Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 21.djvu/222

. These sixteen novices, monks, said to the Lord Mahâbhigñâgñânâbhibhû, the Tathâgata, &c., the following: O Lord, these many hundred thousand myriads of kotis of disciples of the Tathâgata have become very mighty, very powerful, very potent, owing to the Lord's teaching of the law. Deign, O Lord, to teach us also, for mercy's sake, the law with a view to supreme, perfect enlightenment, so that we also may follow the teaching of the Tathâgata. We want, O Lord, to see the knowledge of the Tathâgata; the Lord can himself testify to this, for thou, O Lord, who knowest the disposition of all beings, also knowest ours.

Then, monks, on seeing that those princes, the youths, had chosen the vagrant life of mendicants and become novices, the half of the whole retinue of the king Kakravartin, to the number of eighty hundred thousand myriads of kotis of living beings, chose the vagrant life of mendicants.

Subsequently, monks, the Lord Mahâbhigñâgñânâbhibhû, the Tathâgata, &c., viewing the prayer of those novices at the lapse of twenty thousand Æons, amply and completely revealed the Dharmaparyâya called 'the Lotus of the True Law,' a text of great extent, serving to instruct Bodhisattvas and proper for all Buddhas, in presence of all the four classes of auditors.