Buddhist birth stories; or, Jataka tales, Volume 1
Religion
Buddhist birth stories; or, Jataka tales, Volume 1
Jataka stories, English
Then he thought, “These are the only conditions in this world that,
bringing Buddhaship to perfection and constituting a Buddha, have to
be fulfilled by Bodhisattas; beside the ten Perfections there are no
others. And these ten Perfections are neither in the heaven above nor
in the earth below, nor are they to be found in the east or the other
quarters, but reside in my heart of flesh.” Having thus realized that
the Perfections were established in his heart, having strenuously
resolved to keep them all, grasping them again and again, he mastered
them forwards and backwards;[142] taking them at the end he went
backward to the beginning, taking them at the beginning he placed them
at the end,[143] taking them at the middle he carried them to the
two ends, taking them at both ends he carried them to the middle.
Repeating, “The Perfections are the sacrifice of limbs, the Lesser
Perfections are the sacrifice of property, the Unlimited Perfections
are the sacrifice of life,” he mastered them as the Perfections,
the Lesser Perfections and the Unlimited Perfections,--like one who
converts two kindred oils into one,[144] or like one who, using Mount
Meru for his churning-rod, churns the great Cakkavāla ocean. And as
he grasped again and again the ten Perfections, by the power of his
piety this earth, four nahutas and eight hundred thousand leagues in
breadth, like a bundle of reeds trodden by an elephant, or a sugar-mill
in motion, uttering a mighty roar, trembled, shook and quaked, and spun
round like a potter’s wheel or the wheel of an oil-mill. Therefore it
is said,
175. These are all the conditions in the world that bring Buddhaship
to perfection:
Beyond these are no others, therein do thou stand fast.
176. While he grasped these conditions natural and intrinsic,[145]
By the power of his piety the earth of ten thousand worlds
quaked.
177. The earth sways and thunders like a sugar-mill at work,
Like the wheel of an oil-mill so shakes the earth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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