True Gold Placed in Alum
The second ground begins to close, and it closes on the same pattern the first did — buddhas past counting, the four requisites, a simile from the goldsmith's workshop, and a worldly station. But the details have all moved up a step. The gold now goes into alum rather than fire, kind speech has replaced giving as what predominates, and the king rules more than one continent.
Received Again, and Never Lost
The offerings passage repeats the first ground's almost word for word, with one addition that does not appear there. Having already been taught the ten wholesome courses, the bodhisattva takes them up again from the buddhas themselves.
「佛子！菩薩住此離垢地，以願力故，得見多佛。所謂：見多百佛、多千佛、多百千佛、多億佛、多百億佛、多千億佛、多百千億佛，如是乃至見多百千億那由他佛。於諸佛所，以廣大心、深心，恭敬尊重，承事供養，衣服、飲食、臥具、醫藥，一切資生悉以奉施，亦以供養一切眾僧，以此善根迴向阿耨多羅三藐三菩提。於諸佛所，以尊重心，復更受行十善道法，隨其所受，乃至菩提，終不忘失。
"Child of the Buddha! A bodhisattva abiding on this Ground Free of Defilement, by the power of vows, comes to see many buddhas. That is to say: they see many hundreds of buddhas, many thousands of buddhas, many hundreds of thousands of buddhas, many millions of buddhas, many hundreds of millions of buddhas, many thousands of millions of buddhas, many hundreds of thousands of millions of buddhas, and so on up to seeing many hundreds of thousands of millions of nayutas of buddhas. In the presence of those buddhas, with a vast mind and a profound mind, they revere and honor them, attend upon them and make offerings to them — robes, food and drink, bedding, and medicine, every requisite of life presented as a gift — and they make offerings to the whole Saṅgha as well, dedicating these wholesome roots to unsurpassed, perfect awakening. In the presence of those buddhas, with a mind of reverence, they receive and practice the dharma of the ten wholesome courses once again; and whatever they thus receive, they never forget or lose it, all the way to awakening.
是菩薩於無量百千億那由他劫，遠離慳嫉破戒垢故，布施、持戒清淨滿足。譬如真金置礬石中，如法鍊已，離一切垢，轉復明淨。菩薩住此離垢地，亦復如是，於無量百千億那由他劫，遠離慳嫉破戒垢故，布施、持戒清淨滿足。
Throughout measureless hundreds of thousands of millions of nayutas of kalpas this bodhisattva, because they stand far from the stains of stinginess, envy, and broken discipline, brings giving and the keeping of discipline to purity and completion. It is like true gold placed in alum and refined by the proper method: it comes free of every stain, and turns brighter and purer than before. A bodhisattva abiding on this Ground Free of Defilement is likewise: throughout measureless hundreds of thousands of millions of nayutas of kalpas, because they stand far from the stains of stinginess, envy, and broken discipline, they bring giving and the keeping of discipline to purity and completion.
佛子！此菩薩，四攝法中，愛語偏多；十波羅蜜中，持戒偏多；餘非不行，但隨力隨分。
Child of the Buddha! In this bodhisattva, among the four means of gathering, kind speech predominates; among the ten pāramitās, the keeping of discipline predominates. It is not that they fail to practice the others, but they do so according to their strength and according to their share.
復更受行十善道法 — they receive and practice the ten wholesome courses once again. This is the detail that distinguishes the passage from its counterpart on the first ground. The bodhisattva already knows these ten; the whole of the second ground has been an exposition of them. What they do in the presence of buddhas is take them up a second time, and the clause that follows says why it matters: what is received this way is never afterward lost.
The change of simile is precise. On the first ground, gold went into fire, and the point was that heat removes what is not gold. Alum is a different operation — a mordant, used to draw out impurity chemically rather than burn it away. The first ground's purification was subtractive by force; this one works on what fire alone would leave behind.
Note which of the four means of gathering now predominates. On the first ground it was giving, and beneficial conduct and working alongside others were explicitly not yet thoroughly practiced. Kind speech has now moved to the front — which is what one would expect of a ground whose central discipline included seventeen kinds of harsh speech abandoned and ten kinds of good speech taken up in their place.
A Wheel-Turning Sage King
Each ground names the worldly station its bodhisattva most often holds, and the station rises with the ground. The first gave a king of Jambudvīpa, one continent. This one gives a wheel-turning sage king, whose authority is of a different order — and the sūtra immediately says what it is for.
「佛子！是名：略說菩薩摩訶薩第二離垢地。菩薩住此地，多作轉輪聖王，為大法主，具足七寶，有自在力，能除一切眾生慳貪破戒垢，以善方便令其安住十善道中；為大施主，周給無盡。布施、愛語、利行、同事——如是一切諸所作業，皆不離念佛，不離念法，不離念僧，乃至不離念具足一切種、一切智智。又作是念：『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，乃至為一切智智依止者。』
"Child of the Buddha! This is called, spoken in brief, the bodhisattva mahāsattva's second ground, Vimalā, the Ground Free of Defilement. A bodhisattva abiding on this ground most often becomes a wheel-turning sage king, a great lord of Dharma, complete in the seven treasures and possessed of sovereign power, able to remove from all beings the stains of stinginess, greed, and broken discipline, and by skillful means to settle them within the ten wholesome courses; a great lord of giving, whose provision to others is inexhaustible. 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, 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 — and so on up to being that upon which all-knowing wisdom itself relies.'
The wheel-turning king's power is described, and then immediately spent. Sovereign authority and the seven treasures are named only to be put to a single use — removing from beings the very stains this ground removed from the bodhisattva, and settling them in the ten courses the bodhisattva has just received a second time. The station is not a reward for the discipline; it is the scale at which the discipline can now be shared.
All four means of gathering appear here again, as they did in the first ground's closing passage, even though the text has just said that kind speech is what predominates. The pattern holds: a bodhisattva acts in all four ways from the start, and what advances from ground to ground is which one they are actually good at.
Part 419 Complete
This continues the second of the Ten Grounds. Chapter 26 continues in Part 420 as the bodhisattva who wishes to leave the household life goes forth and attains, in a single thought, a thousand samādhis and a thousand buddhas — ten times what the first ground gave — and Vajragarbha then restates the whole of the second ground in verse, from the ten minds that enter it to the discipline that makes compassion grow.