The Land's Seventeen Adornments
The third of the five gates, contemplation, opens onto its largest object: the land of Sukhāvatī itself, analyzed into seventeen distinct kinds of adornment, each traced back to the specific line of verse in Part 1 that first named it. The sixteenth of these — the "great gate of meaning" — reopens the same question this site's Ten Doubts treatise raises in its own ninth doubt: are women and śrāvakas genuinely excluded from this land, or only from what it becomes once one arrives?
Seventeen Adornments, Named and Traced to Their Verse
云何觀察彼佛國土功德莊嚴？彼佛國土功德莊嚴者，成就不可思議力故。如彼摩尼如意寶性，相似相對法故。觀察彼佛國土功德莊嚴者，有十七種事應知。何者十七？
- 一者清淨功德成就；
- 二者量功德成就；
- 三者性功德成就；
- 四者形相功德成就；
- 五者種種事功德成就；
- 六者妙色功德成就；
- 七者觸功德成就；
- 八者莊嚴功德成就；
- 九者雨功德成就；
- 十者光明功德成就；
- 十一者聲功德成就；
- 十二者主功德成就；
- 十三者眷屬功德成就；
- 十四者受用功德成就；
- 十五者無諸難功德成就；
- 十六者大義門功德成就；
- 十七者一切所求功德成就。
清淨功德成就者，偈言「觀彼世界相，勝過三界道」故。量功德成就者，偈言「究竟如虛空，廣大無邊際」故。性功德成就者，偈言「正道大慈悲，出世善根生」故。形相功德成就者，偈言「淨光明滿足，如鏡日月輪」故。種種事功德成就者，偈言「備諸珍寶性，具足妙莊嚴」故。妙色功德成就者，偈言「無垢光焰熾，明淨曜世間」故。觸功德成就者，偈言「寶性功德草，柔軟左右旋，觸者生勝樂，過迦旃隣陀」故。莊嚴功德成就者，有三種應知。何等三？一者水；二者地；三者虛空。莊嚴水者，偈言「寶華千萬種，彌覆池流泉，微風動華葉，交錯光亂轉」故。莊嚴地者，偈言「宮殿諸樓閣，觀十方無礙，雜樹異光色，寶欄遍圍繞」故。莊嚴虛空者，偈言「無量寶交絡，羅網遍虛空，種種鈴發響，宣吐妙法音」故。雨功德成就者，偈言「雨華衣莊嚴，無量香普熏」故。光明功德成就者，偈言「佛慧明淨日，除世癡闇冥」故。妙聲功德成就者，偈言「梵聲語深遠，微妙聞十方」故。主功德成就者，偈言「正覺阿彌陀，法王善住持」故。眷屬功德成就者，偈言「如來淨華眾，正覺華化生」故。受用功德成就者，偈言「愛樂佛法味，禪三昧為食」故。無諸難功德成就者，偈言「永離身心惱，受樂常無間」故。大義門功德成就者，偈言「大乘善根界，等無譏嫌名，女人及根缺，二乘種不生」故。
淨土果報離二種譏嫌過應知：一者體；二者名。體有三種：一者二乘人；二者女人；三者諸根不具人。無此三過故，名離體譏嫌。名亦三種，非但無三體，乃至不聞二乘、女人、諸根不具三種名故，名離名譏嫌。等者，平等一相故。
一切所求功德滿足成就者，偈言「眾生所願樂，一切能滿足」故。略說彼阿彌陀佛國土莊嚴十七種功德，示現如來自身利益大功德力，成就利益他功德成就故。彼無量壽佛土莊嚴，第一義諦妙境界，十六句及一句次第說應知。
How does one contemplate the adornment and merit of that buddha's land? The adornment and merit of that buddha's land is accomplished through a power beyond all conception — comparable, though only by way of loose analogy, to the nature of a wish-fulfilling maṇi jewel. In contemplating the merit and adornment of that buddha's land, there are seventeen matters that should be known. What are these seventeen?
