now runs back through the ground's practice — compassion arising from seeing how beings are made, the giving that empties out everything, the study and the offerings, and then the two similes the prose gave at length, each here reduced to four lines.
能信佛功德，觀察於眾生，知從因緣起，則興慈念心：
『如是苦眾生，我今應救脫。』為是眾生故，而行種種施，
王位及珍寶，乃至象馬車，頭目與手足，乃至身血肉，
一切皆能捨，心得無憂悔。求種種經書，其心無厭倦，
善解其義趣，能隨世所行，慚愧自莊嚴，修行轉堅固，
供養無量佛，恭敬而尊重。
Able to have faith in a buddha's merit, they contemplate sentient beings and know that these arise from causes and conditions; and so a mind of loving thought is stirred in them: 'Beings in such suffering as this — I ought now to rescue them and set them free.' For the sake of these beings they practice every kind of giving — the royal throne and precious treasures, and elephants, horses, and carriages; head and eyes, hands and feet, and even the blood and flesh of the body — all of it they are able to give, and their mind is without sorrow or regret. Seeking out every kind of scripture and treatise, their mind never wearies; well understanding the direction of its meaning, they are able to accord with the ways of the world. Adorning themselves with conscience, their practice grows ever firmer, and they make offerings to measureless buddhas with reverence and with honor.
如是常修習，日夜無懈倦，善根轉明淨，如火鍊真金。
菩薩住於此，淨修於十地，所作無障礙，具足不斷絕。
譬如大商主，為利諸商眾。問知道險易，安隱至大城。
菩薩住初地，應知亦如是，勇猛無障礙，到於第十地。
Cultivating in this way constantly, day and night without slackening, their wholesome roots grow ever brighter and purer, as fire refines true gold. A bodhisattva abiding here cultivates the ten grounds in purity; what they do is without obstruction, complete and never broken off. It is like a great caravan leader who, for the benefit of his company of merchants, enquires and learns which stretches of the road are perilous and which are easy, and brings them safely to the great city. A bodhisattva abiding on the first ground should be known to be just so — valorous and unobstructed, arriving at the tenth ground.
知從因緣起 — knowing that beings arise from causes and conditions — is what the verse puts between contemplating them and being moved by them. The long analysis in Part 408, tracing suffering from name-and-form through the six sense-fields to old age and death, is compressed here into that one clause, and it is doing the same work. Compassion follows from understanding how a person came to be as they are, and does not need to be summoned separately.
He Has Told Only a Small Portion
The verse closes as the prose did, with the king and then with going forth, and then Vajragarbha does something the whole chapter has prepared. Having spoken at length about a teaching he first refused to give at all, he measures what he has said against what there is to say.
住此初地中，作大功德王，以法化眾生，慈心無損害。
統領閻浮地，化行靡不及，皆令住大捨，成就佛智慧。
欲求最勝道，捨己國王位，能於佛教中，勇猛勤修習，
則得百三昧，及見百諸佛，震動百世界，光照行亦爾，
化百土眾生，入於百法門，能知百劫事，示現於百身，
及現百菩薩，以為其眷屬；若自在願力，過是數無量。
Abiding within this first ground they become a king of great merit, transforming beings by the Dharma, their loving mind doing no injury. Ruling over the land of Jambudvīpa, there is nowhere their transforming conduct does not reach; they cause all to abide in great giving and to accomplish a buddha's wisdom. Wishing to seek the most supreme path, they give up their own royal throne, and within the Buddha's teaching are able to practice with valor and diligence — then they attain a hundred samādhis and behold a hundred buddhas, shake a hundred worlds, and so it is likewise with illumining and with travel; they transform the beings of a hundred lands, enter a hundred gateways of Dharma, are able to know the affairs of a hundred kalpas, manifest a hundred bodies, and display a hundred bodhisattvas as their retinue. And if they use the sovereign power of their vows, it exceeds this number measurelessly.
我於地義中，略述其少分，若欲廣分別，億劫不能盡。
菩薩最勝道，利益諸群生，如是初地法，我今已說竟。」
Of the meaning of the grounds I have set out, in brief, only a small portion of it; were one to discriminate it at length, koṭis of kalpas could not exhaust the telling. The bodhisattva's most supreme path benefits the multitude of beings — such is the Dharma of the first ground, and my telling of it is now complete."
The chapter began with Vajragarbha naming the ten grounds and then falling silent, on the grounds that the world could not receive what he had to say. Everything since has been the assembly, Vimuktacandra, and finally the Buddha's own light persuading him to speak anyway. Now, at the close of the first of ten, he returns to the same position from the other side — he has spoken, and what he has spoken is 少分, a small portion.
That is not a retraction. It is the working solution the chapter arrived at. His original objection was never answered by being refuted; the light's verse conceded it, and told him to speak regardless. What he has produced is a teaching offered under a permanent qualification — accurate, useful, and not to be mistaken for the whole of what it is about. Nine grounds remain, and each will be given the same way.
Fascicle 34 Complete
This completes fascicle thirty-four and the first of the Ten Grounds. Chapter 26 continues in fascicle thirty-five with 十地品第二十六之二, opening the second ground — Vimalā, the Ground Free of Defilement — where the bodhisattva who has completed the first ground gives rise to ten kinds of profound mind and takes up the ten courses of wholesome action.