Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 21.djvu/266

 with divine and human flowers and all sorts of perfumes; be decked with divine cloth and strewed with jewels.

7. One should always reverentially salute him with joined hands, as if he were the Chief of £inas or the Self-born, he who in these most dreadful, last days keeps this Stitra of the Extinct (Buddha).

8. One should give food, hard and soft, nourishment and drink, lodging in a convent, kotis of robes to honour the son of Gina, when he has propounded, be it but once, this Sfltra.

9. He performs the task of the Tathâgatas and has been sent by me to the world of men, he who in the last days shall copy, keep, or hear this Stitra.

10. The man who in wickedness of heart or with frowning brow should at any time of a whole Æon utter something injurious in my presence, commits a great sin.

11. But one who reviles and abuses those guardians of this Stitrinta, when they are expounding this Stitra, I say that he commits a still greater sin.

12. The man who, striving for superior enlightenment, shall in a complete JEon praise me in my face with joined hands, with many myriads of kotis of stanzas,

13. Shall thence derive a great merit, since he has glorified me in gladness of heart. But a still greater merit shall he acquire who pronounces the praise of those (preachers).

14. One who shall during eighteen thousand kotis of Æons pay worship to those objects of veneration, with words, visible things, flavours, with divine scents and divine kinds of touch,