Gopā, Seated Among Eighty-Four Thousand Women
Sudhana and the welcoming deva ascend to the lecture hall and, searching throughout it, finally behold Gopā: seated on a lion-throne of jeweled lotus, surrounded by eighty-four thousand women of royal and noble birth — every one of them already accomplished in giving, great compassion, non-retrogression, and Samantabhadra's own practice.
Found at Last: A Throne of Jeweled Lotus
◎爾時，離憂妙德天偈讚歎已，恭敬法故，俱昇法堂，昇法堂已，周遍推求彼釋迦女。即見坐於寶蓮華藏師子之座，八萬四千眾女圍遶，皆是貴族王者之女，悉於過去彼菩薩所修行諸行，同彼菩薩一切善根，常以布施、愛語攝取眾生，求薩婆若，利益一切，令諸眾生同佛菩提。大悲為首，普念眾生如一子想，修習大慈，普覆一切。過去已曾於菩薩所修不思議勝妙智慧，於阿耨多羅三藐三菩提得不退轉，具足成滿諸波羅蜜，心無所著，直心智慧，皆悉清淨。
求薩婆若，離障蓋網，超出諸難，得淨法身。行普賢行，長養菩薩一切諸力，成就圓滿淨智慧日。
At that time, the deva Sorrow-Free, Sublime Virtue, having finished praising him in verse, out of reverence for the Dharma, ascended together with him to the lecture hall. Having ascended to the lecture hall, they searched everywhere throughout it for that Śākya woman. They beheld her seated upon a lion-throne, the treasury of a jeweled lotus flower, surrounded by eighty-four thousand women, every one of them daughters of noble families and kings, who had all, in ages past, cultivated every practice at that bodhisattva's own presence, one with that bodhisattva in every root of goodness; constantly, through giving and loving speech, they gathered in sentient beings, sought omniscience, benefited all, and caused sentient beings to become one with the buddha's own bodhi. With great compassion foremost, universally regarding sentient beings with the thought of an only child, they cultivated great loving-kindness, universally covering all. In ages past, they had already, at that bodhisattva's own presence, cultivated inconceivable, supreme, sublime wisdom, and, in unsurpassed, perfect, complete awakening, attained non-retrogression, becoming fully endowed with and perfecting every pāramitā, their minds without any attachment, their upright minds and wisdom entirely pure.
They sought omniscience, departed from the net of every obstruction and covering, transcended every difficulty, and attained the pure Dharma-body. Practicing Samantabhadra's own practice, they nurtured every one of the bodhisattva's own powers, and accomplished the perfect, pure sun of wisdom.
Fazang's own outline for this teacher's approach closes with exactly this scene: 三見坐下明見敬申請中，初見、二敬、三請 — "third, beginning with 'beholding her seated,' revealing the seeing, the reverence, and the request; first the seeing, second the reverence, third the request." What is described here is, strictly, the retinue rather than Gopā herself — eighty-four thousand women already accomplished in every pāramitā and non-retrogression — but the description functions, by the convention this collection has used elsewhere, as an indirect portrait of the teacher at their center: a court this magnificent, this deep in attainment, reflects outward what its own presiding figure must already be.
Part 143 In Progress
Gopā has finally been found. Part 144 turns to Sudhana's own bow and a long, layered question — how a bodhisattva can act amid birth-and-death without being stained by it, opening the actual teaching this final Ground has been building toward.
Continue to Part 144 →