Carried by Vow into the City of Liberation
The catalogue continues: it is like a great mani-jewel, able to dispel every darkness entirely; the jewel of the mind of bodhi is likewise, dispelling the darkness of every ignorance entirely. It is like a priceless jewel in the great ocean, which merchants load onto ship and cart to carry into the city, a jewel no other mani-treasure can equal; the priceless treasure-pearl of the mind of bodhi is likewise — dwelling amid the ocean of birth and death, a bodhisattva-mahāsattva loads it onto the ship of his own great vow to carry it into the city of liberation, a jewel the merit-treasures of every śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha are unable to equal.
A Priceless Treasure No Merchant's Ship Could Equal
「善男子！譬如大摩尼寶，悉能除滅一切諸闇。菩提心寶亦復如是，除滅一切無知闇冥。
「善男子！譬如大海有無價寶，商人船車載之入城，餘摩尼寶無與等者。菩提之心無價寶珠亦復如是，處生死海，菩薩摩訶薩以大願船載入解脫城，聲聞、緣覺諸功德寶，所不能及。
"Good man, it is like a great mani-jewel, able to dispel every darkness entirely. The jewel of the mind of bodhi is likewise: it dispels the darkness of every ignorance entirely.
"Good man, it is like a priceless jewel found in the great ocean, which merchants load onto ship and cart to carry into the city, a jewel that no other mani-treasure can equal. The priceless treasure-pearl of the mind of bodhi is likewise: dwelling amid the ocean of birth and death, a bodhisattva-mahāsattva loads it onto the ship of his own great vow to carry it into the city of liberation, a jewel that the merit-treasures of every śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha are unable to equal."
This simile revisits the sea-captain and ship imagery already used of Sudhana personally in the second hymn ("Sudhana becomes a captain upon the sea, building the great ship of Dharma"), now generalized into a teaching about bodhicitta itself carried by "the ship of his own great vow" — Fazang reads this recurrence as evidence that the entire catalogue is not introducing new images so much as drawing out, in systematic doctrinal form, images the narrative has already shown enacted in a single life. The explicit comparison against śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha merit, repeated at several points throughout both catalogues, consistently frames bodhicitta's value as a comparative claim rather than an absolute one — precious specifically because it exceeds attainments already recognized as valuable in their own right.
Part 353 Complete
Two more jewel similes are now given in full. Part 354 turns to a stainless mani-jewel illuminating the sun and moon's own palaces across forty thousand yojanas, and the mani-jewel called Wind-King, which holds every fragrance and flower within the sun and moon's own domain.
Continue to Part 354 →