Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 21.djvu/371

 must be considered to form the congregation of disciples seeing me from face to face, and must be considered as those whom I have fully blessed 1. He who, after my complete extinction, shall keep this Dharmapary&ya, read, promulgate, or write it, he, I repeat, A^ita, need not build Sttipas of relics, nor worship the congregation ; not necessary to tell, Afita, that the young man or young lady of good family who, keeping this Dharmaparyiya, shall crown it by charity in alms, morality, forbearance, energy, meditation, or wisdom, will produce a much greater accumulation of merit ; it is, in fact, immense, incal- culable, infinite 2. Just as the element of ether, A^ita, is boundless, to the east, south, west, north, beneath, above, and in the intermediate quarters, so immense and incalculable an accumulation of merit, conducive to Buddha-knowledge, will be produced by a young man or young lady of good family who shall keep, read, write, or cause to be written, this Dharmaparyiya. He will be zealous in worship- ping the Tath&gata shrines; he will laud the disciples of the TatMgata, praise the hundred thousands of myriads of ko/is of virtues of the Bodhisattvas Mah&sattvas, and expound them to others ; he will be accomplished in forbearance, be moral, of good character 8, agreeable to live with, and tolerajit, modest, not jealous of others, not wrathful, not vicious in mind, of good memory, strenuous and always busy, devoted to meditation in striving after the state of a Buddha, attaching great value to

Paribhukta.

The Vedintin does not deny the relative value of good works ; see e. g. Brahma-sutra III, 4, 26-27. Kalyatfadharman.

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