A Prince Attains the Dharma-Gate
The buddha takes his seat, and expounds a single sūtra that liberates beings by the tens of thousands. The prince, hearing it, attains this very Dharma-gate — the same one this whole teacher's episode has been unpacking since it began. He is revealed as the narrator's own past self, and the five hundred ministers who condemned him are revealed as Devadatta's own future companions, each one still destined for buddhahood.
A Sūtra, and a Dharma-Gate Attained
爾時，太子既見如來，歡喜無量，五體投地，合掌白言：『善來世尊！念哀取我，唯願世尊處摩尼座。』諸菩薩眾皆就寶座，周匝圍遶。時，佛坐已，除滅一切眾生苦患，離諸障蓋堪聖法器。
「爾時，如來知諸眾生應受化者，而為演說圓滿因緣修多羅。時，彼大眾聞正法已，八十那由他眾生皆起離垢清淨法眼，得無學地，一萬眾生得大乘道，滿足普賢菩薩行願，見十方佛轉正法輪，現自在力，百佛世界微塵等眾生，具摩訶衍，滅十方世界無量眾生惡道苦難，生天人趣。時，彼太子得隨應化覺悟眾生長養善根法門。」
At that time, the prince, having beheld the Tathāgata, rejoiced without measure, and threw all five limbs to the ground, joining his palms and saying: "Welcome, World-Honored One! In compassion, accept me; may the World-Honored One take his seat upon the maṇi-throne." Every bodhisattva in the assembly then took their own jeweled seats, encircling him on every side. Once the buddha had taken his seat, every sentient being's own suffering and affliction was extinguished, and, departed from every obstruction and hindrance, they became fit vessels for the sagely Dharma.
"At that time, the Tathāgata, knowing which sentient beings were ready to be transformed, expounded for them the sūtra of Perfect Causes and Conditions. When the great assembly had heard this true Dharma, eighty nayutas of sentient beings all gave rise to the stainless, pure Dharma-eye, attaining the ground beyond further training; ten thousand sentient beings attained the path of the Great Vehicle, fulfilling Samantabhadra Bodhisattva's own practice and vow, beholding the buddhas of the ten directions turning the true Dharma-wheel, manifesting sovereign power; sentient beings equal in number to motes of dust in a hundred buddha-worlds became endowed with the Great Vehicle, extinguishing the suffering of the evil destinies for boundless sentient beings of the worlds of the ten directions, causing them to be born among gods and humans. At that time, the prince attained the Dharma-gate of Awakening Sentient Beings and Nurturing Roots of Goodness According to What Is Fitting to Transform."
This completes the fourteenth and final step of the whole sequence Fazang has traced since the ancient buddha first arose: 四敬禮申請、五說法益眾、六太子得法 — "fourth, reverent bowing and request; fifth, the teaching benefiting the assembly; sixth, the prince attaining the Dharma." The scale of benefit named here — eighty nayutas attaining the stainless Dharma-eye, ten thousand attaining the Great Vehicle, sentient beings equal to motes of dust in a hundred buddha-worlds delivered from the evil destinies — is not incidental to the prince's own story; it is what a single act of substituting his own body for condemned strangers ultimately opens onto. The Dharma-gate this whole teacher's episode has been unpacking across ten parts — nine minds, twenty bodies, eighty-four shared dharmas, ninety-eight forms, five similes — turns out to trace back to exactly this moment: a prince entering a prison because he could not bear what he heard through its walls.
An Identification: A Prince, and Five Hundred Ministers
「佛子！爾時，太子豈異人乎？我身是也！我於一切眾生，起大悲心，普饒益之；不著三界，又亦不求名譽果報，捨離憍慢，不輕他人，不加彼惡，不貪財利，遠離三有，莊嚴大乘，開一切智門，普行菩薩無量諸行。
「佛子！我於爾時，得此法門。時諸大臣今五百惡人調達眷屬是也。彼諸人等，佛皆教化，令發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心，過未來世須彌山微塵等劫，成等正覺；所住世界同名寶光；國界莊嚴、父母種姓、受胎、出生、棄家學道、往詣道場、轉正法輪、說修多羅、語言、音聲、光明、眷屬、壽命、法住、及其名號，皆悉不同。其最初佛，號饒益月；第二佛號大悲師子；第三佛號救護眾生；最後如來號大醫王。」
"Child of the Buddha, could that prince have been anyone other than myself? He was I myself! Toward every sentient being I raised the mind of great compassion, universally bringing them benefit; unattached to the three realms, and seeking neither renown nor recompense, relinquishing arrogance, never belittling others, never adding to their harm, never coveting wealth or gain, departing far from the three states of existence, adorning the Great Vehicle, opening the gate of every wisdom, universally practicing the bodhisattva's own boundless practice.
"Child of the Buddha, at that time, I attained this Dharma-gate. The five hundred ministers of that time are none other than the five hundred evil companions of Devadatta, now. Every one of these people, the buddha taught and transformed, causing them all to raise the mind of unsurpassed, perfect, complete awakening; beyond future kalpas as numerous as motes of dust on Mount Sumeru, they shall attain the most correct awakening; the worlds in which they dwell shall all be named alike Jeweled Light; yet their lands' own adornment, their parents' own lineage, their conception, their birth, their leaving the household life to study the path, their going to the bodhimaṇḍa, their turning of the true Dharma-wheel, their expounding of sūtras, their language, their voice, their light, their retinue, their lifespan, the duration of their Dharma, and their very names — all of these shall differ entirely. The very first of these buddhas shall be named the Moon of Beneficial Kindness; the second shall be named the Lion of Great Compassion; the third shall be named the Rescuer and Protector of Sentient Beings; and the very last tathāgata shall be named the Great King of Physicians."
Fazang names this step simply: 七結會古今 — "seventh, the identification of past and present." The people involved, he notes elsewhere, number four in total across this whole account — 於中有四人：一太子、二惡臣、三獄囚、四大王 — "within this there are four people: first, the prince; second, the evil ministers; third, the prisoners in the dungeon; fourth, the great king" — and this part identifies the first two. The prince, unsurprisingly, is the narrator's own past self. But the five hundred ministers who condemned him to death are identified as the future companions of Devadatta — the very figure Buddhist tradition remembers as the Buddha's own cousin and the chief architect of schism within the early sangha. Naming his own future companions among a group destined, all of them, for buddhahood — each with a genuinely different world, a different name, a different span of teaching — refuses to let their present hostility toward the prince stand as their final word. Their opposition here is simply where their own story happens to be at this particular moment in a kalpa that stretches on, for every one of them, toward the identical destination.
Part 114 In Progress
The prince has been revealed as this teacher's own past self, and his condemning ministers as Devadatta's own future retinue, each one still bound for buddhahood. Part 115 turns to the two remaining identifications this account withholds — who the rescued prisoners and the wrathful king actually were.
Continue to Part 115 →