Meeting Amitābha, and the Fruits of the Vow-King
願生極樂偈；校量功德偈；流通分
The closing verses turn from vowing to be like Samantabhadra and Mañjuśrī to this chapter's single most quoted line — beholding Amitābha Buddha face to face at the last moment of life — before a final measure of this teaching's merit, and the sūtra's own quiet close: Sudhana's joy, the assembly's praise, and a scene that never once records the Buddha speaking.
- This part covers
- The final movement of the closing verse — the aspiration to equal Samantabhadra and Mañjuśrī, the vow to behold Amitābha Buddha at the moment of death and be reborn in Sukhāvatī, a last measure of this teaching's merit, and the sūtra's own closing scene, as Samantabhadra finishes speaking and the assembly rejoices.
- Why it matters
- This is where this chapter's place among the Pure Land sūtras is made explicit in verse, restating in poetry what Part 4 already gave in prose — and Chengguan's own commentary, translated in the second reading note below, directly answers the question of why a chapter of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra ends here rather than in Vairocana's own Flower-Treasury World.
1. Aspiring to Be Like Samantabhadra and Mañjuśrī
一切如來有長子， 彼名號曰普賢尊， 我今迴向諸善根， 願諸智行悉同彼。 願身口意恒清淨， 諸行剎土亦復然， 如是智慧號普賢， 願我與彼皆同等。 我為遍淨普賢行， 文殊師利諸大願， 滿彼事業盡無餘， 未來際劫恒無倦。 我所修行無有量， 獲得無量諸功德， 安住無量諸行中， 了達一切神通力。 文殊師利勇猛智， 普賢慧行亦復然， 我今迴向諸善根， 隨彼一切常修學。 三世諸佛所稱歎， 如是最勝諸大願， 我今迴向諸善根， 為得普賢殊勝行。
Every tathāgata has an eldest son, whose name is called the Honored One, Samantabhadra. I now dedicate all my roots of goodness, wishing that my wisdom and conduct may be entirely the same as his. May body, speech, and mind be forever pure, and every practice and every land be so as well; such wisdom is called Samantabhadra — I vow that I and he may be equal in every way. For the sake of perfectly purifying Samantabhadra's practice, and every one of Mañjuśrī's great vows, I will fulfill their work entirely, without remainder, to the very end of future eons, never growing weary. My own practice has no limit; I will obtain merit without measure, dwelling amid immeasurable practices, fully realizing every power of spiritual mastery. Mañjuśrī's courageous wisdom, and Samantabhadra's wisdom in action, are exactly the same; I now dedicate all my roots of goodness, that I may follow and learn from them both, always. What the buddhas of the three times themselves praise as the most excellent of all great vows — these I now dedicate all my roots of goodness toward, that I may obtain Samantabhadra's own supreme practice.
Chengguan explains why this section names Samantabhadra directly and calls him "eldest son" of every tathāgata: elsewhere in the Avataṃsaka's own chapter on the Buddha's manifestation, the identical title — "Dharma's eldest son" — is the very question asked in order to identify who has the standing to speak on the Buddha's behalf. He reads it two ways at once: as praise for an individual bodhisattva, marking Samantabhadra as foremost among a buddha's spiritual heirs; and as a description of what Samantabhadra represents doctrinally, standing for the Dharma realm itself, prior to and generative of every other phenomenon, the way an eldest son precedes and in a sense grounds those born after him.
He then reads the pairing of Mañjuśrī and Samantabhadra that follows as a matched set rather than a redundancy: Mañjuśrī stands for understanding, since a vow first requires seeing clearly what is worth vowing; Samantabhadra stands for the practice that carries an understood vow into action. Vow and practice, on this reading, are two names for a single completed process — which is why this verse insists on becoming equal to both bodhisattvas at once, rather than choosing between them.
2. Meeting Amitābha at Life's End
願我臨欲命終時， 盡除一切諸障礙， 面見彼佛阿彌陀， 即得往生安樂剎。 我既往生彼國已， 現前成就此大願， 一切圓滿盡無餘， 利樂一切眾生界。 彼佛眾會咸清淨， 我時於勝蓮華生， 親覩如來無量光， 現前授我菩提記。 蒙彼如來授記已， 化身無數百俱胝， 智力廣大遍十方， 普利一切眾生界。 乃至虛空世界盡， 眾生及業煩惱盡， 如是一切無盡時， 我願究竟恒無盡。
May I, when my life is about to come to its end, have every obstruction entirely removed, behold that Buddha Amitābha face to face, and at once attain rebirth in the land of peace and bliss. Having attained rebirth in that land, I will at once bring this great vow to fulfillment before me, complete in every particular, without remainder, benefiting every realm of sentient beings. That buddha's assembly is entirely pure, and I will then be born from a supreme lotus flower; there, face to face, I will behold the Tathāgata of Immeasurable Light, who will bestow upon me, before me, the prophecy of awakening. Having received that prophecy from the Tathāgata, I will send forth countless hundreds of koṭis of emanation bodies, whose power of wisdom, vast throughout the ten directions, will bring benefit everywhere to every realm of sentient beings. And even when the realm of space itself is exhausted, when sentient beings, their karma, and their afflictions are all exhausted — even then, this vow of mine will still have no end; it will remain, to its very completion, forever without exhaustion.
