Vast and Boundless as Space Itself
At that time, Sudhana observed the tower: vast and boundless, exactly like open space itself, its ground made of every kind of jewel. There were asaṃkhyeya windows and parapets, an asaṃkhyeya adornment of banners, pennants, and canopies formed from the seven jewels, an asaṃkhyeya of jeweled necklaces hanging in ornamental bands, an asaṃkhyeya of great lion-banners bearing half-moon jeweled images, and every kind of jeweled silk. There was likewise an asaṃkhyeya of heavenly crowns and jeweled robes serving as further adornment, an asaṃkhyeya of jeweled nets spread over everything above, and an asaṃkhyeya of golden bells, sounding of themselves in subtle, wondrous tones. Boundless clouds of jeweled flower-garlands rained down, together with clouds of every wondrous fragrance; an asaṃkhyeya of fine golden dust rained down as well, sending forth an asaṃkhyeya of supreme, wondrous light that universally illuminated everything. There was an asaṃkhyeya of birds of every different kind, sending forth harmonious, elegant song. An asaṃkhyeya of blue lotus, red lotus, and white lotus flowers rained down, sending forth an asaṃkhyeya of mani-jewel light that universally illuminated everything. And within the tower itself there were a hundred thousand further wondrous towers, none obstructing any other, each adorned and ornamented exactly as already described.
A Hundred Thousand Towers, None Obstructing Any Other
爾時，善財觀察樓觀，廣大無量，猶如虛空，眾寶為地。有阿僧祇窓牖，却敵欄楯，七寶合成阿僧祇幡幢蓋莊嚴，阿僧祇寶瓔珞垂帶，阿僧祇大師子幢半月寶像，諸寶繒綵。又阿僧祇天冠寶衣而以莊嚴，阿僧祇寶網羅覆其上，阿僧祇金鈴，自然演出微妙音聲。又雨無量寶華鬘雲，諸妙香雲，雨阿僧祇細末金屑，放阿僧祇勝妙光明，普照一切。有阿僧祇異類眾鳥，出和雅音。雨阿僧祇優鉢羅鉢曇摩分陀利華，出阿僧祇摩尼寶光，普照一切。於樓觀內，具有百千諸妙樓觀，不相障礙，莊校嚴飾，亦如上說。
At that time, Sudhana observed the tower: vast and boundless, exactly like open space itself, its ground made of every kind of jewel. There were an asaṃkhyeya of windows and parapets, an asaṃkhyeya adornment of banners, pennants, and canopies formed from the seven jewels, an asaṃkhyeya of jeweled necklaces hanging in ornamental bands, an asaṃkhyeya of great lion-banners bearing half-moon jeweled images, and every kind of jeweled silk besides. There was likewise an asaṃkhyeya of heavenly crowns and jeweled robes serving as further adornment, an asaṃkhyeya of jeweled nets spread over everything above, and an asaṃkhyeya of golden bells, sounding of themselves in subtle, wondrous tones. Boundless clouds of jeweled flower-garlands rained down, together with clouds of every wondrous fragrance; an asaṃkhyeya of fine golden dust rained down as well, sending forth an asaṃkhyeya of supreme, wondrous light that universally illuminated everything. There was an asaṃkhyeya of birds of every different kind, sending forth harmonious, elegant song. An asaṃkhyeya of blue lotus, red lotus, and white lotus flowers rained down, sending forth an asaṃkhyeya of mani-jewel light that universally illuminated everything. And within the tower itself there were a hundred thousand further wondrous towers, none obstructing any other, each adorned and ornamented exactly as already described.
"Asaṃkhyeya" (阿僧祇, an incalculable, functionally boundless number) is repeated here so many times in succession — windows, banners, necklaces, crowns, nets, bells, dust-motes, birds, flowers, jewel-lights — that Fazang reads the repetition itself as doing philosophical work: no single feature of the tower is merely numerous, every feature is literally uncountable, and the tower's interior already, before any further vision unfolds, exceeds ordinary spatial description. The closing detail — "a hundred thousand further wondrous towers, none obstructing any other" — is, for Fazang, the passage's first explicit statement of what Huayan thought will later formalize as the unobstructed interpenetration of phenomena (事事無礙法界): countless towers occupying what would ordinarily be mutually exclusive space, each entire and complete without displacing any other.
Part 386 Complete
The tower's own vast interior has now been described in full. Part 387 turns to Sudhana's own reaction — his heart filled with boundless joy, his mind made soft and pliant, free of every false thought — and to the very first of the extraordinary visions that begin to unfold before him.
Continue to Part 387 →