Ānanda's Doubt, and the Bodhisattva Called Salvation
Part 4 turns from worship to a harder question, asked by the Buddha's own closest attendant on behalf of every future skeptic: how can holding one name in mind actually accomplish what this sūtra claims? A bodhisattva named Salvation then answers with the sūtra's most vivid scene — a dying person's consciousness led before King Yama himself — and gives exact instructions for the lamp and banner that can, in some cases, call that consciousness back.
Ānanda's Question, and the Doubt of Beings to Come
爾時，世尊告阿難言：「如我稱揚彼佛世尊藥師琉璃光如來所有功德，此是諸佛甚深行處，難可解了，汝為信不？」阿難白言：「大德世尊！我於如來所說契經，不生疑惑；所以者何？一切如來身語意業，無不清淨。世尊！此日月輪，可令墮落；妙高山王，可使傾動，諸佛所言，無有異也。世尊！有諸眾生，信根不具，聞說諸佛甚深行處，作是思惟：云何但念藥師琉璃光如來一佛名號，便獲爾所功德勝利？由此不信，反生誹謗；彼於長夜，失大利樂，墮諸惡趣，流轉無窮。」佛告阿難：「是諸有情，若聞世尊藥師琉璃光如來名號，至心受持，不生疑惑，墮惡趣者，無有是處。阿難！此是諸佛甚深所行，難可信解；汝今能受，當知皆是如來威力。阿難！一切聲聞、獨覺，及未登地諸菩薩等，皆悉不能如實信解；惟除一生所繫菩薩。阿難！人身難得，於三寶中，信敬尊重，亦難可得；得聞世尊藥師琉璃光如來名號，復難於是。阿難！彼藥師琉璃光如來，無量菩薩行；無量善巧方便；無量廣大願；我若一劫，若一劫餘而廣說者，劫可速盡，彼佛行願，善巧方便，無有盡也。」
At that time the World-Honored One said to Ānanda: "As I have extolled the merit possessed by the World-Honored One, the Tathāgata Bhaiṣajyaguru Vaiḍūryaprabha — this is the profound conduct of the buddhas, hard to fathom. Do you believe it?" Ānanda said to the Buddha: "Great and Virtuous World-Honored One, I harbor no doubt regarding the sūtras the Tathāgata has taught; and why is this? Because there is no act of the Tathāgata's body, speech, or mind that is not utterly pure. World-Honored One, this disc of the sun and moon could be made to fall, and Sumeru, king of mountains, could be made to topple — but what the buddhas say is never otherwise. World-Honored One, there are beings whose root of faith is incomplete, who, hearing this teaching of the buddhas' profound conduct, think to themselves: 'How could merely holding in mind the single name of the Buddha Bhaiṣajyaguru Vaiḍūryaprabha bring about such excellent benefits as these?' And because of this lack of faith, they instead give rise to slander; and through the long night of saṃsāra they lose this great benefit and ease, falling into evil destinies, circling there without end." The Buddha said to Ānanda: "Should such beings hear the name of the World-Honored One, the Tathāgata Bhaiṣajyaguru Vaiḍūryaprabha, and hold it in mind with a sincere heart, free of doubt, it is simply not possible that they should fall into an evil destiny. Ānanda, this is the profound conduct of the buddhas, hard to believe and understand; that you are now able to accept it, know that this too is entirely due to the Tathāgata's majestic power. Ānanda, all śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas, and all bodhisattvas who have not yet ascended to the [first] ground, are none of them able to believe and understand this as it truly is — only bodhisattvas bound to a single remaining birth are excepted. Ānanda, a human body is hard to obtain; faith, reverence, and honor toward the Three Jewels are likewise hard to obtain; and to obtain the chance to hear the name of the World-Honored One, the Tathāgata Bhaiṣajyaguru Vaiḍūryaprabha, is harder still than these. Ānanda, that Tathāgata Bhaiṣajyaguru Vaiḍūryaprabha's bodhisattva practices are measureless, his skillful means are measureless, and his vast, great vows are measureless; were I to explain them at length for a kalpa, or for a kalpa and more, the kalpa itself could sooner come to its end than that buddha's practices, vows, and skillful means could ever be exhausted."
