"Like a Poor Man Finding a Great Treasury"
The girl attains the indestructible, tranquil Dharma-gate, and non-retrogression in awakening. The prince returns to tell his father of the buddha, who rejoices "like a poor man finding a great treasury" — and, unable to repay such news any other way, relinquishes the throne to the prince on the spot and sets out for the bodhimaṇḍa himself.
The Girl's Own Attainment
「時，彼玉女於諸法中得不可壞寂靜法門，於阿耨多羅三藐三菩提得不退轉。」
At that time, that jeweled maiden, within every dharma, attained the indestructible, tranquil Dharma-gate, and, in unsurpassed, perfect, complete awakening, attained non-retrogression.
The girl's own attainment is recorded in a single sentence, brief against the prince's ten-samādhi ocean, yet no less consequential: non-retrogression in awakening is itself the milestone this whole collection has treated, at many earlier teachers, as decisive. Her own vow, made before ever meeting the prince — to bring him to this very buddha — has now delivered exactly the outcome she sought, for both of them at once.
A King's Joy, and an Abdication
「時，彼太子與諸眷屬禮彼如來，遶無數匝，辭退還宮，詣父王所，頭面敬禮，白言：『大王！彼道場上勝日光佛始成正覺。』
「王問太子：『從誰聞乎？』
「答言：『從彼離垢妙德女聞。』時，王聞已，歡喜無量，猶如貧人得大寶藏，作如是念：『佛無上寶難值、難遇，能滅眾生惡道、貧苦，為無上醫；善對治法，除滅眾生諸煩惱患，為善導師；於生死海，濟度眾生，置涅槃處。』作是念已，召諸小王及諸群臣并婆羅門、剎利、居士，皆悉集會而告之曰：『我聞太子無上吉語云：勝日光佛出興于世。我聞是已，歡喜無量，無以酬報，今捨王位授與太子。』王捨位已，與諸眷屬往詣道場勝日光佛所，頭面禮足，退坐一面。」
At that time, the prince, together with his own retinue, bowed to that tathāgata, circled him countless times, and, taking his leave, returned to the palace. He went to where his father the king was, bowed his head in reverence, and said: "Great king, at that bodhimaṇḍa, the buddha Supreme Sun-Light has newly attained the most correct awakening."
The king asked the prince: "From whom did you hear this?"
He answered: "I heard it from that girl, Stainless, Sublime Virtue." At that time, the king, having heard this, rejoiced without measure, as though a poor man had found a great treasury, and thought to himself: "The buddha, an unsurpassed treasure, is difficult to encounter, difficult to meet; able to extinguish sentient beings' own evil destinies and poverty and suffering, he is an unsurpassed physician; skillfully countering every dharma, extinguishing sentient beings' own afflictions and troubles, he is a good guide; within the ocean of birth-and-death, he ferries sentient beings across, and sets them in the place of nirvāṇa." Having thought this, he summoned every minor king, every minister, and the brāhmins, kṣatriyas, and householders, and, once they had all gathered together, declared to them: "I have heard the prince speak an unsurpassed, auspicious word: that the buddha Supreme Sun-Light has arisen in the world. Having heard this, I rejoice without measure, and, having nothing with which to repay it, I now relinquish the throne, and confer it upon the prince." Having relinquished the throne, the king, together with his own retinue, went to the bodhimaṇḍa, to the presence of the buddha Supreme Sun-Light, bowed his head to his feet, and withdrew to sit to one side.
The king's own reasoning is worth reading in full: he does not abdicate out of weariness with rule, but because news of a living buddha strikes him as a debt he has "nothing with which to repay" except the one thing genuinely his to give — the throne itself. His own praise of the buddha, moving from physician to guide to ferryman across the ocean of birth-and-death, echoes precisely the same catalogue of roles Sudhana himself named for the bodhisattva back at this teacher's own opening approach, now applied to the buddha this whole account has been building toward.
Part 172 In Progress
The former king now sits before the buddha. Part 173 turns to what the buddha shows him — a light from his own brow, and a teaching that reaches the entire assembled court at once.
Continue to Part 173 →