Lord of the Gods, and the Science of Numbers
Sudhana takes leave of Excellent Manifestation and journeys to the land Purity, where he finds the boy Lord of the Gods playing in the sand with ten thousand companions. Lord of the Gods teaches him the science of moles, numbers, and seals, once taught to him by Mañjuśrī himself — a single skillful art capable of calculating every world, every being, and every buddha throughout the ten directions — the second teacher of the Ten Practices.
Farewell to Excellent Manifestation, and Ten Thousand Boys at Play in the Sand
時，善財童子專求菩薩莊嚴正道，菩薩諸力照心修行，菩薩無壞無盡諸功德行，成滿菩薩堅固大願，以大莊嚴而自莊嚴，一切無畏，不退堅固正直之心，受持一切菩薩行雲，受持菩薩正法之雲而無厭足，恭敬一切菩薩功德，攝取一切眾生，常欲超出生死曠野，樂欲見聞恭敬親近，於善知識心無厭倦；頭面禮足，恭敬無量，隨順教誨，辭退南行。
爾時，善財童子與天龍大眾眷屬圍遶，至輸那國，周遍推求釋天主童子。時，虛空中有諸天龍而告之曰：「善男子！此童子在善城門外河水之側。」爾時，善財見釋天主與一萬童子弄沙嬉戲，即詣其所，頭面禮足，遶無數匝，合掌恭敬，於一面住，白言：「大聖！我已先發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心，而未知菩薩云何學菩薩行、修菩薩道，唯願解說。」
At that time Sudhana the Boy single-mindedly sought the bodhisattva's own adorned, true path; the bodhisattva's every power illumining his mind as he cultivated; the bodhisattva's indestructible, inexhaustible practice of merit; bringing to fulfillment the bodhisattva's own firm, great vow; adorning himself with great adornment, fearless in every way, his mind unretreating, firm and upright; upholding every cloud of bodhisattva practice, upholding the cloud of the bodhisattva's own true Dharma without ever tiring of it; reverencing every bodhisattva's own merit, gathering in every sentient being, always wishing to transcend the wilderness of birth and death, delighting to see, hear, revere, and draw near to good spiritual friends, his mind never weary of them; he bowed his head at his feet, his reverence beyond measure, and, according with his teaching, took his leave and journeyed on to the south.
At that time Sudhana the Boy, surrounded by a great retinue of gods and nāgas, arrived at the land Purity, and searched everywhere for the boy Lord of the Gods. At that time, within the sky, gods and nāgas spoke to him, saying: "Good son, this boy is beside the river, outside the gate of the city Excellent." At that time Sudhana beheld Lord of the Gods, together with ten thousand boys, playing and sporting with sand; he went before him, bowed his head at his feet, circled him countless times, and, joining his palms in reverence, stood to one side, and said: "Great sage! I have already raised the mind of unsurpassed, perfect, complete awakening, and I do not yet know how a bodhisattva learns the bodhisattva's own practice, cultivates the bodhisattva path. I beg only that you explain it."
Fazang marks this as the second of the Ten Practices, "the Practice of Benefiting Others" (饒益行). He glosses the land's own name first: 國名輸那者，此名淨，亦名善，是大江名也。謂國有此江，從事為名。諸外道世人皆云：於此江中洗浴，悉滅罪增福，故以為名 — "the land is called Śroṇā [輸那], which means 'Pure,' also 'Good' — it is the name of a great river; the land has this river, and takes its name from it. Every outsider and ordinary person in the world says that bathing in this river extinguishes sin entirely and increases merit, and so it bears this name" — which he reads as symbolizing the upholding of precepts and the forsaking of wrongdoing. On the boy's own name he offers two readings at once: 童子以表戒行清潔；於戒自在，故名天主 — "'boy' marks the purity of his precept-conduct; his sovereign mastery over the precepts is why he is called 'Lord of Heaven.'" But he adds a second, more exact reading straight from the Sanskrit: 又准天竺本，應名諸根自在，以梵名因陀羅，此云帝釋名也。因達唎，此云根也。濕筏羅，此云自在，亦名主也。以釋天及根梵言相近，故各據一名也 — "again, according to the Indian original, this ought properly to be named 'Sovereign Mastery over Every Faculty': in Sanskrit, 'Indra' [因陀羅] is the name for Śakra, lord of the gods, while 'indriya' [因達唎] means 'faculty' or 'root,' and 'īśvara' [濕筏羅] means 'sovereign' or 'lord' — and because the Sanskrit for 'Śakra' and for 'faculty' sound so alike, each translator settled on one name or the other." The familiar name, in other words, may itself be a case of two different Sanskrit words converging on one Chinese rendering — a genuine ambiguity in the name, not a settled fact, and one this project follows Fazang in stating exactly as uncertain as he leaves it.
