The Transcendent Perfection of Wisdom
in Eighteen Thousand Lines - 387
Daśasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā
– Chapter 87 - Entrusting this perfection of wisdom to Ānanda –
Source: https://read.84000.co/translation/toh10.html
More Analysis of Mahayana Sutras : https://www.gilehtblog.com/2022/07/toc-400.html
[Back to Résumés of chapters 42-87]
87. ENTRUSTING – Ensuring the continuation of the Buddha-dharmas. The Buddha entrusted this perfection of wisdom to Ānanda.
(i.e. Résumé: CONCLUSION. Ensuring the continuation of the Buddha-dharmas.
The Buddha entrusted this perfection of wisdom to Ānanda.
Bodhisattvas must take up, bear in mind, read aloud, and study this perfection of wisdom in order to perfectly look after it. They must also explicate it in detail to others.
They should listen to, take up, bear in mind, read aloud, master, read aloud to others, clearly articulate, teach, and recite from memory this perfection of wisdom. They should respect, revere, honor, worship, praise, and attend to it with flowers, incense, perfumes, creams, powders, robes, parasols, flags and banners, and with rosaries of lamps all around it and by worshiping it in many ways.
Those doing this will not become separated from seeing the Buddha, will not become separated from hearing the Dharma, and will not become separated from serving the Saṅgha.)
"Subhūti, the moment the bodhisattva great being Sadāprarudita came into possession of those six million meditative stabilization gateways,
he beheld, in world systems as many as there are sand particles in the Gaṅgā River in the eastern direction, southern direction, western direction, and northern direction, in the intermediate directions, and in the directions below and above, the lord buddhas surrounded by a community of monks and at the head of an assembly of bodhisattvas, as many as there are sand particles in the Gaṅgā River, teaching the perfection of wisdom in just such ways as these, with just these names, and in just these words, just as I, Subhūti, the Dharma teacher in this great billionfold world system, am now teaching the perfection of wisdom surrounded by a community of monks and at the head of an assembly of bodhisattvas in just such ways as these, with just these names, and in just these words.
He became endowed with inconceivably great learning and an ocean-like erudition;
he was never separated from the buddhas wherever he was born;
in all his lives he took birth in places where he would come face to face with the lord buddhas;
and he was not separated from the lord buddhas even in dreams.
He avoided the places that preclude a perfect human birth and accomplished a perfect human birth. 1121
"Subhūti, 1122 from this one of many explanations, you should know that
this perfection of wisdom brings about the bodhisattva great beings' knowledge of a knower of all.
Therefore, Subhūti, those bodhisattva great beings
who want to gain the knowledge of a knower of all [omniscience]
should practice the perfection of wisdom."
Then the Lord] said to venerable Ānanda,
"Ānanda, bodhisattvas must take up, bear in mind, read aloud, and study this perfection of wisdom in order to perfectly look after it. 1123
They must also explicate it in detail to others.
Ānanda, bodhisattva great beings should listen to, take up, bear in mind, read aloud, master, read aloud to others, clearly articulate, teach, and recite from memory this perfection of wisdom.
Having carefully written it out in a big book with the letters made clear, extremely clear, under the controlling power of the tathāgata, they should respect, revere, honor, worship, praise, and attend to it with flowers, incense, perfumes, creams, powders, robes, parasols, flags and banners, and with rosaries of lamps all around it and by worshiping it in many ways.
This, Ānanda, is my instruction.
And why?
Ānanda, what do you think, is the Tathāgata your teacher?"
"You are my teacher, Lord. You are my teacher, Sugata," replied Ānanda.
The venerable Ānanda having affirmed that, the Lord said to him,
"Ānanda, the Tathāgata is your teacher, and, Ānanda, you have served me with kind and touching physical action, with kind and touching verbal action, and with kind and touching mental action.
Therefore, Ānanda, just as you have cherished, had serene confidence in, and venerated this body of mine in which I am now dwelling and maintaining myself, when I am gone, do the same toward this perfection of wisdom.
I entrust this perfection of wisdom to you, Ānanda,
a second time and a third time
so that one way or the other it does not die out,
and so that you are not the last 1124 person.I pass it on to you.
"Know, Ānanda, that as long as this perfection of wisdom circulates 1125 in the world,
the Tathāgata will remain and the Tathāgata will teach the Dharma.Know, Ānanda, that those beings who listen to, take up, bear in mind, read aloud, master, read aloud to others, clearly articulate, teach, recite from memory, and write out in letters this perfection of wisdom — those who respect, revere, honor, worship, praise, and attend to it with flowers, incense, perfumes, flower garlands, creams, powders, robes, parasols, flags and banners, and with rosaries of lamps all around it — by worshiping it in many ways, will not become separated from seeing the Buddha, will not become separated from hearing the Dharma, and will not become separated from serving the Saṅgha.
And know, Ānanda, that those beings live their lives in the presence of the Tathāgata."