Chengguan raises, and answers directly, the question this chapter's readers have asked ever since: why does a chapter belonging to the Avataṃsaka Sūtra — nominally an account of Vairocana Buddha's own vast Flower-Treasury World — end its most personal, most urgent vow not with rebirth in that world, but in Amitābha's Sukhāvatī? He gives four reasons. First, Amitābha's own vows, unlike those of buddhas in general, are specifically weighted toward beings of this Sahā world — his vow-power reaches out to exactly the audience this text is written for. Second, a practitioner given no more direction than "every direction holds an equally wondrous buddha-land" has, in practice, nowhere to place their devotion at all; naming one specific destination gives an anxious mind, especially at the moment of death, somewhere concrete to aim toward. Third, and most important doctrinally, Sukhāvatī was never actually separate from the Flower-Treasury World to begin with: on the vast cosmology this same sūtra sets out elsewhere, worlds beyond number are arrayed, ocean within ocean, throughout Vairocana's own Flower-Treasury World-Ocean, and Amitābha's land is simply one node within that same total structure, reached without ever leaving it. Fourth, an earlier chapter of this very sūtra, its hymn of praise, already places Amitāyus and Avalokiteśvara alongside Vairocana in the same breath, treating them as so many expressions of a single underlying buddha-nature rather than as rival destinations. On this reading, the closing turn to Sukhāvatī is not a departure from this chapter's own Huayan setting — it is this sūtra's own cosmology, followed all the way through to the one destination inside it built to receive an ordinary, anxious, dying person by name.
He also notes, more technically, that this verse speaks in the first person — "when I am about to die" — where the corresponding prose passage in Part 4 spoke in the third person, of "this person." He reads the shift as the whole text's final turn from description to direct address: everything before this stanza was a teaching about a King of Vows spoken to Sudhana; this is the reciter's own voice, in the one moment when nothing catalogued earlier — ministers, palaces, treasuries, relatives — will still be there to answer for anything.
3. The Fruits of the Vow-King, and the Assembly's Joy
十方所有無邊剎， 莊嚴眾寶供如來， 最勝安樂施天人， 經一切剎微塵劫。 若人於此勝願王， 一經於耳能生信， 求勝菩提心渴仰， 獲勝功德過於彼。 即常遠離惡知識， 永離一切諸惡道， 速見如來無量光， 具此普賢最勝願。 此人善得勝壽命， 此人善來人中生， 此人不久當成就， 如彼普賢菩薩行。 往昔由無智慧力， 所造極惡五無間， 誦此普賢大願王， 一念速疾皆銷滅。 族姓種類及容色， 相好智慧咸圓滿， 諸魔外道不能摧， 堪為三界所應供。 速詣菩提大樹王， 坐已降伏諸魔眾， 成等正覺轉法輪， 普利一切諸含識。 若人於此普賢願， 讀誦受持及演說， 果報唯佛能證知， 決定獲勝菩提道。 若人誦此普賢願， 我說少分之善根， 一念一切悉皆圓， 成就眾生清淨願。 我此普賢殊勝行， 無邊勝福皆迴向， 普願沈溺諸眾生， 速往無量光佛剎。」 爾時，普賢菩薩摩訶薩於如來前，說此普賢廣大願王清淨偈已，善財童子踊躍無量，一切菩薩皆大歡喜。如來讚言：「善哉！善哉！」爾時，世尊與諸聖者菩薩摩訶薩演說如是不可思議解脫境界勝法門時，文殊師利菩薩而為上首，諸大菩薩及所成熟六千比丘；彌勒菩薩而為上首，賢劫一切諸大菩薩；無垢普賢菩薩而為上首，一生補處住灌頂位諸大菩薩，及餘十方種種世界普來集會一切剎海極微塵數諸菩薩摩訶薩眾；大智舍利弗、摩訶目犍連等而為上首，諸大聲聞；并諸人天一切世主、天、龍、夜叉、乾闥婆、阿脩羅、迦樓羅、緊那羅、摩睺羅伽、人、非人等一切大眾，聞佛所說，皆大歡喜，信受奉行。
Adorning every boundless land of the ten directions with every kind of treasure, and offering it to the tathāgatas, giving the most excellent bliss to every human and heavenly being, continuing through eons as many as the motes of dust in every land — if a person, upon this supreme King of Vows, merely lets it pass once through their ear and gives rise to faith, and thirstily aspires to the most excellent awakening, the merit they obtain surpasses even all of that. Such a person will forever keep far away from evil companions, forever leave behind every lower realm, and will swiftly behold the Tathāgata of Immeasurable Light, complete with this most excellent vow of Samantabhadra. Such a person truly gains an excellent span of life; such a person is truly well come into a human birth; before long, such a person will accomplish exactly what Samantabhadra Bodhisattva himself has accomplished. Even the most extreme evils, the five heinous transgressions, committed in the past through the power of ignorance — by reciting this great King of Vows of Samantabhadra, they are entirely dissolved, in a single thought, at once. Their lineage, their family, and their very countenance, their excellent marks and their wisdom, will all become complete; no demon and no false teaching will be able to overcome them, and they will be fit to receive the offerings of the entire threefold world. They will swiftly arrive at the great bodhi tree, and having sat down there, subdue the host of