A Hundred and Ten Cities, and a Hand Outstretched
At that time, Sudhana the youth bowed his head to the ground in reverence before the bodhisattva Maitreya, circled him countless times, and took his leave. Sudhana the youth then journeyed on in this way, passing through a hundred and ten cities, until he arrived near the city of Sumukha, where he stood in contemplation, gazing in every direction, single-mindedly seeking only Mañjuśrī: "When shall I meet with him again, and behold his own compassionate countenance?" As he was reflecting in this way, Mañjuśrī, from far away, extended his own right hand, reaching across a hundred and ten yojanas to the city of Sumukha, and touched Sudhana's crown, saying: "Excellent, excellent, good man!"
Journeying On, Sudhana Seeks Mañjuśrī Once More
時，善財童子頭面敬禮彌勒菩薩，遶無數匝，辭退而行。
爾時，善財童子如是經遊百一十城，到普門城邊，思惟而住，觀察十方，一心專求文殊師利：「何當會遇，面奉慈顏？」作是念時，文殊師利遙伸右手，過百一十由旬，至普門城，摩善財頂而作是言：「善哉！善哉！善男子！
At that time, Sudhana the youth bowed his head to the ground in reverence before the bodhisattva Maitreya, circled him countless times, and took his leave.
Sudhana the youth then journeyed on in this way, passing through a hundred and ten cities, until he arrived near the city of Sumukha, where he stood in contemplation, gazing in every direction, single-mindedly seeking only Mañjuśrī: "When shall I meet with him again, and behold his own compassionate countenance?" As he was reflecting in this way, Mañjuśrī, from far away, extended his own right hand, reaching across a hundred and ten yojanas to the city of Sumukha, and touched Sudhana's crown, saying: "Excellent, excellent, good man!
"A hundred and ten cities" confirms, at last, the precise count behind Maitreya's own earlier praise of Sudhana as one who had visited "one hundred and ten good friends" — the traditional Chinese Huayan reckoning of fifty-three good friends counts teachers rather than cities, since several teachers occupy the same location or a single city is revisited, and this site's own reading-note from many parts earlier can now point to this line as its textual confirmation. "The city of Sumukha" (普門城, literally "Universal Gate," the name this translation has rendered descriptively at points and now gives in transliteration to mark its return as a specific place) is where Sudhana's whole pilgrimage effectively closes its circle — Mañjuśrī's reach across exactly the same distance, a hundred and ten yojanas, that Sudhana traveled through a hundred and ten cities, is a numerical symmetry Fazang reads as no accident: teacher and student meet exactly halfway across the very same measure that structured the entire journey.
Part 412 Complete
Maitreya's own episode is now complete, and Sudhana's reunion with Mañjuśrī has begun. Part 413 turns to Mañjuśrī's own teaching — a warning about what happens to those who lack the root of faith, framed as praise for how Sudhana himself has avoided every one of those failures.
Continue to Part 413 →