Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 21.djvu/271

Rh of hearers, who are striving for the vehicle of Bodhisattvas, and I, staying in another world, Bhaisha^yar&fa, will by means of fictious creatures make the minds of the whole congregation favourably disposed to that young man of good family, and I will send fictious monks, nuns, male and female lay devotees in order to hear the sermon of the preacher, who are unable to gainsay or contradict him 2. If afterwards he shall have retired to the forest, I will send thither many gods, Nâgas, goblins, Gandharvas, demons, Garudas, Kinnaras, and great serpents to hear him preach, while I, staying in another world, Bhaishafyar&^a, will show my face to that young man of good family, and the words and syllables of this Dharmapary&ya which he happens to h&ve forgotten will I again suggest to him 8 when he repeats his lesson.

And on that occasion the Lord uttered the following stanzas :

16. Let one listen to this exalted Sfltra, avoiding all distractedness; for rare is the occasion (given) for hearing it, and rare also the belief in it.

I cannot tell what real phenomena are underlying these creations of the Buddha after his Nirvana; but this much seems clear, that we have in this piece a description of the practical course a young preacher has to go through in order to become fit for his task. Pratyukkarayishy&mi, literally, I will cause him to re-utter. The real purport, unless I am much mistaken, is : on a following day (Buddha) will restore what the student has forgotten from his lesson, provided he reads the passage again ; or, if we take the words in a spiritual sense, the mental light of the student will again supply what he has forgotten of his lesson. Cf. stanza 31.