Fascicle Fourteen Opens, Faith as the Root of the Path
Fascicle fourteen opens with the sūtra's eleventh chapter, "The Chapter of Pure Conduct" (淨行品第十一) — already translated in full elsewhere on this site, so this Part picks up directly with the chapter that follows. Mañjuśrī, having finished speaking of pure conduct's own great merit, now asks Foremost in Virtue Bodhisattva to proclaim the merit of the awakening-mind itself. What follows is one continuous hymn of extraordinary length — its opening movement here turns to faith as the very root and mother of the entire path.
Chapter Eleven Skipped: The Chapter of Pure Conduct
Fascicle fourteen opens the sūtra's eleventh chapter, "The Chapter of Pure Conduct" (淨行品第十一) — 141 vow-verses in which Mañjuśrī answers a bodhisattva's question by turning every ordinary act of daily life, from waking to washing to walking a road, into a wish for the awakening of all beings. This chapter is already translated in full, with a reading guide, on its own page on this site: The Chapter of Pure Conduct. This Part continues fascicle fourteen from the chapter that follows it.
Mañjuśrī Asks Foremost in Virtue to Speak
The twelfth chapter, "The Chapter of Bhadraśrī" (賢首品第十二), opens with Mañjuśrī turning to Foremost in Virtue Bodhisattva. Having just finished proclaiming the great merit of pure conduct free of all defilement, he now asks Foremost in Virtue to proclaim, in this same assembly, the supreme merit of cultivating the path — beginning with the awakening-mind itself.
爾時，文殊師利菩薩說無濁亂清淨行大功德已，欲顯示菩提心功德故，以偈問賢首菩薩曰：
「我今已為諸菩薩，說佛往修清淨行，
仁亦當於此會中，演暢修行勝功德。」
At that time, Mañjuśrī Bodhisattva, having finished speaking of the great merit of pure conduct free of all defilement and confusion, and wishing to reveal the merit of the mind of awakening, asked Foremost in Virtue Bodhisattva in verse, saying:
"I have now, for the sake of all the bodhisattvas, spoken of the Buddha's own past cultivation of pure conduct; you too, sir, should now, within this very assembly, fully proclaim the supreme merit of cultivation and practice."
Foremost in Virtue Begins: The Merit of the First Resolve
Foremost in Virtue answers with a hymn of extraordinary length — hundreds of lines, continuing beyond the end of this fascicle into the next. It opens by declaring the sheer immeasurability of the merit found in even the very first arising of the awakening-mind, then turns to identify the true root from which that resolve itself grows: faith.
時，賢首菩薩以偈答曰：
「善哉仁者應諦聽，彼諸功德不可量，
我今隨力說少分，猶如大海一滴水。
若有菩薩初發心，誓求當證佛菩提，
彼之功德無邊際，不可稱量無與等。
何況無量無邊劫，具修地度諸功德，
十方一切諸如來，悉共稱揚不能盡。
如是無邊大功德，我今於中說少分，
譬如鳥足所履空，亦如大地一微塵。
菩薩發意求菩提，非是無因無有緣，
於佛法僧生淨信，以是而生廣大心。
不求五欲及王位，富饒自樂大名稱，
但為永滅眾生苦，利益世間而發心。
常欲利樂諸眾生，莊嚴國土供養佛，
受持正法修諸智，證菩提故而發心。
深心信解常清淨，恭敬尊重一切佛，
於法及僧亦如是，至誠供養而發心。
深信於佛及佛法，亦信佛子所行道，
及信無上大菩提，菩薩以是初發心。
信為道元功德母，長養一切諸善法，
斷除疑網出愛流，開示涅槃無上道。
信無垢濁心清淨，滅除憍慢恭敬本，
亦為法藏第一財，為清淨手受眾行。
信能惠施心無吝，信能歡喜入佛法，
信能增長智功德，信能必到如來地。
信令諸根淨明利，信力堅固無能壞，
信能永滅煩惱本，信能專向佛功德。
信於境界無所著，遠離諸難得無難，
信能超出眾魔路，示現無上解脫道。
信為功德不壞種，信能生長菩提樹，
信能增益最勝智，信能示現一切佛。
是故依行說次第，信樂最勝甚難得，
譬如一切世間中，而有隨意妙寶珠。」
At that time, Foremost in Virtue Bodhisattva answered with a verse, saying:
"Excellent indeed — you, sir, should listen closely and attentively: these merits cannot be measured at all; I shall now, according to my own strength, speak of but a small portion of them, like a single drop of water taken from the great ocean.
