A Vow Made Before a Painted Image
This page opens Ru-Yi's translation of the Sūtra of Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva's Fundamental Vows (地藏菩薩本願經), translated into Chinese by Śikṣānanda of Khotan in the early 8th century. It carries the sūtra's first two chapters: the measureless assembly gathered at the Trāyastriṃśa Heaven to hear the Buddha praise a bodhisattva none of them can fully picture, the story of the elder's son who first vowed never to become a buddha until every suffering being was free, and the story of a Brahmin woman who followed her mother's spirit into hell and found, waiting there, a name that this whole collection's reading notes will keep returning to: Kṣitigarbha's own name is, in the end, only another word for a child's devotion to a parent.
Translation Method
The Chinese source is Śikṣānanda's translation (實叉難陀, "Joy of Learning"), a monk from Khotan brought to the Tang court around 695 CE, mainly to retranslate the Avataṃsaka Sūtra from a fuller Khotanese manuscript than earlier translators had access to; this sūtra is a smaller work from later in his time in China. No Sanskrit or Tibetan witness of the Sūtra of Kṣitigarbha's Fundamental Vows has ever surfaced, and — unlike the clearly Indic Daśacakra Sūtra (大乘大集地藏十輪經) or the Sūtra of the Divination of the Effect of Good and Evil Actions (占察善惡業報經), both also central to Kṣitigarbha devotion — some modern scholars have suspected Chinese authorship for this particular text, though the question remains debated rather than settled. What is not in doubt is the sūtra's influence: within a few centuries it had become the primary scriptural source for Kṣitigarbha's identity as the bodhisattva of the hell-realms, filial devotion, and the great vow to empty every hell before accepting buddhahood himself.
This collection reads it with the commentary of Lingcheng (靈椉, courtesy name 青蓮苾芻, "the Blue-Lotus monk"), a Kangxi-era monk who held himself to be the fifth-generation heir of the Tiantai teaching-and-contemplation lineage. His commentary, the Dizang Pusa Benyuan Jing Kezhu (地藏菩薩本願經科注, X0384), runs to six fascicles and was, by his own preface, composed while he was ill — the first sustained commentary on this sūtra in the roughly one thousand years since its translation, according to the prefaces later attached to it. Those prefaces were themselves written in Japan: a monk named Zhenchang carried Lingcheng's manuscript across the sea to Nagasaki for publication, where it received forewords from the Ōbaku Zen monks Gaoquan Xingdun and Yuefeng Daozhang in 1688. Lingcheng structures his reading through the classical Tiantai "five profound meanings" (五重玄義) — name, essence, core teaching, function, and doctrinal classification — and places this sūtra, on chronological grounds tied to the Buddha's own final years, in the "ghee" tier of Tiantai's five periods, immediately after the Lotus Sūtra and before the Nirvāṇa Sūtra: the same rank Tiantai gives its own most complete teachings. Classical text is set in the left-hand column below, our English in the right. See also this site's note on translation method.
The Assembly at Trāyastriṃśa
如是我聞：一時，佛在忉利天，為母說法。爾時，十方無量世界，不可說不可說一切諸佛，及大菩薩摩訶薩，皆來集會。讚歎釋迦牟尼佛，能於五濁惡世，現不可思議大智慧神通之力，調伏剛彊眾生，知苦樂法，各遣侍者，問訊世尊。是時，如來含笑，放百千萬億大光明雲——所謂大圓滿光明雲、大慈悲光明雲、大智慧光明雲、大般若光明雲、大三昧光明雲、大吉祥光明雲、大福德光明雲、大功德光明雲、大歸依光明雲、大讚歎光明雲。放如是等不可說光明雲已，又出種種微妙之音——所謂檀波羅蜜音、尸波羅蜜音、羼提波羅蜜音、毘離耶波羅蜜音、禪波羅蜜音、般若波羅蜜音、慈悲音、喜捨音、解脫音、無漏音、智慧音、大智慧音、師子吼音、大師子吼音、雲雷音、大雲雷音。
出如是等不可說不可說音已，娑婆世界及他方國土，有無量億天龍鬼神，亦集到忉利天宮。所謂四天王天、忉利天、須焰摩天、兜率陀天、化樂天、他化自在天、梵眾天、梵輔天、大梵天、少光天、無量光天、光音天、少淨天、無量淨天、遍淨天、福生天、福愛天、廣果天、無想天、無煩天、無熱天、善見天、善現天、色究竟天、摩醯首羅天，乃至非想非非想處天，一切天眾、龍眾、鬼神等眾，悉來集會。
復有他方國土，及娑婆世界海神、江神、河神、樹神、山神、地神、川澤神、苗稼神、晝神、夜神、空神、天神、飲食神、草木神，如是等神，皆來集會。
復有他方國土，及娑婆世界諸大鬼王——所謂惡目鬼王、噉血鬼王、噉精氣鬼王、噉胎卵鬼王、行病鬼王、攝毒鬼王、慈心鬼王、福利鬼王、大愛敬鬼王，如是等鬼王，皆來集會。
Thus have I heard. At one time the Buddha was in the Trāyastriṃśa Heaven, teaching the Dharma for his mother's sake. At that time, from the ten directions and from measureless world-systems, all the buddhas — more than could ever be told — together with great bodhisattva-mahāsattvas, all came and gathered there. They praised Śākyamuni Buddha for his power to manifest, in this evil age of the five turbidities, inconceivable great wisdom and spiritual might, subduing beings of unbending temper and making known to them the Dharma of suffering and its ease; and each sent an attendant to pay respects to the World-Honored One. At that time the Tathāgata smiled, and emitted hundreds of thousands of myriads of great clouds of light — namely: the cloud of Great Perfect Fullness, the cloud of Great Kindness and Compassion, the cloud of Great Wisdom, the cloud of Great Prajñā, the cloud of Great Samādhi, the cloud of Great Auspiciousness, the cloud of Great Merit, the cloud of Great Virtue, the cloud of Great Refuge, and the cloud of Great Praise. Having emitted these and other clouds of light beyond telling, he then gave forth every kind of subtle and wondrous sound — namely: the sound of the pāramitā of giving, of moral discipline, of patience, of diligence, of meditative absorption, and of wisdom; the sound of loving-kindness, of compassion, of sympathetic joy, and of equanimity; the sound of liberation, of the undefiled, of wisdom, of great wisdom; the sound of the lion's roar and the great lion's roar; and the sound of clouds and thunder, and of great clouds and thunder.
