Sovereign Lord's Own Answer Begins
The boy who was playing in sand turns out to hold a dharma-gate learned directly from Mañjuśrī himself — a mastery of writing, numbers, and craft so complete it lets him cure disease, build entire cities, and read a stranger's own future rebirth from nothing more than the shape of their body.
Learned From Mañjuśrī, Applied to Everything
What began as ordinary childhood skill — writing, counting, calculating — turns out to have come from the youth Mañjuśrī himself, and to reach far beyond arithmetic: healing disease, founding cities, refining medicine, managing trade, and reading a being's own destiny at a glance.
自在主言：「善男子！我昔曾於文殊師利童子所，修學書、數、算、印等法，即得悟入一切工巧神通智法門。善男子！我因此法門故，得知世間書、數、算、印界處等法，亦能療治風癇、消瘦、鬼魅所著——如是所有一切諸病，亦能造立城邑聚落、園林臺觀、宮殿屋宅種種諸處，亦善調鍊種種仙藥，亦善營理田農商估一切諸業，取捨進退咸得其所；又善別知眾生身相，作善作惡，當生善趣，當生惡趣，此人應得聲聞乘道，此人應得緣覺乘道，此人應入一切智地，如是等事皆悉能知。亦令眾生學習此法，增長決定究竟清淨。
Sovereign Lord said: "Good son, in the past I once, at the place of the youth Mañjuśrī, studied and learned writing, enumeration, calculation, seals, and similar arts, and thereupon awakened to and entered the dharma-gate of the spiritual wisdom of every skillful craft. Good son, because of this dharma-gate, I came to know the world's own writing, enumeration, calculation, seals, and the various fields and domains of such arts, and am also able to treat wind-sickness, epilepsy, wasting disease, and possession by ghosts and spirits — every such illness there is, and am also able to build cities, towns, villages, gardens, groves, towers, belvederes, palaces, and houses of every kind, and am also skilled at preparing and refining every kind of immortal medicine, and am also skilled at managing farming, agriculture, and every kind of commercial trade, knowing exactly when to take and when to leave, when to advance and when to withdraw; and I am also skilled at distinguishing and knowing beings' own bodily marks, whether they do good or do evil, whether they will be reborn in a good destiny or an evil destiny, whether this person should attain the path of the śrāvaka vehicle, whether this person should attain the path of the pratyekabuddha vehicle, whether this person should enter the ground of omniscience — all such matters I am entirely able to know. I also cause beings to study and learn this dharma, growing in it decisively until they reach ultimate purity.
我昔曾於文殊師利童子所，修學書、數、算、印等法 — I once, at the place of the youth Mañjuśrī, studied writing, enumeration, calculation, and seals. Mañjuśrī has already appeared in this pilgrimage as the one who first sent Good-Wealth to Virtue-Cloud, back in fascicle sixty-two. Here he reappears in an entirely different role — not as the one who launches the pilgrimage, but as the teacher standing quietly behind one of its ordinary-seeming children.
Part 992 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle sixty-five. Part 993 turns to Sovereign Lord's own demonstration of the bodhisattva's counting method, a number-ladder built from koṭis and ayutas that climbs, rung by rung, all the way to the Unspeakably Unspeakable.