Taehyeon reads this exchange as a four-part "gate of gain through faith and loss through slander," running exactly along the lines of the dialogue itself: first, a gate establishing that the buddhas' word is settled beyond question (Ānanda's opening reply); second, a gate showing the decline that slander brings (his account of the doubting skeptic); third, a gate showing the gain that reverent faith brings (the Buddha's reply that belief precludes an evil rebirth); and fourth, a gate urging beings to accept the teaching (the Buddha's closing praise of Ānanda's own faith). He treats Ānanda's comparison — the sun and moon could fall, Sumeru could topple, sooner than a buddha's word could prove false — as doing real argumentative work rather than serving as decoration: it names two things ancient cosmology held to be the most fixed features of the universe, precisely so that the buddhas' truthfulness can be asserted as more fixed still.
He lingers longest on the claim that only "bodhisattvas bound to a single remaining birth" (一生所繫菩薩) — meaning bodhisattvas one lifetime away from buddhahood themselves, the rank Maitreya presently holds — can believe and understand this teaching as it truly is, with even bodhisattvas who have not yet reached the first of the ten grounds excluded from that full understanding. Rather than softening this into mere rhetorical emphasis, he takes it as a genuine claim about depth: what looks, on its surface, like the simplest possible practice — holding one name in mind — rests on a causal structure (this buddha's specific vow, sustained across countless kalpas, meeting a specific being's specific karma) too intricate for even advanced bodhisattvas to trace in full, which is exactly why faith, rather than verification, is what the passage asks of Ānanda, and of every reader after him.
The Bodhisattva Called Salvation
爾時，眾中有一菩薩摩訶薩，名曰救脫，即從座起，偏袒右肩，右膝著地，曲躬合掌而白佛言：「大德世尊！像法轉時，有諸眾生，為種種患之所困厄，長病羸瘦，不能飲食，喉脣乾燥，見諸方暗，死相現前；父母、親屬、朋友、知識，啼泣圍繞。然彼自身，臥在本處，見琰魔使，引其神識，至于琰魔法王之前；然諸有情，有俱生神，隨其所作，若罪若福，皆具書之，盡持授與琰魔法王。爾時，彼王推問其人，算計所作，隨其罪福而處斷之。時，彼病人親屬、知識，若能為彼歸依世尊藥師琉璃光如來，請諸眾僧，轉讀此經，然七層之燈，懸五色續命神幡，或有是處，彼識得還。如在夢中，明了自見；或經七日，或二十一日，或三十五日，或四十九日，彼識還時，如從夢覺，皆自憶知善不善業所得果報。由自證見業果報故，乃至命難，亦不造作諸惡之業。是故，淨信善男子、善女人等，皆應受持藥師琉璃光如來名號，隨力所能，恭敬供養。」
At that time there was in the assembly a bodhisattva-mahāsattva named Salvation, who rose from his seat, bared his right shoulder, placed his right knee on the ground, bowed with joined palms, and said to the Buddha: "Great and Virtuous World-Honored One, in the age of the semblance Dharma there will be beings beset and hemmed in by every kind of affliction, long ill and wasted thin, unable to eat or drink, their throat and lips parched dry, seeing every direction go dark, the marks of death already appearing before them; their father, mother, relatives, friends, and acquaintances weeping and gathered around them. Yet that person's own body lies still in its place, while they see the messengers of Yama leading their consciousness before King Yama himself; for every being has a spirit born together with them, which records, in full, whatever they have done, whether offense or merit, and delivers this record entirely into the hands of King Yama. At that time the king questions the person and reckons up what they have done, and judges them according to their offenses and their merit. Now, should that sick person's relatives and acquaintances, on their behalf, take refuge in the World-Honored One, the Tathāgata Bhaiṣajyaguru Vaiḍūryaprabha, invite monks to recite this sūtra in turn, light lamps arranged in seven tiers, and hang a five-colored banner of continued life — then it may happen that that person's consciousness is able to return. It will be as clear to them as something seen in a dream; and whether seven days, twenty-one days, thirty-five days, or forty-nine days pass before their consciousness returns, when it does return it will be as though waking from a dream, and they will remember for themselves the fruits of the wholesome and unwholesome deeds they have done. Because they have thus witnessed for themselves the fruit of karma, they will not commit any evil deed again, even at the risk of their own life. For this reason, every good son and good daughter of pure faith should uphold the name of Bhaiṣajyaguru Vaiḍūryaprabha, and, according to their ability, reverently make offerings to him."
