Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 21.djvu/356

 place: I was not completely extinct at that time; it was but a device of mine, monks; repeatedly am I born in the world of the living.

8. Honoured by other beings, I show them my superior enlightenment, but you would not obey my word, unless the Lord of the world enter Nirvd^a.

9. I see how the creatures are afflicted, but I do not show them my proper being. Let them first have an aspiration to see me ; then I will reveal to them the true law.

10. Such has always been my firm resolve during an inconceivable number of thousands of kotis of Æons, and I have not left this Gridhrakta for other abodes.

11. And when creatures behold this world and imagine that it is burning, even then my Buddha-field is teeming with gods and men. 12. They dispose of manifold amusements, ko/is of pleasure gardens, palaces, and aerial cars; (this field) is embellished by hills of gems and by trees abounding with blossoms and fruits.

13. And aloft gods are striking musical instruments and pouring a rain of Manddras 2 by which they are covering me, the disciples and other sages who are striving after enlightenment.

14. So is my field here, everlastingly; but others fancy that it is burning; in their view this world is most terrific, wretched, replete with number of woes 8. Sayydsana. The form constantly used in Buddhist writings, both in Pali and Sanskrit, is Manddrava. The whole description of Heaven, or Paradise, bears the stamp of being taken, with more or less modification, from a non-Buddhistic source. There are different beliefs about the realm of the dead ; the