A Bodhisattva Arrives from the East
The vision that fills every world now finds its cause: bodhisattvas are converging on the Jeta Grove from beyond unspeakably many worlds in every direction. The first arrival comes from the east, led by a bodhisattva who shares his buddha's own name, filling the sky with heavenly clouds before conjuring a jeweled seat of his own.
The First of Ten Directions
What follows is a single recurring pattern, repeated once for each of the ten directions: a distant world is named, its buddha is named, a bodhisattva from that buddha's own assembly is named, and that bodhisattva arrives bearing a distinct kind of offering before conjuring a seat of his own beside the Buddha. The pattern begins here, in the east.
爾時，東方過不可說佛剎微塵數世界海外有世界，名：金燈雲幢，佛號：毘盧遮那勝德王。彼佛眾中有菩薩，名：毘盧遮那願光明，與不可說佛剎微塵數菩薩俱，來向佛所，悉以神力興種種雲，所謂：天華雲、天香雲、天末香雲、天鬘雲、天寶雲、天莊嚴具雲、天寶蓋雲、天微妙衣雲、天寶幢幡雲、天一切妙寶諸莊嚴雲，充滿虛空。至佛所已，頂禮佛足，即於東方化作寶莊嚴樓閣及普照十方寶蓮華藏師子之座，如意寶網羅覆其身，與其眷屬結跏趺坐。
At that time, in the east, beyond an ocean of worlds as numerous as unspeakably many fine motes of dust in every buddha-land, there was a world named Golden-Lamp Cloud Banner, whose buddha was named Vairocana Victorious-Virtue King. In that buddha's own assembly there was a bodhisattva named Vairocana Vow-Light, who, together with unspeakably many bodhisattvas as numerous as fine motes of dust in every buddha-land, came toward the place where the Buddha was, raising up through spiritual power alone every kind of cloud, namely: clouds of heavenly flowers, clouds of heavenly incense, clouds of heavenly powdered incense, clouds of heavenly garlands, clouds of heavenly jewels, clouds of heavenly ornaments, clouds of heavenly canopies, clouds of heavenly wondrous garments, clouds of heavenly jeweled banners and pennants, and clouds of every kind of heavenly wondrous jewel and ornament, filling the whole of empty space. Having arrived where the Buddha was, they bowed in reverence at his feet, and then, in the east, conjured a jeweled and adorned pavilion together with a lion-seat of jeweled lotus-treasury universally illuminating the ten directions; covered their own bodies with nets of wish-fulfilling jewels; and sat down cross-legged there together with their own retinues.
毘盧遮那願光明 — Vairocana Vow-Light. This first bodhisattva shares his own name with his own buddha, Vairocana Victorious-Virtue King — a small echo, right at the opening of the ten-direction procession, of Vairocana, the cosmic buddha whose body this entire sūtra elsewhere identifies with the whole of reality itself.
Part 838 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle sixty. Part 839 turns to the south, where a second bodhisattva arrives bearing a different kind of offering — nets and bands and necklaces made entirely of jewels.