Having given forth these and other sounds beyond telling, from this Sahā world and from other lands measureless hundreds of millions of gods, nāgas, and spirits also gathered at the Trāyastriṃśa Heaven — namely those of the Heaven of the Four Heavenly Kings, the Trāyastriṃśa Heaven, the Yāma Heaven, the Tuṣita Heaven, the Nirmāṇarati Heaven, the Paranirmitavaśavartin Heaven, the Heaven of Brahmā's Multitude, of Brahmā's Ministers, the Great Brahmā Heaven, the Heavens of Lesser and Measureless Light, the Heaven of Light Sound, the Heavens of Lesser and Measureless Purity, the Heaven of Universal Purity, the Heavens of Generated and Beloved Merit, the Heaven of Vast Fruit, the Heaven of No Thought, the Heavens Without Vexation and Without Heat, the Heavens of Fine Sight and Fine Manifestation, the Heaven of the Ultimate Form, the Heaven of Maheśvara, and on up to the Heaven of Neither Thought Nor No-Thought — every host of gods, of nāgas, and of spirits, all came and gathered there.
There were also, from other lands and from this Sahā world, the spirits of the sea, of rivers, of streams, of trees, of mountains, of the earth, of marshes and waterways, of the crops, of day and of night, of space and of the sky, of food and drink, and of grasses and trees — these and other spirits, all came and gathered there.
There were also, from other lands and from this Sahā world, the great ghost-kings — namely: the Ghost-King of the Evil Eye, the Ghost-King Who Devours Blood, the Ghost-King Who Devours Vital Essence, the Ghost-King Who Devours Fetuses and Eggs, the Ghost-King of Epidemic Disease, the Ghost-King Who Gathers Poisons, the Ghost-King of Compassionate Heart, the Ghost-King of Blessing and Benefit, and the Ghost-King of Great Love and Reverence — these and other ghost-kings, all came and gathered there.
Lingcheng reads the ten clouds of light as more than a list — he maps each one, in order, onto Tiantai's own ten modes of contemplation (十乘觀法), the graduated sequence of insight Zhiyi lays out in the Great Calming and Contemplation. Great Perfect Fullness corresponds to contemplating the inconceivable object itself — the single thought that already contains the three thousand realms; Great Kindness and Compassion, to the arousing of true bodhicitta once that object is seen; Great Wisdom and Great Prajñā, to skillfully settling calming-and-insight and to thoroughly breaking through delusion; Great Samādhi, to discerning what is blocked and what flows freely; Great Auspiciousness, to the harmonious tuning of the thirty-seven factors of enlightenment; Great Merit, to the auxiliary practices that open the way when the direct path meets obstruction; Great Virtue, to knowing one's own stage and so avoiding overestimation; Great Refuge, to the patient endurance that lets a practitioner advance regardless of favorable or adverse conditions; and Great Praise, to relinquishing even attachment to the Dharma-joy of the concordant stages, so as to enter true realization. Nine clouds flow out from the first, Lingcheng notes, exactly as nine further modes of contemplation all depend on first correctly discerning the inconceivable object — "if this were not held to be one and the same substance as the fruit already realized, it could not be called a perfect object of contemplation at all."
On why deities and spirits from other buddhas' worlds — not Śākyamuni's own domain to teach — would come at all, Lingcheng gives two reasons. First, Kṣitigarbha's own past-life connection to these beings runs deeper than any one buddha's teaching-territory: wherever his emanations have worked, over kalpas, an affinity remains that draws beings to him on sight of the light or sound alone. Second, he invokes the classical fourfold typology of precepts-held against vows-made: gods arrive here still diligent in both discipline and aspiration, while nāgas and ghosts arrive diligent in aspiration but lax in discipline — which is exactly why they carry the "light" retribution of an animal-or-spirit rebirth rather than a human one, and exactly why they, of all beings, most urgently need what this assembly is about to hear.