- 1. The adornment of purity, accomplished;
- 2. the adornment of measure, accomplished;
- 3. the adornment of nature, accomplished;
- 4. the adornment of form, accomplished;
- 5. the adornment of manifold particulars, accomplished;
- 6. the adornment of wondrous color, accomplished;
- 7. the adornment of touch, accomplished;
- 8. adornment accomplished (in three kinds: water, earth, and empty space);
- 9. the adornment of rain, accomplished;
- 10. the adornment of light, accomplished;
- 11. the adornment of sound, accomplished;
- 12. the adornment of the lord, accomplished;
- 13. the adornment of retinue, accomplished;
- 14. the adornment of enjoyment, accomplished;
- 15. the adornment free of every difficulty, accomplished;
- 16. the adornment of the great gate of meaning, accomplished;
- 17. the adornment of the fulfillment of every wish, accomplished.
The adornment of purity is accomplished — this is what the verse means by "I contemplate the mark of that world: it surpasses the paths of the three realms entirely." The adornment of measure is accomplished — this is "ultimate, like empty space itself, vast and without any boundary." The adornment of nature is accomplished — this is "the true path of great compassion gives rise to wholesome roots that transcend the world." The adornment of form is accomplished — this is "its pure light is perfectly full, like the disc of sun and moon in a mirror." The adornment of manifold particulars is accomplished — this is "complete with the nature of every kind of jewel, perfect in wondrous adornment." The adornment of wondrous color is accomplished — this is "its stainless light blazes forth, bright and pure, illuminating the world." The adornment of touch is accomplished — this is "grasses of jeweled nature and merit sway softly, curling left and right; whoever touches them gives rise to a joy surpassing even kācalindī grass." This adornment is of three kinds, which should be known. What are the three? Water, earth, and empty space. The adornment of water is "jeweled flowers of ten million kinds spread over the pools and flowing springs; a light breeze stirs their petals, and their crossing light swirls and turns." The adornment of earth is "from every palace hall and tower, one gazes on the ten directions unobstructed; trees of every kind, each with its own light and color, and jeweled balustrades surround them all." The adornment of empty space is "boundless jewels, woven together, form nets that spread across the sky; bells of every kind ring out, proclaiming the wondrous sound of the Dharma." The adornment of rain is accomplished — this is "a rain of flowers and robes adorns everything, and boundless fragrance perfumes it all." The adornment of light is accomplished — this is "the Buddha's wisdom, a sun bright and pure, dispels the world's darkness and delusion." The adornment of wondrous sound is accomplished — this is "his Brahmā-voice speaks profound and far, subtle and wondrous, heard throughout the ten directions." The adornment of the lord is accomplished — this is "the truly awakened Amitābha, the Dharma-King, sustains and upholds it well." The adornment of retinue is accomplished — this is "the Tathāgata's pure assembly, lotus-born, transformed and born from the flower of true awakening." The adornment of enjoyment is accomplished — this is "delights in the flavor of the Dharma, taking meditation and samādhi as its food." The adornment free of every difficulty is accomplished — this is "forever free of every torment of body and mind, receiving joy constantly, without a single gap." The adornment of the great gate of meaning is accomplished — this is "a realm of Great Vehicle wholesome roots, equal, without any name of reproach; women, and those with deficient faculties, and the seed of the two lesser vehicles, are not born there."
The retribution of the Pure Land is free of two kinds of reproach that should be known: reproach in substance, and reproach in name. Reproach in substance is of three kinds: those of the two lesser vehicles, women, and those whose faculties are incomplete. Because it is free of these three faults, it is called "free of reproach in substance." Reproach in name is likewise of three kinds — not only is the substance of these three absent, but not even the names "the two lesser vehicles," "woman," or "one whose faculties are incomplete" are ever heard there at all — hence it is called "free of reproach in name." "Equal" means that it is entirely of a single, equal mark throughout.
