Fetching
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Fetching
One moment.
Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1lect. sarasth4nam v., witha marginal correction sarirasthanam v. I consider the original reading to have been sirdsthanam. v. ON PLANTS. 131 another after combining it with various other substances so as to enter in a compound potion, food, &c. Owing to these means being applied the blindborn recovers his eyesight, and in consequence of that recovery he sees outwardly and inwardly}, far and near, the shine of sun and moon, the asterisms, planets, and all phenomena. Then he says: O how foolish was I that I did not believe what they told me, nor accepted what they affirmed. Now I see all; I am delivered from my blindness and have recovered my eyesight; there is none in the world who could surpass me. And at the same moment Seers of the five transcendent faculties?, strong in the divine sight and hearing, in the knowledge of others’ minds, in the memory of former abodes, in magical science and intuition, speak to the man thus: Good man, thou hast just recovered thine eyesight, nothing more, and dost not know yet anything. Whence comes this conceitedness to thee? Thou hast no wisdom, nor art thou a clever man. Further they say to him: Good man, when sitting in the interior of thy room, thou canst not see nor distinguish forms ? Bahir adhyd4tmam, (the things) external and in relation to one’s own self. 4 T.e. simply the five senses. The term Abhigiia can hardly originally have meant ‘transcendent faculty or knowledge,’ because it is a derivation from a compound abhig4n4ti. Neither in Sanskrit nor in Prakrit can abhig#4 denote anything else but perception, acknowledgment, recognition. Yet it cannot be denied that those who used it intended by it to convey the meaning of something grand and imposing, especially the senses of a spiritual man, as distinguished from the profanum vulgus. As to the Seers, Rishis, here mentioned, I think that they are the senses personified, otherwise called devas, gods. Deva, to denote an organ of sense, occurs frequently, e.g. Musdaka Upanishad III, 1, 8. K 2 132 SADDHARMA-PUNDARIKA. v.
2As to the Seers, Rishis, here mentioned, I think that they are the senses personified, otherwise called devas, gods. Deva, to denote an organ of sense, occurs frequently, e.g. Musdaka Upanishad III, 1, 8. K 2 132 SADDHARMA-PUNDARIKA. v. outside, nor discern which beings are animated with kind feelings and which with hostile feelings; thou canst not distinguish nor hear at the distance of five yoganas the voice of a man or the sound of a drum, conch trumpet, and the like; thou canst not even walk as far as a kos without lifting up thy feet; thou hast been produced and developed in thy mother’s womb without remembering the fact ; how then wouldst thou be clever, and how canst thou say: I see all? Good man, thou takest! darkness for light, and takest light for darkness. Whereupon the Seers are asked by the man: By what means and by what good work shall I acquire such wisdom and with your favour acquire those good qualities (or virtues)? And the Seers say to that man: If that be thy wish, go and live in the wilderness or take thine abode in mountain caves, to meditate on the law and cast off evil passions. So shalt thou become endowed with the virtues of an ascetic? and acquire the transcendent faculties. The man catches their meaning and becomes an ascetic. Living in the wilderness, the mind intent upon one sole object, he shakes off worldly desires, and acquires the five transcendent faculties. After that acquisition he reflects thus: Formerly I did not do the right thing; hence no good accrued to me®, Now, 1 Samg4nAsi, var. lect. samganishe. * Dhutaguaa, Pali the same, besides dhfitaguaza. In F&li the dhutangas or dhf® denote thirteen ascetic practices ; see Childers, Pali Dict. s. v. The Dhutaguwas are, according to the same author’s statement, other names for the Dhutangas, but I venture to think that they are the twenty-eight virtues of a Dhutanga, as enumerated in Milinda Pawtho (ed. Trenckner), p. 351- * Parvam anyat karma kritavin, tena me na kaskid guzo *dhigata’. v. ON PLANTS. 133 however, I can go whither my mind prompts me; formerly I was ignorant, of little understanding, in fact, a blind man. Such, K4syapa, is the parable I have invented to make thee understand my meaning. The moral to be drawn from it is as follows. The word ‘blindborn,’ Kasyapa, is a designation for the creatures staying in the whirl of the world with its six states ; the creatures who do not know the true law and are heaping up the thick darkness of evil passions. Those are blind from ignorance', and in consequence of it they build up conceptions?; in consequence of the latter name-and-form, and so forth, up to the genesis of this whole huge mass of evils.
