Four Rivers from One Lake
With the ten grounds complete, the chapter starts comparing them to things. First a lake whose four rivers cross a continent without running dry and grow as they go; then ten mountains, each holding something inexhaustible, matched one to each ground.
Water That Increases as It Runs
The station's numbers close the tenth ground, and then the sequence of all ten is stated as a single movement toward all-knowing wisdom — with an image of water that behaves unlike any real river.
布施、愛語、利行、同事——如是一切諸所作業，皆不離念佛，乃至不離念具足一切種、一切智智。復作是念：『我當於一切眾生為首、為勝，乃至為一切智智依止者。』若勤加精進，於一念頃，得十不可說百千億那由他佛剎微塵數三昧，乃至示現爾所微塵數菩薩以為眷屬；若以菩薩殊勝願力自在示現，過於此數，所謂：若修行、若莊嚴、若信解、若所作、若身、若語、若光明、若諸根、若神變、若音聲、若行處，乃至百千億那由他劫不能數知。
Giving, kind speech, beneficial conduct, and working alongside others — in all such deeds as these they never depart from the recollection of the Buddha, 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 and the best, and so on up to being that upon which all-knowing wisdom itself relies.' Should they apply diligent effort, in the space of a single thought they attain samādhis as numerous as the dust-motes of ten ineffably many hundreds of thousands of koṭis of nayutas of buddha-lands, and so on up to displaying bodhisattvas as numerous as those dust-motes as their retinue; and if by the surpassing power of a bodhisattva's own vows they display themselves with sovereign freedom, it goes beyond this number — namely in their cultivation, their adornment, their faith and understanding, what they do, their body, their speech, their radiance, their faculties, their transformations, their voice and their places of conduct — on up to a hundred thousand koṭis of nayutas of kalpas being unable to count it or know it.
「佛子！此菩薩摩訶薩十地行相次第現前，則能趣入一切智智。譬如阿耨達池出四大河，其河流注遍閻浮提，既無盡竭，復更增長，乃至入海，令其充滿。佛子！菩薩亦爾，從菩提心流出善根大願之水，以四攝法充滿眾生，無有窮盡，復更增長，乃至入於一切智海，令其充滿。
"Child of the Buddha! When the aspects of practice of the ten grounds have stood present before this bodhisattva mahāsattva in due order, they are then able to enter all-knowing wisdom itself. It is like Lake Anavatapta, from which four great rivers issue; those rivers flow and pour throughout Jambūdvīpa, and they neither run dry nor come to an end, but rather increase further, and at last enter the sea and fill it. Child of the Buddha! A bodhisattva is just so: from the mind of awakening there flows out the water of wholesome roots and great vows, which with the four means of gathering fills beings without ever being exhausted, and which increases further, until at last it enters the ocean of all-knowing wisdom and fills it.
既無盡竭，復更增長 — they neither run dry nor come to an end, but rather increase further. Rivers that cross a continent lose water to the ground and the air; these do the opposite. The four means of gathering — giving, kind speech, beneficial conduct, and working alongside others — are what the water is spent on, and the claim is that spending it is what makes it grow.
Lake Anavatapta, 阿耨達, is the lake at the centre of the world in Indian cosmology, whose name means "without heat" — the four great rivers of the known world were said to flow from it. The whole path from the first arousing of the mind is being placed at that source.
Ten Mountain Kings
Then a second figure: the grounds differ as ten great mountains differ, each of which holds something that cannot be used up. The first three are named, and each mountain's contents are exactly what its ground contains.
「佛子！菩薩十地，因佛智故而有差別，如因大地有十山王。何等為十？所謂：雪山王、香山王、鞞陀梨山王、神仙山王、由乾陀山王、馬耳山王、尼民陀羅山王、斫羯羅山王、計都末底山王、須彌盧山王。
"Child of the Buddha! The bodhisattva's ten grounds have their differences because of the buddhas' wisdom, just as, because of the great earth, there are ten mountain kings. What are the ten? Namely, the Snow Mountain King, the Fragrant Mountain King, the Vaidharī Mountain King, the Ṛṣi Mountain King, the Yugaṃdhara Mountain King, the Horse-Ear Mountain King, the Nimindhara Mountain King, the Cakravāḍa Mountain King, the Ketumatī Mountain King, and the Sumeru Mountain King.
佛子！如雪山王，一切藥草咸在其中，取不可盡；菩薩所住歡喜地亦復如是，一切世間經書、技藝、文頌、呪術咸在其中，說不可盡。佛子！如香山王，一切諸香咸集其中，取不可盡；菩薩所住離垢地亦復如是，一切菩薩戒行、威儀咸在其中，說不可盡。佛子！如鞞陀梨山王，純寶所成，一切眾寶咸在其中，取不可盡；菩薩所住發光地亦復如是，一切世間禪定神通、解脫三昧、三摩鉢底咸在其中，說不可盡。
Child of the Buddha! Just as in the Snow Mountain King all medicinal herbs are found, and cannot be exhausted by taking them, so it is with Pramuditā, the Ground of Joy, on which a bodhisattva abides — all the world's scriptures and arts, its verse-craft and its incantations, are found within it, and cannot be exhausted by expounding them. Child of the Buddha! Just as in the Fragrant Mountain King all fragrances are gathered, and cannot be exhausted by taking them, so it is with Vimalā, the Ground Free of Defilement, on which a bodhisattva abides — all the bodhisattva's practice of the precepts and dignified conduct are found within it, and cannot be exhausted by expounding them. Child of the Buddha! Just as the Vaidharī Mountain King is made purely of jewels and all manner of jewels are found within it, and cannot be exhausted by taking them, so it is with Prabhākarī, the Luminous Ground, on which a bodhisattva abides — all the world's meditative absorptions and spiritual penetrations, its liberations, samādhis and samāpattis, are found within it, and cannot be exhausted by expounding them.
一切世間經書、技藝、文頌、呪術 — all the world's scriptures and arts, its verse-craft and its incantations. These are assigned to the first ground, the Ground of Joy, not to some later specialist stage. The worldly arts that the fifth ground learned for beings' sake are already present in the mountain at the beginning; what changes across the grounds is not what is available but what is taken out.
取不可盡 — cannot be exhausted by taking. Each mountain is matched with 說不可盡, cannot be exhausted by expounding. The pairing is the point of the whole figure: what a ground holds is not diminished by teaching it, exactly as a mountain's herbs are not diminished by gathering them.
Part 484 Complete
This continues Dharmameghā, the Ground of the Dharma-Cloud, the tenth and last of the Ten Grounds, in fascicle thirty-nine. Part 485 completes the ten mountains — the sages of the Ṛṣi Mountain matched to the Blazing Ground, the yakṣas of Yugaṃdhara to the Ground Difficult to Conquer, the fruits of Horse-Ear to the Ground of Direct Presence, and on to Sumeru, where the gods of great majesty dwell and where the Tathāgata's powers and fearlessnesses are found.