Taehyeon calls this the "gate where an image assists" a being in crisis, divided into the purpose of that assistance and its actual benefit. He glosses Yama's name (琰魔, from Sanskrit Yama) as meaning "quieting rest" in Chinese — one who awakens the guilty to their own wrongdoing and brings their evildoing to a stop — and notes that this meaning is precisely why a figure counted among the ghost-realm's inhabitants can still be addressed as a "dharma-king." He reads the scene's four figures — Yama's messenger, the dying person's own consciousness, King Yama himself, and the "spirit born together" with that person — not as a literal courtroom staffed by external beings but as karmic force taking on a form the mind can register: the co-arisen spirit, he notes, citing the Pure Land Samādhi Sūtra, "shares one's birth and one's name, a single spirit born together" with the person from the moment of conception, which is why its testimony against or for them cannot be argued with — it is, in effect, an unforgeable record of the person's own past.
On the seven tiers of lamps and five colors of the banner, Taehyeon admits the sūtra gives no stated reason, but offers his own inference: seven tiers to subdue the seven branches of unwholesome bodily and verbal karma, five colors to harmonize the five directions. On the escalating count of days — seven, then twenty-one, then thirty-five, then forty-nine — he ties this to the traditional teaching that a being in the intermediate state between death and rebirth persists for periods of seven days at a time, up to seven such periods before rebirth is finally settled; but he is careful to add, following what "transmitters of the tradition all say," that throughout this entire process the person's consciousness in fact never actually leaves the body at all — the vision of Yama's court, real as its consequences are, unfolds within a consciousness that has not gone anywhere.
The Continuing-Life Lamp and Banner
爾時，阿難問救脫菩薩曰：「善男子！應云何恭敬供養彼世尊藥師琉璃光如來續命幡燈，復云何造？」救脫菩薩言：「大德！若有病人，欲脫病苦，當為其人，七日七夜，受持八分齋戒，應以飲食及餘資具，隨力所辦，供養苾芻僧；晝夜六時，禮拜供養彼世尊藥師琉璃光如來；讀誦此經四十九遍；然四十九燈；造彼如來形像七軀，一一像前各置七燈，一一燈量大如車輪，乃至四十九日，光明不絕；造五色綵幡，長四十九搩手，應放雜類眾生至四十九；可得過度危厄之難，不為諸橫惡鬼所持。
「復次，阿難！若剎帝利灌頂王等，災難起時，所謂人眾疾疫難，他國侵逼難，自界叛逆難，星宿變怪難，日月薄蝕難，非時風雨難，過時不雨難。彼剎帝利灌頂王等，爾時應於一切有情起慈悲心，赦諸繫閉；依前所說供養之法，供養彼世尊藥師琉璃光如來。由此善根，及彼如來本願力故，令其國界即得安隱：風雨順時，穀稼成熟；一切有情無病歡樂；於其國中，無有暴虐藥叉等神惱有情者；一切惡相，皆即隱沒；而剎帝利灌頂王等，壽命色力，無病自在，皆得增益。阿難！若帝后、妃主、儲君、王子、大臣、輔相、中宮婇女、百官、黎庶，為病所苦，及餘厄難；亦應造立五色神幡，然燈續明，放諸生命，散雜色華，燒眾名香，病得除愈，眾難解脫。」
At that time Ānanda asked the bodhisattva Salvation: "Good son, how should one reverently make offerings of the continuing-life banner and lamp to the World-Honored One, the Tathāgata Bhaiṣajyaguru Vaiḍūryaprabha, and how should they be made?" The bodhisattva Salvation said: "Great Virtuous One, should there be a sick person who wishes to be freed from the suffering of illness, one should, on their behalf, uphold the eight-part fast for seven days and seven nights, and, with whatever food, drink, and other provisions one is able to provide, make offerings to the community of bhikṣus; and, six times each day and night, bow and make offerings to the World-Honored One, the Tathāgata Bhaiṣajyaguru Vaiḍūryaprabha; recite this sūtra forty-nine times; light forty-nine lamps; and fashion seven images of that Tathāgata, placing seven lamps before each image, each lamp as large as a cart-wheel, so that for forty-nine days the light never goes out; and make a five-colored banner forty-nine spans long, and release living beings of every kind, up to forty-nine of them — and by this means one may bring that person safely across the danger of that crisis, and they will not be seized by any untimely, evil spirit.
