A Fragrance Pervading a Chiliocosm
The catalogue turns to fragrance: it is like Udagasāra sandalwood, of which if a single grain's weight is burned, its scent pervades an entire small chiliocosm, a fragrance beyond what any treasure of the great trichiliocosm could match; the fragrance of the mind of bodhi is likewise, its wondrous merit pervading the Dharma-realm, a fragrance every merit of every śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha is unable to match. It is like white sandalwood, which, applied to the body, dispels every feverish affliction and grants cool and easeful joy; the fragrance of the mind of bodhi is likewise, dispelling the heat of deliberation, craving, hatred, and delusion, and granting the body of wisdom its cool and easeful joy entirely.
Udagasāra Incense and White Sandalwood
「善男子！譬如憂陀伽娑羅栴檀，若燒一銖，香氣普熏小千世界；三千大千世界珍寶，所不能及。菩提心香亦復如是，以妙功德普熏法界，一切聲聞、緣覺功德，所不能及。
「善男子！譬如白栴檀，以塗其身，除諸惱熱，得清涼樂。菩提心香亦復如是，除滅覺觀貪恚癡熱，令智慧身悉得涼樂。
"Good man, it is like Udagasāra sandalwood — should even a single grain's weight of it be burned, its fragrance universally pervades a small chiliocosm, a fragrance that every treasure of the great trichiliocosm is unable to match. The fragrance of the mind of bodhi is likewise: with its wondrous merit, it universally pervades the Dharma-realm, a fragrance that the merit of every śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha is unable to match.
"Good man, it is like white sandalwood — applied to the body, it dispels every feverish affliction and grants cool, easeful joy. The fragrance of the mind of bodhi is likewise: it dispels the heat of deliberation, craving, hatred, and delusion, granting the body of wisdom cool, easeful joy entirely."
"A small chiliocosm" and "the great trichiliocosm" (小千世界, 三千大千世界) name two of the nested scales of Buddhist world-system cosmology — a thousand world-systems forming a small chiliocosm, and a thousand of those in turn (a thousand cubed, hence "trichiliocosm") forming the greatest unit typically named, the domain a single buddha is said to oversee. Fazang reads the deliberate mismatch of scale in this simile — a single grain's fragrance filling the lesser chiliocosm, yet exceeding even the greatest trichiliocosm's own treasures — as underscoring that fragrance, unlike physical treasure, is not bound by ordinary measures of container and content, an apt property to borrow for describing merit that likewise cannot be confined or exhausted by its own extent.
Part 357 Complete
Two fragrance similes are now given in full. Part 358 turns to Sumeru once more — this time as an image of color rather than stillness — and to the Pārijāta tree's own flower, whose fragrance surpasses every other blossom of Jambudvīpa.
Continue to Part 358 →