Gifts of Light, and a Mother's Final Blessing
Hearing that a buddha has arisen in the world, the prince is overjoyed, and showers the girl with five hundred treasures, a jeweled crest, and sublime garments. Her mother answers with a final verse of her own, confirming everything her daughter has said — her lotus birth, her body's own healing touch, and a mind that seeks only the unsurpassed path.
Treasures Scattered in Joy
「爾時，太子聞彼如來出興于世，心大歡喜，踊躍無量，欲見彼佛，以五百寶散彼女人，又與妙德光藏淨周羅寶并妙衣服。時，彼女母即為太子而說偈言：
「『今此玉女寶， 功德莊嚴身，
我昔所志樂， 此願今成滿。
持戒不放逸， 智慧諸功德，
普於一切世， 最勝無倫匹。
此女蓮華生， 種姓無譏嫌，
遠離諸不善， 太子同志願。
此女身柔軟， 猶如天繒纊，
蒙彼手摩者， 眾患悉除滅。
毛孔所出香， 芬馨無倫比，
眾生若聞者， 悉住於淨戒。』」
At that time, the prince, hearing that a tathāgata had arisen in the world, was greatly joyful in his mind, leaping for joy without measure, and, wishing to behold that buddha, scattered five hundred treasures over that girl, and further gave her the Treasury of the Light of Sublime Virtue, a pure crest-jewel, together with sublime garments. At that time, that girl's mother then spoke a verse to the prince, saying:
"Now this treasure of a jeweled maiden, her body adorned with merit — the aspiration I held in days past, this very vow is now fulfilled.
Upholding precepts, free of negligence, wisdom and every merit — throughout the whole world, supreme, without equal or peer.
This girl was born from a lotus flower, her lineage beyond any reproach; departing far from every unwholesome thing, she shares the same aspiration as the prince.
This girl's own body is soft and supple, like a heavenly silken cloth; whoever is touched by her own hand has every affliction entirely extinguished.
The fragrance that issues from her every pore is sweet beyond compare; should sentient beings smell it, they are entirely established in pure precepts."
The prince's own joy is triggered not by the marriage agreement but by news of the buddha — he scatters treasures "wishing to behold that buddha," a motive stated plainly before any thought of the wedding itself. The mother's own final verse, meanwhile, moves the girl's description into territory closer to a bodhisattva's own manifest powers than an ordinary bride's virtues: a touch that extinguishes affliction, a fragrance that establishes hearers in pure precepts. What began as a mother arranging a match has, by the account's own telling, become something closer to an introduction between two beings whose paths were always going to converge.
Part 169 In Progress
Five stanzas of the mother's closing verse are complete. Part 170 continues with the remaining five, and the whole party's own departure — the prince, the girl, and ten thousand attendant women — setting out together for the bodhimaṇḍa.
Continue to Part 170 →