Ten Grounds in Ten Stanzas
Everything from Part 401 onward is now compressed to four lines a ground. Read straight through, the ascent takes a page — and the whole coronation of the tenth, which took five Parts in prose, is told again in the space of six stanzas.
The Ascent, Four Lines at a Time
Each stanza names what the ground did and then hands the traveller on. The ninth gets two, because its work was to look into people.
住於初地生是心，永離眾惡常歡喜，願力廣修諸善法，以悲愍故入後位。
戒聞具足念眾生，滌除垢穢心明潔，觀察世間三毒火，廣大解者趣三地。
三有一切皆無常，如箭入身苦熾然，厭離有為求佛法，廣大智人趣焰地。
念慧具足得道智，供養百千無量佛，常觀最勝諸功德，斯人趣入難勝地。
智慧方便善觀察，種種示現救眾生，復供十力無上尊，趣入無生現前地。
Abiding on the first ground they give rise to this mind; forever apart from every evil, they are constantly joyful; by the power of vows they widely cultivate every wholesome dharma, and out of pity they enter the station that follows. Complete in precepts and in learning, mindful of beings, they wash away defilement and their mind is bright and clean; contemplating the world's three fires of poison, one of vast understanding goes on to the third ground. All within the three modes of existence is impermanent; suffering blazes like an arrow entering the body; wearying of the conditioned and seeking the buddhas' Dharma, one of vast wisdom goes on to the Blazing Ground. Complete in mindfulness and wisdom and attaining the knowledge of the path, making offerings to a hundred thousand measureless buddhas, constantly contemplating the most surpassing merits, such a one goes on to enter the Ground Difficult to Conquer. Contemplating well with wisdom and skillful means, displaying every kind of thing to rescue beings, and making offerings again to the unsurpassed Ones of Ten Powers, they enter the Ground of Direct Presence, where nothing arises.
世所難知而能知，不受於我離有無，法性本寂隨緣轉，得此微妙向七地。
智慧方便心廣大，難行難伏難了知，雖證寂滅勤修習，能趣如空不動地。
佛勸令從寂滅起，廣修種種諸智業，具十自在觀世間，以此而昇善慧地。
以微妙智觀眾生，心行業惑等稠林，為欲化其令趣道，演說諸佛勝義藏。
次第修行具眾善，乃至九地集福慧，常求諸佛最上法，得佛智水灌其頂。
What the world finds hard to know, they are able to know; not taking up a self, they are apart from existence and non-existence; the nature of dharmas is originally quiescent and yet turns along with conditions — attaining this subtlety, they head for the seventh ground. Wisdom and skillful means, and a vast mind; hard to practice, hard to subdue, hard to comprehend; and though they have realized quiescence they cultivate diligently — so they can go on to the Immovable Ground, which is like space. The buddhas urge them to rise from that quiescence and widely cultivate every kind of work of wisdom; complete in the ten masteries, they contemplate the world, and by this they ascend to the Ground of Excellent Wisdom. With subtle wisdom they contemplate beings — the thickets of their mental conduct, their karma and their confusions — and wishing to transform them and turn them toward the path, they expound the buddhas' treasury of ultimate meaning. Practicing in due order and complete in every good, up through the ninth ground gathering merit and wisdom, constantly seeking the buddhas' highest Dharma, they have the buddhas' water of wisdom poured upon their head.
佛勸令從寂滅起 — the buddhas urge them to rise from that quiescence. Two Parts of prose in fascicle thirty-eight went into the buddhas' admonitions on the eighth ground, and the verse renders the whole episode in six characters. Note the verb: they are urged to get up.
法性本寂隨緣轉 — the nature of dharmas is originally quiescent and yet turns along with conditions. The seventh ground's ten pairs are compressed to a single line, and the line is the pair in miniature: nothing is happening, and things are happening.
The Coronation in Verse
The samādhis, the lotus that appears, the light from the body and from the crown, the net of radiance, the buddhas' recognition, the light from between their brows — and the prince made king.
獲得無數諸三昧，亦善了知其作業，最後三昧名受職，住廣大境恒不動。
菩薩得此三昧時，大寶蓮華忽然現，身量稱彼於中坐，佛子圍遶同觀察。
放大光明百千億，滅除一切眾生苦，復於頂上放光明，普入十方諸佛會，
悉住空中作光網，供養佛已從足入；即時諸佛悉了知，今此佛子登職位。
They obtain numberless samādhis and know well what each of them does; the last samādhi is named Receiving the Station, and abiding in a vast domain they are constantly unmoving. When the bodhisattva attains this samādhi, a great jewelled lotus suddenly appears; the measure of their body answering to it, they sit within, and the children of the Buddha surround them and contemplate together. They send forth a great radiance, a hundred thousand koṭis of lights, extinguishing all beings' suffering; and again from the crown of the head they send forth radiance that enters everywhere the assemblies of the buddhas of the ten directions, all of it standing in open space and forming a net of light, and having made offerings to the buddhas it enters in beneath their feet; and at that moment the buddhas all know that this child of the Buddha has now ascended to the station.
十方菩薩來觀察，受職大士舒光照；諸佛眉間亦放光，普照而來從頂入。
十方世界咸震動，一切地獄苦消滅；是時諸佛與其職，如轉輪王第一子。
若蒙諸佛與灌頂，是則名登法雲地，智慧增長無有邊，開悟一切諸世間。
欲界色界無色界，法界世界眾生界，有數無數及虛空，如是一切咸通達。
一切化用大威力，諸佛加持微細智，祕密劫數毛道等，皆能如實而觀察。
Bodhisattvas of the ten directions come to contemplate, and the consecrated great beings spread their light upon them; from between the brows of the buddhas too a radiance is sent forth, illumining everywhere, and it comes and enters in at the crown of the head. The worlds of the ten directions all shake, and the sufferings of every hell are extinguished; and at that time the buddhas confer the station upon them, as upon the eldest son of a wheel-turning king. If one receives consecration from the buddhas, that is called ascending to the Ground of the Dharma-Cloud; their wisdom grows without bound, and they awaken every world. The desire realm, the form realm, the formless realm; the dharma-realm, the world-realm, the realm of beings; the numbered, the numberless, and open space — all of these they penetrate entirely. All the workings of transformation and their great awesome power, the subtle knowledges the buddhas support in them, the secrets, the reckoning of kalpas, the path of a hair and the rest — all of these they can contemplate exactly as they are.
一切地獄苦消滅 — the sufferings of every hell are extinguished. In the prose the light from the soles of the feet reached the hells; the verse attaches the same effect to the moment of consecration itself. What a coronation is for is stated in one line, and it is not the honour.
如轉輪王第一子 — as upon the eldest son of a wheel-turning king. The verse keeps the simile but drops the ceremony — no elephant-throne, no banners, no golden vase of ocean water. What survives compression is the relation: someone's father is still reigning.
Part 488 Complete
This continues Dharmameghā, the Ground of the Dharma-Cloud, the tenth and last of the Ten Grounds, in fascicle thirty-nine. Part 489 finishes the verse and closes both the chapter and the fascicle — the Dharma-rain the great ocean receives, the merit that even a ninth-ground bodhisattva cannot know from a single step, Maheśvara's light, the ten mountains named in a single stanza apiece, and a last couplet on what can be counted and what cannot.