The Science of Moles, Numbers, and Seals
答言：「善男子！文殊師利教我相黶子法，算數法、印法，我因知此三種法故；得一切巧術智慧法門。善男子！我因此法門故，知黶子、算數、印性，疾病、中毒、為鬼所著、諸魔所持悉能消伏；立大小城、都邑、聚落、善惡之相、田業商估一切眾生身肢節相、善趣惡趣行業之相，知此眾生之於善趣，知此眾生之於惡趣，此聲聞、此緣覺、此如來地諸方便相，如是等事我悉了知，普令眾生修學此法。復次，善男子！我亦了知菩薩算數之法，所謂：百千為一羅叉、百千羅叉為一拘利、百千拘利為一那由他、廣說如阿僧祇品。善男子！若有無量百由旬等大沙聚，我悉分別算知其數。善男子！如算法能知沙聚，算知東方一切世界，南、西、北方，四維，上、下，亦復如是。算知一切世界中一切劫、一切佛、一切法、一切菩薩、一切業，算數了知一切世界中一切四諦名號，亦復如是。
善男子！我唯知此巧術智慧法門，諸大菩薩深入一切算數法門，算數一切法深入三世算數之法；算數一切眾生、算數一切法、算數一切佛、算數一切佛名號、算數一切菩薩、一切算數轉自在輪菩薩。我當云何能知、能說彼功德行，發明境界，讚歎諸力，顯正直心，說功德具，說諸大願，顯現清淨諸波羅蜜，說功德藏勝妙智慧。善男子！於此南方，有城名曰海住，有優婆夷名曰自在，汝詣彼問云何菩薩學菩薩行、修菩薩道。」
He answered: "Good son, Mañjuśrī taught me the science of moles and birthmarks, the science of numbers, and the science of seals; and because I came to know these three sciences, I attained the Dharma-gate of every skillful art and wisdom. Good son, because of this Dharma-gate, I know the nature of moles, of numbers, and of seals, and am able to dispel entirely sickness, poisoning, possession by ghosts, and affliction by every kind of māra; I know how to establish cities great and small, towns, and villages, the marks of good and evil, the marks of every sentient being's own limbs and joints in farming and trade, and the marks of conduct leading to a good destiny or an evil one — I know which sentient beings are headed toward a good destiny, and which toward an evil one; I know the marks of the skillful means proper to a śrāvaka, to a pratyekabuddha, and to the ground of a tathāgata — all such matters as these I understand completely, and I cause sentient beings everywhere to cultivate and learn this same science. Furthermore, good son, I also understand the bodhisattva's own science of numbers: namely, that a hundred thousand make one lakṣa, a hundred thousand lakṣas make one koṭi, a hundred thousand koṭis make one nayuta, and so on in full detail as in the chapter on asaṃkhyeya. Good son, should there be an immeasurable heap of sand as vast as a hundred yojanas, I am able to discern and calculate its number entirely. Good son, just as this science of numbers can know a heap of sand, so too can it calculate every world of the eastern direction, and, in the same way, of the south, the west, the north, the four intermediate directions, and above and below. It calculates and knows every eon, every buddha, every dharma, every bodhisattva, and every karma within every world, and in the same way calculates and understands the name of every one of the four noble truths within every world.
Good son, I know only this Dharma-gate of skillful art and wisdom; the great bodhisattvas enter deeply into every science of numbers, calculating every dharma, entering deeply into the science of numbers of the three times; calculating every sentient being, calculating every dharma, calculating every buddha, calculating the name of every buddha, calculating every bodhisattva — bodhisattvas sovereign over the wheel of every calculation. How could I possibly know, how could I possibly speak of their merit and practice, their revealing of the domain, their praising of every power, their manifesting of an upright mind, their expounding of the fullness of merit, their expounding of every great vow, their manifesting of every pure perfection, their expounding of the treasury of merit's own sublime wisdom? Good son, to the south of here there is a city, named Sea-Dwelling; there is a laywoman there, named Self-Mastery. Go to her and ask how a bodhisattva learns the bodhisattva's own practice, cultivates the bodhisattva path."
Fazang notes that the city itself carries a second name, distinct from the land: 善城，亦是輸那名也，天竺本名城善 — "'Excellent City' is also a name for Śroṇā; the Indian original names it 'City Good.'" He reads the physical setting emblematically, term by term: 而言城外者，表戒行外防故也。河水側者，表發定水故也...二見其所作弄沙戲者，明三聚戒數方便集起也 — "'outside the city' marks the precepts' own outward guarding; 'beside the river' marks the arising of the water of samādhi... and seeing him playing at building with sand marks the skillful gathering, by number, of the three collections of pure precepts." On the three sciences themselves, he maps each to one of those same three collections: physiognomic reading of ill omens corresponds to cutting off what the restraint precepts forbid; numerical calculation of the auspicious corresponds to the constant cultivation of the precepts that gather every wholesome practice; and the sealing or confirming of a person's faculties corresponds to the precepts that rescue and gather in sentient beings. He also cites the Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom in passing — 《智論》云「菩薩戒品，微塵數也」 — "the Treatise says, 'the categories of the bodhisattva precepts are as numerous as motes of dust'" — as warrant for why a science of sheer numbering could count as a bodhisattva's own Dharma-gate at all.
On the arithmetic itself, Fazang glosses a single term in passing that runs slightly against the passage's own stated definition: 羅叉，此云萬也 — "lakṣa means 'ten thousand.'" The sutra's own count, just stated, makes a lakṣa equal to a hundred thousand (a hundred thousand ordinary units to one lakṣa); Fazang's gloss instead gives the word's ordinary Sanskrit meaning, "ten thousand" — a small discrepancy between the term's plain sense and the passage's own defined scale, left unreconciled in the commentary itself, and repeated here exactly as Fazang states it rather than smoothed over.
Part 32 Complete
This closes Part 32: Sudhana's farewell to Excellent Manifestation, his arrival at Purity, and the boy Lord of the Gods, second teacher of the Ten Practices, whose science of moles, numbers, and seals — first taught to him by Mañjuśrī — calculates every world, being, and buddha throughout the ten directions. Sudhana is sent onward, to the city Sea-Dwelling, and the laywoman named Self-Mastery.
Continue to Part 33 — Self-Mastery, at Sea-Dwelling →