3Those are blind from ignorance', and in consequence of it they build up conceptions?; in consequence of the latter name-and-form, and so forth, up to the genesis of this whole huge mass of evils. So the creatures blind from ignorance remain in the whirl of life, but the Tathagata, who is out of the triple world, feels compassion, prompted by which, like a father for his dear and only son, he appears in the triple world and sees with his eye of wisdom that the creatures are revolving in the circle of the mundane whirl, and are toiling without finding the right means to escape from the rotation. And 1 Or, false knowledge, avidy4, which in the Chain of Causation (pratityasamutp4da, Pali patifAasamutp4da) occupies exactly the same place as in other systems of Indian philosophy. In reality the avidya was not only the origin of all evils, but also the remedy, the panacea. It was, however, thought convenient to veil that conclusion and to call the future state of complete ignorance ‘all-knowingness.’ ? Rather, products (samskara) of the imaginative power, of fancy. ‘These form the second item in the enumeration of Causes and Effects. ® The genesis of diseases, death, &c. The merely ideal nature of this genesis is proved by the fact that the sage who has overcome avidy4a is just as liable to diseases and death as the most ignorant creature. 134 SADDHARMA-PUNDARIKA. Vv. on seeing this he comes to the conclusion: Yon beings, according to the good works they have done in former states, have feeble aversions and strong attachments; (or) feeble attachments and strong aversions; some have little wisdom, others are clever; some have soundly developed views, others have unsound views. To all of them the Tathagata skilfully shows three vehicles 1. The Seers in the parable, those possessing the five transcendent faculties and clear-sight, are the Bodhisattvas? who produce enlightened thought, and by the acquirement of acquiescence in the eternal law * awake us to supreme, perfect enlightenment. The great physician in the parable is the Tathagata. To the blind-born may be likened the creatures 1 With this we may compare the term trivartman (of three paths), applied to the individual or living being, Svet&svatara Upanishad V, 7. Sankara explains it by devay4nadi; in the more ancient and natural meaning, the word may have been applied to the three divisions of time. Cf. the same Upanishad I, 4, where the brahmaakra, the brahma-wheel, is said to be trivrét, threefold. 2 In the Yoga called buddhisattva, the reasoning faculty. The Bodhisattvas are the five Dhyani-Bodhisattvas Samantabhadra, &c., who do no more differ from the five Dhyani-Buddhas Vairokana, &c., than the balas do from the indriyas. Cf Burnouf, Introd. p. 118.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1lect. sarasth4nam v., witha marginal correction sarirasthanam v. I consider the original reading to have been sirdsthanam. v. ON PLANTS. 131 another after combining it with various other substances so as to enter in a compound potion, food, &c. Owing to these means being applied the blindborn recovers his eyesight, and in consequence of that recovery he sees outwardly and inwardly}, far and near, the shine of sun and moon, the asterisms, planets, and all phenomena. Then he says: O how foolish was I that I did not believe what they told me, nor accepted what they affirmed. Now I see all; I am delivered from my blindness and have recovered my eyesight; there is none in the world who could surpass me. And at the same moment Seers of the five transcendent faculties?, strong in the divine sight and hearing, in the knowledge of others’ minds, in the memory of former abodes, in magical science and intuition, speak to the man thus: Good man, thou hast just recovered thine eyesight, nothing more, and dost not know yet anything. Whence comes this conceitedness to thee? Thou hast no wisdom, nor art thou a clever man. Further they say to him: Good man, when sitting in the interior of thy room, thou canst not see nor distinguish forms ? Bahir adhyd4tmam, (the things) external and in relation to one’s own self. 4 T.e. simply the five senses. The term Abhigiia can hardly originally have meant ‘transcendent faculty or knowledge,’ because it is a derivation from a compound abhig4n4ti. Neither in Sanskrit nor in Prakrit can abhig#4 denote anything else but perception, acknowledgment, recognition. Yet it cannot be denied that those who used it intended by it to convey the meaning of something grand and imposing, especially the senses of a spiritual man, as distinguished from the profanum vulgus. As to the Seers, Rishis, here mentioned, I think that they are the senses personified, otherwise called devas, gods. Deva, to denote an organ of sense, occurs frequently, e.g. Musdaka Upanishad III, 1, 8. K 2 132 SADDHARMA-PUNDARIKA. v.