"Furthermore, Ānanda, should calamity arise for an anointed kṣatriya king — namely, the danger of epidemic among the people, the danger of invasion from another country, the danger of rebellion within his own realm, the danger of ominous changes among the stars, the danger of eclipse of the sun or moon, the danger of untimely wind and rain, or the danger of rain failing to come when it should — that anointed king should, at such a time, give rise to a compassionate heart toward every being, grant amnesty to those held in bondage, and, according to the method of offering already described, make offerings to the World-Honored One, the Tathāgata Bhaiṣajyaguru Vaiḍūryaprabha. Through this root of goodness, and through the power of that Tathāgata's fundamental vow, his realm will at once gain peace and stability: wind and rain will come in their proper season, the grain will ripen; every being will be free of illness and joyful; within his realm there will be no fierce and violent yakṣas or other spirits troubling any being; every evil sign will at once vanish; and that anointed king's own lifespan, bodily strength, and freedom from illness will all be increased. Ānanda, should the emperor, empress, princesses, crown prince, princes, ministers, chief counselors, ladies of the inner palace, officials, or common people be troubled by illness or other calamity, they too should fashion a five-colored banner of the spirits, light lamps to continue their brightness, release living creatures, scatter flowers of every color, and burn fragrant incense of every kind, and their illness will be cured, and every calamity will be resolved."
Taehyeon calls this fifth section the "gate of question, answer, and the resolving of difficulty," itself divided into a question-and-answer half addressing illness and a second half addressing danger to the state. On the specific figures given here — forty-nine lamps, seven images, forty-nine days — he is careful to note that this level of provision names an upper bound rather than a strict requirement, citing the sūtra's own earlier instruction to give "according to one's ability," and quoting the Dharma-Assembly Sūtra's own line that "even the poor can accomplish this with a single lamp." He also records Master Mai's practical gloss on "placing seven lamps before each image": a single wheel-shaped lamp-stand set before each of the seven images, and seven individual lamp-flames arranged upon each wheel — the geometry the number is describing, rather than an arbitrary total.
On the seven named dangers to a kingdom, Taehyeon maps each pair to a specific promised relief later in the same passage with some precision: national peace and stability answers the second and third dangers (invasion and rebellion); wind and rain in due season answers the sixth and seventh (untimely rain and drought); freedom from illness and from troubling spirits answers the first; and the vanishing of evil signs answers the fourth and fifth (ominous stars and eclipses) — a structural mapping he treats as no accident, since it means every named calamity in the king's list receives an explicit, matching resolution in the king's reward, rather than a single vague blessing covering all seven at once. He adds that this section addresses more than the sick alone: "not only does it rescue the ill, it also delivers a kingdom from crisis" — the same lamp-and-banner rite scaled from a single dying person to an entire realm.
Part 4 Complete
This closes Part 4: Ānanda's doubt met with the Buddha's own account of why this teaching is hard even for advanced bodhisattvas to fathom, and the bodhisattva Salvation's description of consciousness at the threshold of death, called back by a lamp lit in sets of seven and a banner of five colors. Part 5 closes the sūtra itself, turning to the nine kinds of untimely death this teaching is meant to prevent, and to twelve yakṣa generals who, having heard this teaching, vow on the spot to spend their own strength protecting whoever carries it forward.
Continue to Part 5 — Nine Untimely Deaths, and the Vow of Twelve Yakṣa Generals →