How Many Are Gathered Here?
爾時，釋迦牟尼佛告文殊師利法王子菩薩摩訶薩：「汝觀是一切諸佛菩薩，及天龍鬼神，此世界，他世界，此國土，他國土，如是今來集會，到忉利天者，汝知數不？」
文殊師利白佛言：「世尊！若以我神力，千劫測度，不能得知。」
佛告文殊師利：「吾以佛眼觀故，猶不盡數。此皆是地藏菩薩久遠劫來，已度、當度、未度，已成就、當成就、未成就。」
文殊師利白佛言：「世尊！我已過去久修善根，證無礙智，聞佛所言，即當信受。小果聲聞、天龍八部，及未來世諸眾生等，雖聞如來誠實之語，必懷疑惑，設使頂受，未免興謗。唯願世尊，廣說地藏菩薩摩訶薩因地作何行、立何願，而能成就不思議事？」
佛告文殊師利：「譬如三千大千世界，所有草木叢林，稻麻竹葦，山石微塵，一物一數，作一恒河，一恒河沙，一沙一界。一界之內，一塵一劫，一劫之內，所積塵數，盡充為劫。地藏菩薩證十地果位已來，千倍多於上喻。何況地藏菩薩在聲聞、辟支佛地。文殊師利！此菩薩威神誓願，不可思議。若未來世，有善男子、善女人，聞是菩薩名字，或讚歎，或瞻禮，或稱名，或供養，乃至彩畫、刻鏤、塑漆形像，是人當得百返生於三十三天，永不墮惡道。」
At that time Śākyamuni Buddha said to the bodhisattva-mahāsattva Mañjuśrī, Dharma Prince: "You see all these buddhas and bodhisattvas, gods, nāgas, and spirits, from this world and other worlds, this land and other lands, who have now come and gathered here at the Trāyastriṃśa Heaven — do you know their number?" Mañjuśrī said to the Buddha: "World-Honored One, even if I were to reckon it with my spiritual power for a thousand kalpas, I could not know it." The Buddha said to Mañjuśrī: "Even with my buddha-eye I cannot exhaust their number, looking upon them. All of these are beings whom Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva, since long distant kalpas, has already liberated, is now liberating, or has yet to liberate; has already brought to accomplishment, is now bringing to accomplishment, or has yet to bring to accomplishment." Mañjuśrī said to the Buddha: "World-Honored One, I have long cultivated wholesome roots in ages past, and have realized unobstructed wisdom — when I hear what the Buddha says, I accept it in faith at once. But lesser-fruit śrāvakas, the eightfold division of gods and nāgas, and sentient beings of future ages — even hearing the Tathāgata's truthful and honest words, will surely harbor doubt; and though outwardly they may seem to accept them with a bow of the head, inwardly they will not escape slander. I beg only that the World-Honored One explain at length what practices Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva-Mahāsattva undertook in the causal ground, and what vows he made, that he has been able to accomplish such inconceivable things."
The Buddha said to Mañjuśrī: "Suppose that all the grass, trees, and thickets, the rice, hemp, bamboo, and reeds, the mountains, stones, and motes of dust in a great trichiliocosm were each reckoned, one thing making one number, until they made up a single Ganges River; suppose one Ganges' worth of sand made up one world; and within a single world, one mote of dust made up one kalpa; and within a single kalpa, all the dust thus accumulated were further heaped up entirely into kalpas — even so, the kalpas since Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva realized the ten grounds would be a thousand times more than this simile can suggest — how much more so the time he spent in the stage of a śrāvaka or a pratyekabuddha! Mañjuśrī, this bodhisattva's majestic spiritual power and vow are inconceivable. If, in a future age, there is a good son or good daughter who hears this bodhisattva's name and, whether in praise, in reverent gazing and bowing, in calling his name, in making offerings, or even in painting, carving, or forming his image in clay or lacquer, that person will attain rebirth a hundred times over in the Heaven of the Thirty-Three, and will never again fall into an evil destiny."
Lingcheng takes the sand-and-dust simile seriously as arithmetic, not just as rhetoric — he works through the trichiliocosm's own numbers (a small-thousand world times a thousand makes a middle-thousand, times a thousand again makes a great-thousand) before noting that even this staggering count of kalpas is explicitly said to be a thousandfold understatement of Kṣitigarbha's actual span since reaching the ten bodhisattva grounds, which is itself a lesser figure than however long he spent, earlier still, at the rank of an śrāvaka or pratyekabuddha. He flags that last detail as more than decorative: the Daśacakra Sūtra records Kṣitigarbha, together with countless other bodhisattvas, arriving before the Buddha in the visible form of śrāvakas — so when this sūtra says he was once "in the stage of" hearer or solitary-realizer, Lingcheng reads it as likely referring to one of these deliberate appearances rather than an actual, lesser attainment: skillful means chosen to meet beings who trust that form of teacher, not a ceiling on what he had already realized.
