153 Avaramâtraka. This is the Pâli oramattako, “belonging merely to the present life,” and the intention of the writer seems to be to inculcate the doctrine of the Mahâyâna, that salvation can be obtained by mere repetitions of the name of Amitâbha, in direct opposition to the original doctrine of Buddha, that as a man soweth, so he reapeth. Buddha would have taught that the ku_s_alamûla, the root or the stock of good works performed in this world (avaramâtraka), will bear fruit in the next, while here “vain repetitions” seems all that is enjoined. The Chinese translators take a different view of this passage, and I am not myself quite certain that I have understood it rightly. But from the end of this section, where we read kulaputre_n_a vâ kuladuhitrâ vâ tatra buddhakshetre _k_ittaprâ_n_idhâna_m_ kartavyam, it seems clear that the locative (buddhakshetre) forms the object of the pra_n_idhâna, the fervent prayer or longing. The Satpurushas already in the Buddhakshetra would be the innumerable men (manushyâs) and Boddhisattvas mentioned before. 154 Arthavasa, lit. the power of the thing; _cf._ Dhammapada, p. 388, _v._ 289. 155 I am not quite certain as to the meaning of this passage, but if we enter into the bold metaphor of the text, viz., that the Buddhas cover the Buddha-countries with the organ of their tongue and then unroll it, what is intended can hardly be anything but that they first try to find words for the excellences of those countries, and then reveal or proclaim them. Burnouf, however (_Lotus_, p. 417), takes the expression in a literal sense, though he is shocked by its grotesqueness. On these Buddhas and their countries, see Burnouf, _Lotus_, p. 113. 156 It should be remarked that the Tathâgatas here assigned to the ten quarters differ entirely from those assigned to them in the Lalita-vistara, book xx. Not even Amitâbha is mentioned there. 157 Pratîyatha. The texts give again and again pattîyatha, evidently the Pâli form, instead of pratîyata. I have left tha, the Pâli termination of the 2 p. pl. in the imperative, instead of ta, because that form was clearly intended, while pa for pra may be an accident. Yet I have little doubt that patîyatha was in the original text. That it is meant for the imperative, we see from _s_raddadhâdhvam, etc., farther on. Other traces of the influence of Pâli or Prakrit on the Sanskrit of our Sûtra appear in arhantai_h_, the various reading for arhadbhi_h_, which I preferred; sambahula for bahula; dh_ri_yate yâpayati; purobhaktena; anyatra; saṅkhyâm ga_kkh_anti; avaramâtraka; ve_th_ana instead of vesh_t_ana, in nirve_th_ana; dharmaparyâya (_Corp. Inscript._ plate XV.), etc.