If there is a bodhisattva who has just first given rise to the awakening-mind, vowing that he shall attain the Buddha's own bodhi, the merit of that alone is without any boundary at all, impossible to reckon or measure, without anything at all to compare it to.
How much more so, then, across immeasurable, boundless kalpas, fully cultivating every merit of the grounds and the perfections — every Tathāgata throughout the ten directions, together, could never exhaust its praise.
Such is this boundless, great merit; I shall now speak of only a small portion of it within it, like the empty space a bird's foot alone can tread, or like a single fine mote of dust upon the great earth.
When a bodhisattva gives rise to the resolve to seek bodhi, it is not without cause and not without condition; it is by giving rise to pure faith in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha that he thereby gives rise to this vast and expansive mind.
He does not seek the five desires, nor kingship, nor wealth and abundance, nor his own pleasure, nor great renown; it is only for the sake of forever extinguishing the suffering of living beings, and benefiting the world, that he gives rise to this resolve.
Forever wishing to benefit and bring happiness to every living being, adorning his land and making offering to the Buddha, receiving and upholding the true Dharma and cultivating every wisdom — it is for the sake of realizing bodhi that he gives rise to this resolve.
With a profound mind of faith and understanding, forever pure, revering and honoring every buddha, and likewise toward the Dharma and the Sangha — it is with the utmost sincerity of offering that he gives rise to this resolve.
Deeply believing in the Buddha and in the Buddha's own Dharma, and likewise believing in the path that the Buddha's own children practice, and believing in the unsurpassed great bodhi — it is by this that a bodhisattva first gives rise to his resolve.
Faith is the very origin of the path, the mother of all merit, nourishing and growing every wholesome dharma there is, cutting off the net of doubt and leading one out of the current of craving, opening and revealing the unsurpassed path to nirvāṇa.
Faith, free of all stain and turbidity, makes the mind pure; it extinguishes arrogance and conceit, and is the very root of reverence; it is likewise the foremost treasure of the treasury of the Dharma, and serves as the pure hand that receives every practice.
Faith is able to give generously without any stinginess of mind; faith is able to enter the Buddha's own Dharma with joy; faith is able to increase the merit of wisdom; faith is able, without fail, to arrive at the Tathāgata's own ground.
Faith causes every one of the faculties to become pure, bright, and keen; the power of faith, firm and solid, cannot be destroyed by anything; faith is able to extinguish forever the very root of affliction; faith is able to turn one single-mindedly toward the Buddha's own merit.
Faith clings to nothing at all within any object; it stays far removed from every difficulty, and attains a state free of all difficulty; faith is able to transcend and escape every path of the māras, manifesting the unsurpassed path of liberation.
Faith is the indestructible seed of merit; faith is able to give rise to and grow the tree of bodhi; faith is able to increase and add to the most supreme wisdom; faith is able to manifest every single buddha.
And so, following this practice, I speak of it in due order: joyful faith is the most supreme thing, and exceedingly hard to attain — just as, throughout the whole of the world, there exists the wish-fulfilling, wondrous jewel."
This hymn belongs to Foremost in Virtue Bodhisattva (賢首菩薩, Bhadraśrī), the same figure who answered the ninth of Mañjuśrī's nine questions two chapters earlier. Its scale is unlike anything translated on this site so far — hundreds of lines in a single continuous declaration, running well past the end of this fascicle into the next. Its opening move is characteristic of the sūtra's method throughout: rather than listing the stages of the path in order, it first locates the single root from which every later stage will grow. Faith here is not a preliminary belief to be outgrown once real practice begins — Fazang's commentary calls it the entire path's own seed, already containing in miniature everything the later stages will only unfold. The nineteen-fold anaphora of "faith is able to..." (信能) that closes this movement reads almost as an incantation: each line names a specific power, but their cumulative effect is to establish faith not as one virtue among others but as the condition of all of them.
Part 48 Complete
This closes Part 48. Foremost in Virtue's hymn continues in Part 49 with a long chain of causal reasoning — each link showing how faithfully honoring the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha leads step by step, through upholding the precepts and cultivating merit, toward the bodhisattva's own attainment.