A Vow Behind a Buddha's Marks
「文殊師利！是地藏菩薩摩訶薩，於過去久遠不可說不可說劫前，身為大長者子。時世有佛，號曰師子奮迅具足萬行如來。時長者子，見佛相好，千福莊嚴，因問彼佛：『作何行願，而得此相？』時師子奮迅具足萬行如來告長者子：『欲證此身，當須久遠度脫一切受苦眾生。』
「文殊師利！時長者子，因發願言：『我今盡未來際不可計劫，為是罪苦六道眾生，廣設方便，盡令解脫，而我自身，方成佛道。』以是於彼佛前，立斯大願，于今百千萬億那由他不可說劫，尚為菩薩。」
"Mañjuśrī, this Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva-Mahāsattva, in ages past, distant beyond telling and telling again, was once the son of a great elder. At that time there was a buddha in the world named Siṃha-vikrīḍita, Tathāgata Who Perfects the Myriad Practices. Seeing that buddha's excellent marks, adorned with a thousand blessings, the elder's son asked him: 'What practice, what vow, brought you these marks?' Siṃha-vikrīḍita, Tathāgata Who Perfects the Myriad Practices, said to the elder's son: 'To attain a body such as this, you must, over a long span of time, liberate every being who suffers.'
"Mañjuśrī, the elder's son then made this vow: 'From now until the farthest reaches of the future, through kalpas beyond count, for the sake of these suffering, guilty beings of the six destinies, I will devise every kind of skillful means and bring every one of them to liberation — and only then will I myself accomplish buddhahood.' Because he made this great vow before that buddha, he has, even now, through hundreds of thousands of myriads of nayutas of kalpas beyond telling, still remained a bodhisattva."
Lingcheng identifies this vow with the Śūraṅgama Sūtra's own definition of bodhisattva aspiration — "not yet liberated himself, he first liberates others" — and flags a question a careful reader might raise: this whole story is told in the sequential, kalpa-by-kalpa language of what Tiantai calls the Distinct Teaching (別教), the gradualist framework proper to bodhisattvas still climbing a graduated path. If Lingcheng has already classified this entire sūtra as belonging to the Perfect Teaching (圓教) — Tiantai's own highest, non-sequential tier — how can its central vow be told this way without contradiction? His answer borrows a line from the Vimalakīrti Sūtra: a bodhisattva may know perfectly well that buddha-lands and beings are themselves empty, and still labor to purify lands and teach beings as though sequence and difference were fully real — "the practice differentiated, the mind already perfect." The elder's son's vow is told as a story with a beginning and an end, in other words, because a vow needs a shape a listener can follow; the mind making it, on Lingcheng's reading, was never actually bound by that shape.
The Brahmin Woman's Journey Into Hell
「又於過去，不可思議阿僧祇劫，時世有佛，號曰覺華定自在王如來。彼佛壽命，四百千萬億阿僧祇劫。像法之中，有一婆羅門女，宿福深厚，眾所欽敬；行住坐臥，諸天衛護。其母信邪，常輕三寶。是時聖女，廣說方便，勸誘其母，令生正見。而此女母，未全生信，不久命終，魂神墮在無間地獄。時婆羅門女，知母在世不信因果，計當隨業，必生惡趣。遂賣家宅，廣求香華，及諸供具，於先佛塔寺，大興供養。見覺華定自在王如來，其形像在一寺中，塑畫威容，端嚴畢備。時婆羅門女，瞻禮尊容，倍生敬仰。私自念言：『佛名大覺，具一切智，若在世時，我母死後，儻來問佛，必知處所。』時婆羅門女，垂泣良久，瞻戀如來。忽聞空中聲曰：『泣者聖女！勿至悲哀，我今示汝母之去處。』婆羅門女合掌向空，而白空曰：『是何神德，寬我憂慮。我自失母已來，晝夜憶戀，無處可問知母生界。』時空中有聲，再報女曰：『我是汝所瞻禮者，過去覺華定自在王如來。見汝憶母，倍於常情眾生之分，故來告示。』婆羅門女聞此聲已，舉身自撲，支節皆損。左右扶侍，良久方穌，而白空曰：『願佛慈愍，速說我母生界。我今身心，將死不久。』時覺華定自在王如來告聖女曰：『汝供養畢，但早返舍。端坐思惟吾之名號，即當知母所生去處。』
「時婆羅門女，尋禮佛已，即歸其舍。以憶母故，端坐念覺華定自在王如來，經一日一夜。忽見自身，到一海邊。其水涌沸，多諸惡獸，盡復鐵身，飛走海上，東西馳逐。見諸男子女人，百千萬數，出沒海中，被諸惡獸爭取食噉。又見夜叉，其形各異，或多手多眼，多足多頭，口牙外出，利刃如劍，驅諸辠人，使近惡獸，復自搏攫，頭足相就。其形萬類，不敢久視。時婆羅門女，以念佛力故，自然無懼。」
"Again, in ages past, incalculable asaṃkhyeya kalpas ago, there was a buddha in the world named King of the Sovereign Meditation of the Enlightenment-Flower, whose lifespan was four hundred thousand myriads of asaṃkhyeyas of kalpas. In the age of the semblance Dharma there was a Brahmin woman deeply endowed with blessings from former lives, revered by all, guarded by the gods in her every walking, standing, sitting, and lying down. Her mother, however, held wrong views, and habitually scorned the Three Jewels. The holy daughter, by every skillful means, urged and persuaded her mother to hold right views — but her mother did not come to full faith, and before long her life ended, her spirit falling into the Avīci hell.
