A Hundred and Ten Good Friends
Rather than answering Sudhana's question directly, Maitreya turns to the entire assembled crowd and asks them to look at this boy — valiant and diligent, seeking only the true meaning, his mind never satisfied, who first received teaching from Mañjuśrī at a city named Piṇḍagara, and has since, in sequence, sought out a hundred and ten good friends without his mind ever growing weary, before arriving at last at Maitreya's own place.
"Look at This Boy — Is He Not Endowed with Every Merit?"
「爾時，彌勒觀察大眾，指善財言：「汝等見是童子，問菩薩行，具足一切功德者不？此童子者，勇猛精進，專求實義，以正直心，得不退轉，常修勝法，心無厭足，如救頭然，求善知識，親近供養，聞法受持。此童子者，昔於頻陀伽羅城，受文殊師利教，求善知識，展轉經由一百一十諸善知識，問菩薩行，心無疲倦，次來我所。……」
At that time, Maitreya surveyed the great assembly, and pointing to Sudhana, said: "Do you all see this boy, who has asked about the bodhisattva's own practice — is he not endowed with every merit? This boy is valiant and diligent, seeking only the true meaning, and with an upright mind has attained non-retrogression; he constantly cultivates the supreme Dharma, his mind never satisfied, as though rescuing his own head from fire; he seeks good friends, draws near and makes offerings to them, and hears the Dharma and upholds it. This boy, in ages past, at the city of Piṇḍagara, received Mañjuśrī's own teaching, and sought out good friends, passing through in sequence one hundred and ten good friends, asking about the bodhisattva's own practice with a mind never once weary, before coming next to my own place … [the praise continues]"
The city named here, 頻陀伽羅, appears to be the same city called 覺城, "the City of Awakening," where Sudhana first received Mañjuśrī's own teaching at the very start of this pilgrimage — the source text elsewhere calls it only by that translated name, and this appears to be its one appearance under a transliterated proper name instead, spoken here by Maitreya himself in retrospect.
Maitreya's own count here — "one hundred and ten good friends" — differs from the "fifty-three good friends" figure by which this collection has numbered every teacher's own page throughout the site, a figure inherited from the later Chinese Huayan commentarial tradition (associated with masters such as Chengguan) that counts only the major, individually named teachers in Sudhana's own pilgrimage. The sūtra's own text here, by contrast, appears to count every encounter along the way, including transitional or unnamed ones, arriving at a considerably larger total. This translation keeps the site's own established "Teacher 51 of 53" numbering for consistency across every page already published, while noting honestly, at this specific point where the source itself speaks a different number, that the sūtra's own internal count and the traditional Huayan reckoning are not the same thing.
Part 302 In Progress
Maitreya's own praise of Sudhana has only just begun. Part 303 continues with why such a person, rare to encounter, is difficult even to dwell alongside or practice with.
Continue to Part 303 →