Sudhana's Hymn, Twenty and a Half Stanzas
Sudhana answers the night-deva's plain form with a hymn of twenty and a half stanzas, praising her body-light in every particular — pore, flower, fragrance, mouth, and eye — before turning to what her brow-light has just granted him: the samādhi of Stainless Perfection, and, within a single mote of dust, a vision of pure worlds and impure worlds alike, and the buddhas who purify them.
Twenty and a Half Stanzas
「善財合掌住， 諦觀無厭足，
見無量神力， 其心大歡喜。
我見尊妙身， 相好自莊嚴，
清淨如虛空， 一切莫能壞。
所放殊勝光， 無量剎塵等，
種種微妙色， 普照於十方。
一一毛孔放， 眾生等光明，
一一光明端， 出生寶蓮華。
從華出化身， 除滅眾生苦，
放諸香光明， 普熏十方界。
雨無量華雲， 供養諸最勝，
放無量寶光， 一一如須彌。
普照一切眾， 除滅愚癡闇，
口放淨光明， 猶如無量日。
普照盧舍那， 無量之境界，
眼放淨光明， 猶如無量月。
普照群生類， 除滅愚癡曀，
妙相等眾生， 出生化身海。
充滿諸法界， 度脫三有海，
清淨微妙身， 一切無不見。
遠離水火賊， 王等一切難，
喜目觀察天， 教我詣尊所。
見尊白毫相， 演出明淨光，
普照十方海， 除滅一切闇。
顯現自在力， 從我頂上入，
光明入身已， 舉體柔軟樂，
即得離垢定， 普見十方佛。
悉能分別知， 一切諸微塵，
一一微塵中， 普見十方剎，
或有淨世界， 或有不淨剎，
不淨世界中， 眾生受諸苦。
不淨世界中， 眾生受苦故，
示現三乘像， 而往救度之。
清淨佛國土， 無量寶莊嚴，
諸佛大菩薩， 常樂於中住。
一一微塵中， 普見淨剎海，
盧舍那積劫， 令彼土清淨。
一切佛剎中， 現坐菩提樹，
得成最正覺， 而轉淨法輪。
我見妙德天， 詣彼嚴淨剎，
一切如來所， 恭敬而供養。」
"Sudhana stood with palms joined, gazing intently, never growing weary;
beholding her boundless spiritual power, his mind rejoiced greatly.
I behold the Honored One's own sublime body, adorned of itself with excellent marks,
pure as space itself, which nothing at all can destroy.
The supreme light she releases, equal to motes of dust in boundless lands,
in every kind of sublime color, universally illumines the ten directions.
From every single pore she releases light equal in number to sentient beings;
at the tip of every single ray of light, a jeweled lotus flower is born.
From the flower emerges a transformation-body, extinguishing every sentient being's suffering;
she releases every kind of fragrant light, universally perfuming the worlds of the ten directions.
She rains down boundless clouds of flowers, making offering to every most supreme one;
she releases boundless jeweled light, each ray like Mount Sumeru itself.
Universally illumining every being, extinguishing the darkness of folly,
from her mouth she releases pure light, like unto boundless suns.
Universally illumining Vairocana's own boundless realm,
from her eyes she releases pure light, like unto boundless moons.
Universally illumining every kind of living being, extinguishing the eclipse of folly,
her sublime marks, equal in number to sentient beings, give birth to an ocean of transformation-bodies.
Filling every Dharma-realm completely, delivering beings from the ocean of the three existences,
her pure and sublime body — there is nothing that does not behold it.
Far removed from every difficulty of water, fire, thieves, and kings,
the deva Joyful Eyes Observing Sentient Beings taught me to come to the Honored One's own place.
I beheld the Honored One's own mark of the white curl, sending forth bright, pure light,
universally illumining the ocean of the ten directions, extinguishing every darkness.
Manifesting her own sovereign power, it entered from the crown of my head;
once the light had entered my body, my whole body became soft and at ease,
and I at once attained the concentration of Stainless Perfection, universally beholding the buddhas of the ten directions.
I am able to discern and know entirely every single mote of dust;
within each and every mote of dust I universally behold the lands of the ten directions;
some among them are pure worlds, some among them are impure lands;
within the impure worlds, sentient beings undergo every suffering.
Because sentient beings undergo suffering within the impure worlds,
she manifests the forms of the three vehicles, and goes to rescue and deliver them.
Within the pure buddha-lands, adorned with boundless jewels,
every buddha and every great bodhisattva constantly delights in dwelling there.
Within each and every mote of dust, I universally behold the ocean of pure lands;
Vairocana, throughout accumulated kalpas, causes these lands to become pure.
Within every buddha-land, he manifests seated beneath the bodhi tree,
attaining the most correct awakening, and turns the pure Dharma-wheel.
I behold the deva Sublime Virtue, going to that adorned and pure land,
and at the place of every tathāgata, reverently making offering."
Fazang gives this hymn's own architecture in full: 四善財偈讚中二十頌半，初一總頌；餘下別中，初九頌半歎夜天身光利益、二喜目下十頌述前所見 — "in the fourth part, Sudhana's own hymn of praise, there are twenty and a half stanzas; the first is a stanza of general praise, and among the rest, in the separate praise, the first nine and a half stanzas praise the benefit of the night-deva's own body-light, and the second, beginning with 'Joyful Eyes,' ten stanzas recount what he had just witnessed." He divides the first nine and a half further into four groups of two — "three and a half stanzas praising the body-light benefiting beings, next two praising the fragrance-and-jewel light's benefit, next two praising the mouth-and-eye light's benefit, next two praising the body universally benefiting" — and the second ten likewise into four: two stanzas recalling the previous teacher's light and confirming Dharma, one stanza on the samādhi thereby attained, three stanzas recounting how this night-deva pervades every mote-sized land rescuing and gathering beings, and four final stanzas recounting how she pervades every mote-sized buddha-land in reverent offering.
The pivot he marks — "beginning with 喜目, 'Joyful Eyes'" — falls exactly where this teacher's own name appears inside Sudhana's hymn to the next one: "the deva Joyful Eyes Observing Sentient Beings taught me to come to the Honored One's own place." The third teacher of the Ten Grounds, whose own eighty-nine-and-a-half-stanza autobiography closed only two parts ago, is named here by the fourth teacher's own pupil, mid-hymn, as the one who sent him onward — the same referral chain the sutra's prose has already recorded, now sung back a second time in verse.
Part 69 In Progress
Sudhana's hymn closes the account of what the night-deva's manifestation and brow-light have shown him so far. Part 70 turns to his direct question — what this Dharma-gate is called, how long she has held it, and what practice first produced it — and to her own account of why the answer is so difficult to give.
Continue to Part 70 →