"Knowing that her mother, while alive, had not believed in cause and effect, and reckoning that she would surely be reborn, according to her karma, into an evil destiny, the Brahmin woman sold the family house and sought far and wide for incense and flowers and every kind of offering, and made a great offering at the stūpas and monasteries of buddhas of the past. She saw an image of the Tathāgata King of the Sovereign Meditation of the Enlightenment-Flower in one monastery, its painted and molded form majestic and utterly complete, and as the Brahmin woman gazed on that reverend countenance and bowed to it, her veneration redoubled. She thought to herself: 'The Buddha is called the Greatly Awakened, and possesses all wisdom. Were he still in the world, and had my mother died, I could go and ask the Buddha, and he would surely know where she has gone.' The Brahmin woman wept for a long while, gazing on the Tathāgata in longing. Suddenly she heard a voice in the air: 'Weeping holy one, do not grieve so bitterly — I will now show you where your mother has gone.' The Brahmin woman joined her palms toward the empty air and said to it: 'What spirit of virtue eases my sorrow? Since I lost my mother, I have longed for her day and night, with nowhere to ask after the realm into which she was born.' Then a voice in the air spoke to her again: 'I am the one you gaze upon and revere — the buddha of the past, King of the Sovereign Meditation of the Enlightenment-Flower. Seeing that your longing for your mother surpasses that of ordinary beings, I have come to tell you.' Hearing this voice, the Brahmin woman flung herself to the ground, injuring her limbs and joints; those beside her raised and supported her, and only after a long while did she recover. She said to the empty air: 'I beg the Buddha, out of compassion, to tell me quickly where my mother has been born — my body and mind are near death.' The Tathāgata King of the Sovereign Meditation of the Enlightenment-Flower then said to the holy daughter: 'When your offerings are complete, simply return home at once. Sit upright and meditate on my name, and you will then come to know where your mother has been reborn.'
"The Brahmin woman, having bowed to the Buddha, at once returned home. Because of her longing for her mother, she sat upright and held the name of the Tathāgata King of the Sovereign Meditation of the Enlightenment-Flower in mind for a full day and night. Suddenly she saw herself arrive at the shore of a sea, its waters seething and boiling, filled with fierce beasts, every one of them iron-bodied, flying and racing over the waves, chasing east and west. She saw men and women, hundreds of thousands of them, rising and sinking in the sea, seized and devoured by the fierce beasts fighting over them. She also saw yakṣas of every different form — some with many hands and many eyes, many feet and many heads, their fangs thrusting outward like sharpened blades — driving the guilty toward the beasts, or themselves seizing and clawing at them, crushing head and foot together. Their forms were of a thousand kinds, too terrible to look upon for long. But because of the power of her mindfulness of the Buddha, the Brahmin woman was, of herself, unafraid."
Lingcheng is explicit that this vision is not a place the Brahmin woman travels to so much as a state her own mind produces and then walks through. Quoting the Laṅkāvatāra's image of a great ocean churned into waves by wind, he reads the sea itself as karmic-consciousness given form, and treats the iron-bodied beasts and many-handed yakṣas the same way he treats the ten light-clouds earlier in this chapter — as "mind resembling its object" (識心似境), arising from exactly the kind of deluded consciousness that built the scene in the first place, not as an independently existing place she happens to visit. He is careful to draw a boundary around the claim, though: "if one penetrates that objects and mind are both empty, the sea too grows still of itself — mind and object both quieted, nothing goes unillumined." This is not a claim that hell is unreal or that karma doesn't matter; it is a claim about where hell's reality is located — which is exactly why her fear falls away the moment her mind is occupied with the Buddha's name instead of her own guilt or grief, while every other suffering figure in the same vision remains exactly as afraid, and as devoured, as before.
