Fascicle Sixty-Two Opens at Blessed City
Having urged the monks toward enlightenment, Mañjuśrī travels south alone into the human world and arrives at an ancient stūpa site outside the city of Fú — a place once frequented by buddhas of ages past — where a single sūtra he speaks there draws measureless nāgas out of the ocean and out of their own destiny entirely.
A Place Buddhas Have Long Frequented
The Adorned-Banner Śāla Grove is introduced with a double credential: it is both a site where past buddhas taught, and the very place where Śākyamuni himself, in an earlier life as a bodhisattva, gave up what was hardest of all to give up — which is why the eight classes of beings still make offerings there.
爾時，文殊師利菩薩勸諸比丘發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心已，漸次南行，經歷人間，至福城東，住莊嚴幢娑羅林中往昔諸佛曾所止住教化眾生大塔廟處，亦是世尊於往昔時修菩薩行能捨無量難捨之處；是故，此林名稱普聞無量佛剎，此處常為天、龍、夜叉、乾闥婆、阿脩羅、迦樓羅、緊那羅、摩睺羅伽、人與非人之所供養。
At that time, once Mañjuśrī Bodhisattva had urged the monks to give rise to the mind of unsurpassed, perfect enlightenment, he traveled south by stages, passing through the human world, until he reached the eastern side of the city of Fú, where he dwelled at the great stūpa site within the Adorned-Banner Śāla Grove — a place where buddhas of ages past had once abided to teach and transform sentient beings, and which was also the very place where the World-Honored One, in ages past, cultivating the bodhisattva's own practice, was able to give up measureless things difficult to give up. For this reason, this grove's own name is universally heard of throughout measureless buddha-lands, and this place is constantly given offerings by devas, nāgas, yakṣas, gandharvas, asuras, garuḍas, kiṃnaras, mahoragas, and by humans and non-humans alike.
亦是世尊於往昔時修菩薩行能捨無量難捨之處 — and which was also the very place where the World-Honored One, in ages past, cultivating the bodhisattva's own practice, was able to give up measureless things difficult to give up. The text names no specific act of giving here, only its difficulty and its measurelessness — the grove's own soil, in effect, carries the memory of every hard sacrifice Śākyamuni ever made as a bodhisattva.
A Sūtra That Converts an Ocean of Nāgas
One sūtra, spoken once at this stūpa site, reaches all the way into the ocean itself: the nāgas who hear it grow weary of their own destiny and give up their nāga bodies outright, ten thousand of them reaching non-regression in enlightenment on the spot.
時，文殊師利與其眷屬到此處已，即於其處說普照法界修多羅，百萬億那由他修多羅以為眷屬。說此經時，於大海中有無量百千億諸龍而來其所；聞此法已，深厭龍趣，正求佛道，咸捨龍身，生天人中。一萬諸龍，於阿耨多羅三藐三菩提得不退轉；復有無量無數眾生，於三乘中各得調伏。
At that time, once Mañjuśrī and his own retinue arrived at this place, he then spoke, in that very place, the sūtra Universally Illuminating the Dharma-Realm, together with a hundred million nayutas of sūtras as its own retinue. While speaking this sūtra, measureless hundreds of thousands of millions of nāgas came from within the great ocean to that place; and having heard this dharma, they deeply wearied of the nāga's own destiny, rightly sought the path of buddhahood, and all of them gave up their nāga bodies to be born among devas and humans. Ten thousand nāgas attained non-regression in unsurpassed, perfect enlightenment; and measureless, countless further sentient beings each attained taming within one of the three vehicles.
深厭龍趣，正求佛道，咸捨龍身 — they deeply wearied of the nāga's own destiny, rightly sought the path of buddhahood, and all of them gave up their nāga bodies. The nāga is traditionally counted among the six destinies of rebirth, powerful yet still bound; hearing this single sūtra is enough to make an entire ocean's worth of them abandon that very form in favor of the human and heavenly realms from which the path to buddhahood is more directly walked.
Part 893 Complete
This opens chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle sixty-two. Part 894 turns to the people of Blessed City itself, as five hundred laymen, five hundred laywomen, five hundred boys, and five hundred girls all come out to see Mañjuśrī — among the boys, for the first time, a youth named Good-Wealth.