Māra, accomplish perfect awakening, and turn the wheel of the Dharma, bringing wide benefit to every sentient being. If a person, toward this vow of Samantabhadra, reads it, recites it, upholds it, and expounds it, the fruit of this only a buddha can bear witness to; they will surely attain the most excellent path of awakening. If a person recites this vow of Samantabhadra, even the small portion of goodness I have described here will, in a single thought, bring everything to complete fulfillment, accomplishing every sentient being's own pure vow. This most excellent practice of Samantabhadra that is mine, and its boundless, most excellent blessing — all of it, I dedicate; may every sentient being sunk and drowning swiftly go to the buddha-land of Immeasurable Light." At that time, when the Bodhisattva-Mahāsattva Samantabhadra had finished speaking this pure verse of Samantabhadra's vast King of Vows before the Tathāgata, Sudhana the youth leapt with immeasurable joy, and every bodhisattva rejoiced greatly. The Tathāgata praised it, saying, "Excellent! Excellent!" At that time, when the World-Honored One, together with these noble bodhisattva-mahāsattvas, had finished expounding this supreme Dharma-gate of the inconceivable state of liberation, the assembly included: Mañjuśrī Bodhisattva, foremost among the great bodhisattvas, together with the six thousand monks he had brought to ripeness; Maitreya Bodhisattva, foremost among every great bodhisattva of the Fortunate Eon; the stainless Samantabhadra Bodhisattva, foremost among the great bodhisattvas dwelling in the consecrated stage, bound for buddhahood in a single further lifetime; and, besides these, bodhisattva-mahāsattvas as numerous as the fine motes of dust in every ocean of lands, gathered together from every kind of world throughout the ten directions; the greatly wise Śāriputra and Mahāmaudgalyāyana, foremost among the great śrāvakas; together with every lord of the world among humans and heavenly beings, and the eightfold host of heavenly beings and dragons, yakṣas, gandharvas, asuras, garuḍas, kiṃnaras, and mahoragas, humans and non-humans — the whole great assembly. Having heard what had been taught, all of them rejoiced greatly, and received and upheld it with faith.
Chengguan glosses the verse's brief image of "swiftly arriving at the great bodhi tree, subduing the host of Māra, and turning the wheel of the Dharma" by drawing out the full traditional account of Śākyamuni's own enlightenment night that stands behind it: the herder-girl Sujātā's offering of milk-rice after his six years of futile austerity, made at a village deity's urging; the seat of pure grass a heavenly being disguised as a grass-cutter provides him; Māra's daughters sent to break his resolve through seduction, and, failing that, Māra's own armies of monstrous forms attacking with fire, poison, and weapons, every missile turning to flowers the instant it reaches him; and finally Māra's demand for a witness to the Buddha-to-be's claim of merit sufficient for awakening, answered when he touches the earth and the earth goddess herself rises up, bearing flowers, to testify on his behalf. Chengguan's point in retelling it at such length here is that this vow-king does not promise the reciter some vague future attainment — it promises the very same attainment, structured the very same way, down to the same confrontation and the same witness, that tradition remembers the Buddha himself undergoing.
He also makes a quieter observation about who has actually been speaking throughout this closing scene. The text states that "the Tathāgata praised it, saying, 'Excellent! Excellent!'" — but Chengguan notes that the Buddha, by this point in the assembly, has been seated in a single unbroken samādhi since the gathering began, and never once speaks aloud in his own voice anywhere in this chapter. The praise attributed to him here, like the entire teaching that precedes it, is what Chengguan calls "meaning generated" rather than literally spoken: Samantabhadra teaches in the Buddha's own presence and with the Buddha's own tacit sanction, and the text's closing line renders that sanction as though it were direct speech, though no such speech is ever actually recorded as being uttered. It is a small detail, but one that keeps this chapter's most famous promise anchored to what a careful reader can find on the page, rather than to what devotional habit might otherwise supply on its own.