A Name for Filial Devotion
「有一鬼王，名曰無毒，稽首來迎，白聖女曰：『善哉！菩薩何緣來此？』時婆羅門女問鬼王曰：『此是何處？』無毒答曰：『此是大鐵圍山西面第一重海。』聖女問曰：『我聞鐵圍之內，地獄在中，是事實不？』無毒答曰：『實有地獄。』聖女問曰：『我今云何，得到獄所？』無毒答曰：『若非威神，即須業力，非此二事，終不能到。』聖女又問：『此水何緣，而乃涌沸？多諸罪人，及以惡獸？』無毒答曰：『此是閻浮提造惡眾生新死之者，經四十九日後，無人繼嗣為作功德，救拔苦難，生時又無善因，當據本業所感地獄，自然先渡此海。海東十萬由旬，又有一海，其苦倍此。彼海之東，又有一海，其苦復倍。三業惡因之所招感，共號業海，其處是也。』聖女又問鬼王無毒曰：『地獄何在？』無毒答曰：『三海之內，是大地獄，其數百千，各各差別。所謂大者，具有十八。次有五百，苦毒無量。次有千百，亦無量苦。』聖女又問大鬼王曰：『我母死來未久，不知魂神當至何趣？』鬼王問聖女曰：『菩薩之母，在生習何行業？』聖女答曰：『我母邪見，譏毀三寶。設或暫信，旋又不敬。死雖日淺，未知生處。』無毒問曰：『菩薩之母，姓氏何等？』聖女答曰：『我父我母，俱婆羅門種。父號尸羅善現，母號悅帝利。』無毒合掌，啟菩薩曰：『願聖者却返本處，無至憂憶悲戀。悅帝利罪女，生天以來，經今三日。云承孝順之子，為母設供、修福，布施覺華定自在王如來塔寺。非唯菩薩之母得脫地獄，應是無間罪人，此日悉得受樂，俱同生訖。』鬼王言畢，合掌而退。婆羅門女，尋如夢歸。悟此事已，便於覺華定自在王如來塔像之前，立弘誓願：『願我盡未來劫，應有罪苦眾生，廣設方便，使令解脫。』」
佛告文殊師利：「時鬼王無毒者，當今財首菩薩是。婆羅門女者，即地藏菩薩是。」
"There was a ghost-king named Non-Poison, who bowed his head and came to welcome her, saying to the holy daughter: 'Excellent, bodhisattva! What has brought you here?' The Brahmin woman asked the ghost-king: 'What place is this?' Non-Poison answered: 'This is the first sea to the west of the Great Iron Ring Mountains.' The holy daughter asked: 'I have heard that within the Iron Ring Mountains there are hells. Is this true?' Non-Poison answered: 'There truly are hells.' The holy daughter asked: 'How have I now come to be at the hells?' Non-Poison answered: 'One arrives here only by majestic spiritual power, or else by the force of karma — without one of these two, one could never arrive.' The holy daughter again asked: 'Why does this water seethe and boil, and why are there so many guilty people and fierce beasts in it?' Non-Poison answered: 'These are beings of Jambudvīpa who did evil and have newly died. Forty-nine days having passed with no descendant to perform merit on their behalf and rescue them from suffering, and having had no good cause while alive, they are, according to whatever hell their own karma has drawn them toward, brought first across this sea. Ten thousand yojanas to the east of this sea is another sea, whose suffering is twice this; and to the east of that sea is yet another, whose suffering doubles again. These are brought about by the evil causes of the three karmas, and together are called the Sea of Karma — this is that place.' The holy daughter again asked the ghost-king Non-Poison: 'Where are the hells?' Non-Poison answered: 'Within these three seas are the great hells, numbering in the hundreds and thousands, each one different from the rest. Of the greatest there are eighteen. Next there are five hundred, of measureless torment. Next there are a thousand and a hundred more, likewise of measureless suffering.' The holy daughter again asked the great ghost-king: 'My mother died not long ago — I do not know to which destiny her spirit has gone.' The ghost-king asked the holy daughter: 'What deeds did the bodhisattva's mother practice while alive?' The holy daughter answered: 'My mother held wrong views, and mocked and slandered the Three Jewels. Even when for a time she came to believe, she soon returned to irreverence. Though she has been dead only a short while, I do not know where she has been born.' Non-Poison asked: 'What is the bodhisattva's mother's clan and name?' The holy daughter answered: 'My father and mother were both of the Brahmin caste. My father is called Śīla-sunetra, and my mother is called Vairatikī.' Non-Poison joined his palms and said to the bodhisattva: 'I beg the holy one to return now to her own place, and grieve and long for her mother no further. The guilty woman Vairatikī was born in a heaven three days ago. It is said that this was due to a filial and devoted child, who on her mother's behalf made offerings and cultivated merit, giving to the stūpa and monastery of the Tathāgata King of the Sovereign Meditation of the Enlightenment-Flower. Nor was it only the bodhisattva's mother who was freed from hell — on this same day, the very sinners of Avīci itself all came to experience ease, and were reborn together with her.' Having finished speaking, the ghost-king joined his palms and withdrew.
"The Brahmin woman, as though returning from a dream, understood what had happened, and before the stūpa-image of the Tathāgata King of the Sovereign Meditation of the Enlightenment-Flower, made this great vow: 'I vow that, for as long as future kalpas endure, in response to every suffering and guilty being, I will devise every kind of skillful means to bring about their liberation.'"
The Buddha said to Mañjuśrī: "The ghost-king Non-Poison of that time is now the bodhisattva Foremost in Wealth. The Brahmin woman is Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva himself."