The adornment of the fulfillment of every wish is accomplished — this is "whatever sentient beings wish and desire, all of it can be entirely fulfilled." In brief, these seventeen kinds of merit that adorn Amitābha Buddha's land show forth the great power of merit by which the Tathāgata benefits himself, and accomplish the merit by which he benefits others as well. The adornment of the Immeasurable Life Buddha's land, this wondrous realm of ultimate truth, should be understood as expressed in sixteen lines followed by one further line, each in its own proper sequence.
Tanluan explains the opening comparison to a wish-fulfilling maṇi jewel with an origin story: when a buddha enters parinirvāṇa, fragments of his relics, once the merit of the beings meant to benefit from them is exhausted, transform into wish-fulfilling jewels, kept ever after by the great nāga-kings in the depths of the sea. A wheel-turning king who obtains one need only set it atop a pole and make his wish, and whatever he desires — clothing, food, light, music — rains down from empty space to fill it. Amitābha's land, Tanluan says, works the same way, "except that the jewel must still be asked, while that land's own nature is already complete and lacking nothing" — a comparison offered, he stresses, only to gesture at something otherwise beyond ordinary description, not as an exact equivalence.
For several of the seventeen items Tanluan supplies a compact one-line answer to a question he poses himself: "how is this inconceivable?" On purity: "there are ordinary beings, afflictions still fully intact, who nonetheless attain birth in this pure land, the karma binding them to the three realms never again taking hold — this is attaining a portion of nirvāṇa without ever severing affliction at all. How could this be conceived?" On touch, he tells of the bodhisattva called Beloved Creation (愛作), whose very beauty draws others into attachment merely by being seen — "the sūtras say that whoever is drawn to him is thereby either reborn in heaven or gives rise to the mind of bodhi" — an ordinary attachment turned, by the object it attaches to, into its own opposite; the land's own bejeweled grass, too soft and yielding for any bejeweled thing to ordinarily be, works the same reversal on contact.
The sixteenth adornment, the "great gate of meaning," draws Tanluan's longest single digression in this entire section — a direct engagement with the same tension this site's Ten Doubts treatise resolves in its ninth doubt. He first marshals three separate scriptural proofs that śrāvakas do, in fact, exist in Amitābha's land: Dharmākara's own forty-eight vows promise that the land's śrāvakas will be too numerous to count; Nāgārjuna's Hymn to Amitābha bows specifically to "his śrāvakas, measureless in number"; and a Mahāyāna treatise states outright that some buddha-lands are pure śrāvaka assemblies, some pure bodhisattva assemblies, and some, "like Amitābha's land of Peace and Bliss," a mixture of both. Having built this case as strongly as he can, he then resolves the apparent contradiction with the treatise's own line — "the seed of the two lesser vehicles does not arise there" — through a single distinction: an arhat, on strict doctrinal grounds, has not yet attained every form of liberation, and so must still, in some sense, be reborn somewhere; since the three realms themselves are closed to him and no realm beyond the Pure Land exists to receive him, he can only be reborn in the Pure Land itself — but he arrives there already carrying the name "śrāvaka" from his prior life, the way Indra, reborn in heaven from a human birth under the clan-name Kauśika, continues to be called Kauśika even as lord of the gods. "The treatise says only that the seed does not arise there," Tanluan concludes, reaching for two agricultural images at once: "orange saplings do not take root north of the river, and yet oranges are still sold in markets north of it; parrots do not cross west of a certain range, and yet parrots are still kept as pets there. Both proverbs speak only of where the seed itself will not grow — not of whether the mature creature can still be found there." A śrāvaka may be present in that land, in other words, without that land ever producing one from its own soil — the same move, arrived at independently five centuries before it, that Ten Doubts makes when it insists the verse describes what is born there, not who may go.
Part 3 Complete
This closes Part 3: seventeen adornments of the land itself, from its bare purity to the fulfillment of every wish, each one traced back to its own specific line of verse — and Tanluan's own careful navigation of the same question this site's Ten Doubts treatise takes up independently in its ninth doubt. Part 4 turns from the land itself to its lord: the eight adornments of Amitābha Buddha.
Continue to Part 4 — The Buddha's Eight Adornments →