When the Lord had said that, bodhisattva great being Maitreya and so on, venerable Subhūti, venerable Śāriputra, venerable Mahāmaudgalyāyana, venerable Mahākāśyapa, venerable Pūrṇa Maitrāyaṇīputra, venerable Kātyāyana, venerable Aniruddha, venerable Revata, venerable Rāhula, and venerable Ānanda, together with the gods, humans, asuras, and gandharvas, rejoiced and praised the teaching of the Lord.
This was the eighty-seventh chapter, "Entrusting," of "The Perfection of Wisdom in Eighteen Thousand Lines."
Colophon
The Noble Perfection of Wisdom in Eighteen Thousand Lines is completed.
It has been translated, proofed, and prepared for publication
by the Indian preceptors Jinamitra, Surendrabodhi, Yeshé Dé, and so on. 1126
Access to other chapters on the Blog:
(Work in progress. Empty files means they are not done yet.)
Chapter 0 – Introduction to the Sutra
Chapter 1 – Introduction / the Assembly
Chapter 2 – Production of the Thought
Chapter 3 – designation [U2T]
Chapter 4 – Equal to the Unequal
Chapter 5 – Tongue
Chapter 6 – Subhūti
Chapter 7 – Entry into flawlessness
Chapter 8 – The Religious Mendicant Śreṇika
Chapter 9 – Causal Signs
Chapter 10 – Illusion-like
Chapter 11 – Embarrassment
Chapter 12 – Elimination of Views
Chapter 13 – The Six Perfections
Chapter 14 – Neither Bound nor Freed
Chapter 15 – Meditative Stabilization
Chapter 16 – Dhāraṇī Gateway
Chapter 17 – Level Purification
Chapter 18 – The Exposition of Going Forth in the Great Vehicle [cause / path]
Chapter 19 – Surpassing
Chapter 20 – Not Two
Chapter 21 – Subhūti
Chapter 22 – Śatakratu
Chapter 23 – Hard to Understand
Chapter 24 – Unlimited
Chapter 25 – Second Śatakratu
Chapter 26 – Getting Old
Chapter 27 – Reliquary
Chapter 28 – Declaration of the Good Qualities of the Thought of Awakening
Chapter 29 – Different Tīrthika Religious Mendicants
Chapter 30 – The Benefits of Taking Up and Adoration
Chapter 31 – Physical Remains
Chapter 32 – The Superiority of Merit
Chapter 33 – Dedication
Chapter 34 – Perfect Praise of the Quality of Accomplishment
Chapter 35 – Hells
Chapter 36 – Teaching The Purity of all Dharmas
Chapter 37 – Nobody
Chapter 38 – Cannot Be Apprehended
Chapter 39 – The Northern Region
Chapter 40 – The Work of Māra
Chapter 41 – Not Complete Because of Māra
Chapter 42 – Revealing the World
Chapter 43 – Inconceivable
Chapter 44 – Made Up
Chapter 45 – A Boat
Chapter 46 – Teaching the Intrinsic Nature of All Dharmas
Chapter 47 – Taming Greed
Chapter 48 – A Presentation of the Bodhisattvas' Training
Chapter 49 – Irreversibility
Chapter 50 – Teaching the Signs of Irreversibility
Chapter 51 – Skillful means
Chapter 52 – Completion of the Means
Chapter 53 – The Prophecy about Gaṅgadevī
Chapter 54 – Teaching the Cultivation of Skillful Means
Chapter 55 – Teaching the Stopping of Thought Construction [in absolute terms]
Chapter 56 – Equal Training
Chapter 57 – Practice
Chapter 58 – Exposition of the Absence of Thought Construction [in absolute terms]
Chapter 59 – non-attachment
Chapter 60 – Entrusting
Chapter 61 – Inexhaustible
Chapter 62 – Leaping Above Absorption
Chapter 63 – Many Inquiries about the Two Dharmas
Chapter 64 – Perfectly Displayed
Chapter 65 – Worshiping, Serving, and Attending on Spiritual Friends as Skillful Means
Chapter 66 – A Demonstration of Skillful Means
Chapter 67 – Morality
Chapter 68 – Growing and Flourishing
Chapter 69 – An Explanation of Meditation on The Path
Chapter 70 – An Explanation of Serial Action, Training, and Practice
Chapter 71 – The True Nature of Dharmas That Cannot Be Apprehended
Chapter 72 – Teaching the Absence of Marks
Chapter 73 – Exposition of the Major Marks and Minor Signs and the Completion of Letters
Chapter 74 – Exposition of the Sameness of Dharmas
Chapter 75 – Exposition of non-complication –
Chapter 76 – The Armor for Bringing Beings to Maturity
Chapter 77 – Teaching the Purification of a Buddhafield
Chapter 78 – Teaching the Skillful Means for the Purification of a Buddhafield
Chapter 79 – Teaching the non- Existence of an Intrinsic Nature
Chapter 80 – Teaching that there is No Defilement or Purification
Chapter 81 – Yogic Practice of the Ultimate
Chapter 82 – The Unchanging True Nature of Dharmas
Chapter 83 – Categorization of a Bodhisattva's Training
Chapter 84 – Collection
Chapter 85 – Sadāprarudita
Chapter 86 – Dharmodgata
Chapter 87 – Entrusting
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