Lingcheng closes the chapter with what amounts to his thesis for the whole sūtra: "the name Kṣitigarbha is, in its entirety, a synonym for filial devotion" (地藏之名，全是孝順之目). He gets there by tracing what actually earned the mother her release — not the Brahmin woman's vow, which comes only afterward, but the merit of a devoted child making offerings on a parent's behalf, which the ghost-king Non-Poison names explicitly as the cause: "it is said this was due to a filial and devoted child." Filial piety, on this reading, is not a value the sūtra happens to illustrate; it is the specific mechanism, stated in the plainest terms the text ever uses, by which a soul already fallen into Avīci is pulled back out — and Kṣitigarbha's own origin story turns out to be built from exactly this mechanism, twice: this Brahmin woman saving her mother in Part 1, and — readers already familiar with the tradition will know — the girl named Bright Eyes saving hers by the same means in Part 2 of this sūtra, a story yet to come in this collection.
He adds one more identification, easy to read past: the ghost-king Non-Poison is later revealed, in the Contemplation of the Buddha Samādhi Sūtra, to be the same figure as a prince converted by a single visit to a Buddha-image, who through that seed of merit went on to attain "a very profound Śūraṅgama-samādhi" — which Lingcheng takes as evidence that Non-Poison already stood at the rank of near-equal enlightenment even while appearing, here, in the humble role of a hell-realm ghost-king. The detail matters for how this whole assembly should be read: even the minor characters greeting the Brahmin woman at the gates of hell are not what their station suggests.
One Body, Countless Emanations
爾時，百千萬億不可思、不可議、不可量、不可說、無量阿僧祇世界，所有地獄處，分身地藏菩薩，俱來集在忉利天宮。以如來神力故，各以方面，與諸得解脫從業道出者，亦各有千萬億那由他數，共持香華，來供養佛。彼諸同來等輩，皆因地藏菩薩教化，永不退轉於阿耨多羅三藐三菩提。是諸眾等，久遠劫來，流浪生死，六道受苦，暫無休息。以地藏菩薩廣大慈悲，深誓願故，各獲果證。既至忉利，心懷踊躍，瞻仰如來，目不暫捨。
爾時，世尊舒金色臂，摩百千萬億不可思、不可議、不可量、不可說、無量阿僧祇世界諸分身地藏菩薩摩訶薩頂，而作是言：「吾於五濁惡世，教化如是剛彊眾生，令心調伏，捨邪歸正。十有一二，尚惡習在。吾亦分身千百億，廣設方便。或有利根，聞即信受。或有善果，勤勸成就。或有暗鈍，久化方歸。或有業重，不生敬仰。如是等輩眾生，各各差別，分身度脫。或現男子身，或現女人身，或現天龍身，或現神鬼身，或現山林川原、河池泉井，利及於人，悉皆度脫。或現天帝身，或現梵王身，或現轉輪王身，或現居士身，或現國王身，或現宰輔身，或現官屬身，或現比丘、比丘尼、優婆塞、優婆夷身，乃至聲聞、羅漢、辟支佛、菩薩等身，而以化度。非但佛身，獨現其前。汝觀吾累劫勤苦，度脫如是等難化剛彊罪苦眾生。其有未調伏者，隨業報應。若墮惡趣，受大苦時，汝當憶念吾在忉利天宮，殷勤付囑。令娑婆世界，至彌勒出世已來眾生，悉使解脫，永離諸苦，遇佛授記。」
爾時，諸世界分身地藏菩薩，共復一形，涕淚哀戀，白其佛言：「我從久遠劫來，蒙佛接引，使獲不可思議神力，具大智慧。我所分身，遍滿百千萬億恒河沙世界。每一世界，化百千萬億身。每一身，度百千萬億人，令歸敬三寶，永離生死，至涅槃樂。但於佛法中，所為善事，一毛一渧，一沙一塵，或毫髮許，我漸度脫，使獲大利。唯願世尊不以後世惡業眾生為慮。」如是三白佛言：「唯願世尊不以後世惡業眾生為慮。」
爾時，佛讚地藏菩薩言：「善哉！善哉！吾助汝喜。汝能成就久遠劫來，發弘誓願，廣度將畢，即證菩提。」
At that time, from hundreds of thousands of myriads of inconceivable, indescribable, immeasurable, ineffable, and measureless asaṃkhyeya world-systems, from every place where there were hells, the emanated bodies of Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva all came together and gathered at the Trāyastriṃśa Heaven. Through the Tathāgata's spiritual power, each of them, from their own quarter, came together with those who, through them, had won liberation from the paths of karma — themselves numbering thousands of myriads of nayutas — all holding incense and flowers, to make offerings to the Buddha. All these who came together had, through Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva's teaching, become forever irreversible in their progress toward Anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi. These beings had, since kalpas long past, drifted through birth and death, suffering in the six destinies without a moment's rest; but through Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva's vast compassion and profound vows, each had won the fruit of realization. Having now arrived at Trāyastriṃśa, their hearts leapt with joy, and they gazed up at the Tathāgata, their eyes never leaving him for an instant.
