On to Gopā at Kapilavastu
The forest-deva names the boundary of her own attainment against the far larger scope of the great bodhisattvas, and sends Sudhana onward to Gopā, a Śākya woman at Kapilavastu — closing out this teacher's entire episode, the ninth of the Ten Grounds, the Ground of Sublime Wisdom.
A Boundary Named, and a Path to Kapilavastu
「佛子！我唯知此菩薩受生自在法門，諸大菩薩能以諸劫為一念藏，顯現一切諸妙方便，供養諸佛，滿足大願，覺了一切諸佛正法，示現一切諸趣受生，生諸佛所，教化眾生未曾失時，為眾生現受生自在，於諸佛剎現自在雲，常生一切諸如來家。我當云何能知、能說彼諸功德？佛子！迦毘羅城有釋迦女，名曰瞿夷。汝詣彼問云何菩薩遊生死中教化眾生？」
"Child of the Buddha, I know only this Dharma-gate of a bodhisattva's own sovereign mastery in rebirth. As for how the great bodhisattvas are able to take every kalpa as a single thought-moment's own treasury, manifesting every sublime skillful means, making offerings to buddhas, fulfilling the great vow, awakening to and understanding the true Dharma of every buddha, manifesting rebirth throughout every destiny, being born at the presence of every buddha, teaching and transforming sentient beings, never once missing the right moment, manifesting for sentient beings their own sovereign mastery in rebirth, manifesting clouds of sovereign mastery throughout every buddha-land, and constantly being born into the family of every tathāgata — how could I possibly be able to know, or to speak of, their merit? Child of the Buddha, at the city of Kapilavastu, there is a Śākya woman, named Gopā. Go to her, and ask: how does a bodhisattva wander amid birth-and-death, teaching and transforming sentient beings?"
Fazang treats this closing exchange as formulaic, passing over it in a single line: 下結自分及推勝進，竝可知 — "what follows, concluding her own portion and looking upward to the one further advanced, may be understood without further comment." He confirms the referral by name at the very next teacher's own entry: 第十法雲地知識內...瞿夷者，古譯名明女 — "within the tenth, the Ground of the Dharma-Cloud... Gopā, in an old translation, is named 'Bright Woman.'" He adds a detail worth carrying forward: 佛為太子時有三夫人，瞿夷第一、耶輸陀羅第二、摩奴舍第三 — "when the Buddha was a prince, he had three wives; Gopā was the first, Yaśodharā the second, Manodharā the third." The teacher Sudhana is sent to next, in other words, is not a minor figure but the foremost of Śākyamuni's own three wives before his renunciation — a deliberate escalation in intimacy after Māyā's own account of motherhood, from the mother who bore him to the wife who once shared his household life.
Teacher 39 Complete — On to Kapilavastu
Teacher 39, the forest-deva Sublime Virtue, Perfect and Full, is now complete across sixteen parts (122–137) — ten kinds of rebirth-dharma in prose and verse, the entire miraculous birth at Lumbinī with its ten signs, ten lights, and ten forms of sovereign mastery, and an ancient account of a wet-nurse who was the deva herself, retold a second time in twenty-three and a half stanzas. Part 138 opens the tenth and final Ground, the Ground of the Dharma-Cloud, with Sudhana's farewell and his journey toward Kapilavastu to find Gopā.
Continue to Part 138 →