2As to the Seers, Rishis, here mentioned, I think that they are the senses personified, otherwise called devas, gods. Deva, to denote an organ of sense, occurs frequently, e.g. Musdaka Upanishad III, 1, 8. K 2 132 SADDHARMA-PUNDARIKA. v. outside, nor discern which beings are animated with kind feelings and which with hostile feelings; thou canst not distinguish nor hear at the distance of five yoganas the voice of a man or the sound of a drum, conch trumpet, and the like; thou canst not even walk as far as a kos without lifting up thy feet; thou hast been produced and developed in thy mother’s womb without remembering the fact ; how then wouldst thou be clever, and how canst thou say: I see all? Good man, thou takest! darkness for light, and takest light for darkness. Whereupon the Seers are asked by the man: By what means and by what good work shall I acquire such wisdom and with your favour acquire those good qualities (or virtues)? And the Seers say to that man: If that be thy wish, go and live in the wilderness or take thine abode in mountain caves, to meditate on the law and cast off evil passions. So shalt thou become endowed with the virtues of an ascetic? and acquire the transcendent faculties. The man catches their meaning and becomes an ascetic. Living in the wilderness, the mind intent upon one sole object, he shakes off worldly desires, and acquires the five transcendent faculties. After that acquisition he reflects thus: Formerly I did not do the right thing; hence no good accrued to me®, Now, 1 Samg4nAsi, var. lect. samganishe. * Dhutaguaa, Pali the same, besides dhfitaguaza. In F&li the dhutangas or dhf® denote thirteen ascetic practices ; see Childers, Pali Dict. s. v. The Dhutaguwas are, according to the same author’s statement, other names for the Dhutangas, but I venture to think that they are the twenty-eight virtues of a Dhutanga, as enumerated in Milinda Pawtho (ed. Trenckner), p. 351- * Parvam anyat karma kritavin, tena me na kaskid guzo *dhigata’. v. ON PLANTS. 133 however, I can go whither my mind prompts me; formerly I was ignorant, of little understanding, in fact, a blind man. Such, K4syapa, is the parable I have invented to make thee understand my meaning. The moral to be drawn from it is as follows. The word ‘blindborn,’ Kasyapa, is a designation for the creatures staying in the whirl of the world with its six states ; the creatures who do not know the true law and are heaping up the thick darkness of evil passions. Those are blind from ignorance', and in consequence of it they build up conceptions?; in consequence of the latter name-and-form, and so forth, up to the genesis of this whole huge mass of evils.
3Those are blind from ignorance', and in consequence of it they build up conceptions?; in consequence of the latter name-and-form, and so forth, up to the genesis of this whole huge mass of evils. So the creatures blind from ignorance remain in the whirl of life, but the Tathagata, who is out of the triple world, feels compassion, prompted by which, like a father for his dear and only son, he appears in the triple world and sees with his eye of wisdom that the creatures are revolving in the circle of the mundane whirl, and are toiling without finding the right means to escape from the rotation. And 1 Or, false knowledge, avidy4, which in the Chain of Causation (pratityasamutp4da, Pali patifAasamutp4da) occupies exactly the same place as in other systems of Indian philosophy. In reality the avidya was not only the origin of all evils, but also the remedy, the panacea. It was, however, thought convenient to veil that conclusion and to call the future state of complete ignorance ‘all-knowingness.’ ? Rather, products (samskara) of the imaginative power, of fancy. ‘These form the second item in the enumeration of Causes and Effects. ® The genesis of diseases, death, &c. The merely ideal nature of this genesis is proved by the fact that the sage who has overcome avidy4a is just as liable to diseases and death as the most ignorant creature. 134 SADDHARMA-PUNDARIKA. Vv. on seeing this he comes to the conclusion: Yon beings, according to the good works they have done in former states, have feeble aversions and strong attachments; (or) feeble attachments and strong aversions; some have little wisdom, others are clever; some have soundly developed views, others have unsound views. To all of them the Tathagata skilfully shows three vehicles 1. The Seers in the parable, those possessing the five transcendent faculties and clear-sight, are the Bodhisattvas? who produce enlightened thought, and by the acquirement of acquiescence in the eternal law * awake us to supreme, perfect enlightenment. The great physician in the parable is the Tathagata. To the blind-born may be likened the creatures 1 With this we may compare the term trivartman (of three paths), applied to the individual or living being, Svet&svatara Upanishad V, 7. Sankara explains it by devay4nadi; in the more ancient and natural meaning, the word may have been applied to the three divisions of time. Cf. the same Upanishad I, 4, where the brahmaakra, the brahma-wheel, is said to be trivrét, threefold. 2 In the Yoga called buddhisattva, the reasoning faculty. The Bodhisattvas are the five Dhyani-Bodhisattvas Samantabhadra, &c., who do no more differ from the five Dhyani-Buddhas Vairokana, &c., than the balas do from the indriyas. Cf Burnouf, Introd. p. 118.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
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