At that time the World-Honored One stretched out his golden-hued arm, and stroked the crowns of the heads of all the emanated bodies of Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva-Mahāsattva from those hundreds of thousands of myriads of inconceivable, indescribable, immeasurable, ineffable, and measureless asaṃkhyeya world-systems, and spoke these words: "In this evil age of the five turbidities, I have taught and transformed beings such as these, of unbending temper, subduing their minds and turning them from wrong to right. Of these, one or two in ten still retain their evil habits. I too divide my body into hundreds of thousands of myriads of forms, and devise every kind of skillful means. Some, of sharp faculties, hear and believe at once. Some, through wholesome results, are diligently urged on to accomplishment. Some, dull and benighted, are converted only after long teaching. Some, heavy with karma, do not so much as give rise to reverence. Beings such as these, each one different, I liberate by dividing my body — appearing sometimes in the body of a man, sometimes a woman, sometimes a god or nāga, sometimes a spirit or ghost, sometimes as mountains, forests, streams, plains, rivers, ponds, springs, or wells, that benefit may reach people and all may be liberated. I appear sometimes in the body of Indra, sometimes a Brahmā king, sometimes a wheel-turning king, sometimes a householder, sometimes a king of a country, sometimes a minister, sometimes an official, sometimes a bhikṣu, a bhikṣuṇī, an upāsaka, or an upāsikā, and even in the bodies of śrāvakas, arhats, pratyekabuddhas, and bodhisattvas, converting and liberating beings thereby — it is not only in the body of a buddha that I appear before them. You see how, through kalpa upon kalpa of toil and hardship, I liberate beings such as these, hard to convert, unbending, guilty, and suffering. Those who are not yet subdued will, in accordance with their karmic retribution, fall into evil destinies; and when they undergo great suffering there, you must remember that I, in the Trāyastriṃśa Heaven, earnestly entrusted them to you — that you should cause the beings of the Sahā world, up until Maitreya comes into the world, all to be liberated, forever to leave every suffering, and to meet a buddha and receive a prediction of their future buddhahood."
At that time the emanated bodies of Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva from all the world-systems came together again into a single form, and said to the Buddha, weeping in sorrowful longing: "Since kalpas long past, I have received the Buddha's guidance, and have thereby gained inconceivable spiritual power and great wisdom. My emanated bodies fill hundreds of thousands of myriads of world-systems as numerous as the sands of the Ganges. In every one of those world-systems, I transform into hundreds of thousands of myriads of bodies; and through every one of those bodies, I liberate hundreds of thousands of myriads of people, causing them to take refuge in and revere the Three Jewels, forever to leave birth and death, and to reach the bliss of nirvāṇa. As for whatever good deed is done within the Buddha-Dharma — be it a single hair, a single drop, a single grain of sand, a single mote of dust, or something no larger than the tip of a hair — I gradually bring that person to liberation, and cause them to attain great benefit. I beg only that the World-Honored One have no anxiety over the evil-karma beings of future ages." Three times he said this to the Buddha: "I beg only that the World-Honored One have no anxiety over the evil-karma beings of future ages."
At that time the Buddha praised Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva, saying: "Excellent, excellent! I rejoice in your joy. That you have been able to accomplish, since kalpas long past, the great vow you made — now that your vast work of liberation is nearly complete, you shall attain bodhi."
Lingcheng reaches for the same image the Awakening of Faith and the Huayan corpus both use for the one-and-many relation: "one moon casts its reflection on every body of water; every reflected moon in every body of water is gathered back into that one moon." The countless emanated bodies filing in from hell-realm after hell-realm, and then folding back into a single grieving figure before the Buddha, is not a magic trick layered on top of Kṣitigarbha's teaching — on this reading it is the same relation Huayan finds in Indra's net, applied to a bodhisattva rather than to the cosmos as a whole: many is never actually many, one is never actually confined to being one, and the folding-together changes nothing about what was already true.
On the vow to redeem even "a single hair, a single drop" of merit, Lingcheng draws the explicit connection to the Lotus Sūtra's own teaching that raising one hand or bowing one's head before a Buddha-image already plants a seed that ripens into buddhahood — the same principle, he notes, by which the sūtra can open its very next chapters describing the crudest possible listing of sins and hells without becoming a fundamentally different kind of teaching than the Lotus itself claims to be. He also takes up a question the passage invites but does not answer: why does the Buddha say Kṣitigarbha "shall attain bodhi," as if his buddhahood still lay ahead, when the sūtra has just spent an entire chapter establishing spiritual power fully equal to a buddha's own? He resolves it with a line from the Sūtra of Universal Light — a bodhisattva of this rank neither abides in saṃsāra nor abides in nirvāṇa — reading "shall attain" not as a a gap still to be closed, but as the Buddha's own gracious refusal to let Kṣitigarbha's vow be treated as finished business while a single hell remains occupied.
Part 1 Complete
This closes Part 1: the measureless assembly at Trāyastriṃśa, the vow of the elder's son who refused buddhahood until every suffering being was free, and the Brahmin woman's descent into hell to find that her mother's rescue — and, in the end, her own identity as Kṣitigarbha — traces back to nothing more exotic than a child's devotion to a parent. Part 2 turns to the Buddha's mother, Māyā, and Kṣitigarbha's answer to her question about how karma actually works across the countless different worlds and beings of the cosmos — the sūtra's first sustained account of what specific deeds lead to the Avīci hell, and why it is called "without interval" at all.
Continue to Part 2 — Māyā's Question, and the Hell Without Interval →