Every Body Bearing Offerings in Reverence
Sudhana further saw, within jeweled trees, the wondrous forms of every kind of body — the body of a tathāgata, the body of a bodhisattva, the bodies of the eight classes of divine beings including gods and nāgas, the body of Śakra and Brahmā, the body of a wheel-turning king, and the bodies of the fourfold assembly — each one holding an offering of some kind, honoring and praising, reverently bowing in worship. He further saw, within half-moon images, asaṃkhyeya suns and moons of light sent forth. And he began to see Maitreya, in ages long past, carrying out the bodhisattva's own practice, giving away his own head and eyes, his marrow and brain, his hands and feet, every limb and joint of his body — every kind of thing, whatever was needed, given completely and without reserve.
Maitreya's Past-Life Giving Begins
又寶樹中，悉見種種妙色之身，所謂：如來身、菩薩身、天龍八部等身、釋梵天身、轉輪王身、四部眾身；各各執持眾供養具，尊重讚歎，恭敬禮拜。又見半月像中，放阿僧祇日月光明。又見彌勒於過去世修菩薩行，布施頭目、髓腦、手足、肢節，一切身分、國城、妻子，種種諸物，隨其所須，盡給施之。
He further saw, within jeweled trees, the wondrous forms of every kind of body — the body of a tathāgata, the body of a bodhisattva, the bodies of the eight classes of divine beings including gods and nāgas, the body of Śakra and Brahmā, the body of a wheel-turning king, and the bodies of the fourfold assembly — each one holding an offering of some kind, honoring and praising, reverently bowing in worship. He further saw, within half-moon images, asaṃkhyeya suns and moons of light sent forth. And he began to see Maitreya, in ages long past, carrying out the bodhisattva's own practice, giving away his own head and eyes, his marrow and brain, his hands and feet, every limb and joint of his body, his kingdom and city, his wife and children, and every kind of possession — giving all of it completely, according to whatever was needed.
"The eight classes of divine beings" (天龍八部) here names the same standard grouping — deva, nāga, yakṣa, gandharva, asura, garuḍa, kiṃnara, and mahoraga — already referenced by its individual members in Maitreya's own pore-emanations several parts earlier, now gathered under its familiar collective term. This passage marks a significant transition in the vision's own content: from Sudhana observing the tower's ambient wonders (mirrors, pillars, flowers, trees) to Sudhana specifically beginning to witness Maitreya's own personal history in its most extreme and demanding form — the classical bodhisattva "gift of the body" (深捨, dāna extending even to one's own physical person), a literary motif with deep roots in the jātaka tradition of the Buddha's own past-life stories, here transferred onto Maitreya as the culminating proof of his own bodhisattva practice across countless prior lives.
Part 397 Complete
Maitreya's past-life giving has only just begun. Part 398 continues with the full extent of that giving — his kingdom, his wife and children, everything he possessed — and with his further past lives as one who praised the buddhas, as a physician-king, and as a ship's own captain guiding others to a treasure-isle.
Continue to Part 398 →