Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 21.djvu/379

 who produces merit by supplying all beings in the four hundred thousand Asankhyeyas of worlds with all the necessaries for happiness and by establishing them in Arhatship; (take) on the other side the person who, ranking the fiftieth in the series of the oral tradition of the law, hears, were it but a single stanza, a single word, from this Dharmaparyâya and joyfully accepts it ; if (we compare) the mass of merit connected with the joyful acceptance and the mass of merit connected with the charity of the master of munificence, the great master of munificence, then the greater merit will be his who, ranking the fiftieth in the series of the oral tradition of the law, after hearing were it but a single stanza, a single word, from this Dharmaparyâya, joyfully accepts it. Against this accumulation of merit, A^ita, this accumulation of roots of goodness connected with that joyful acceptance, the former accumulation of merit connected with the charity of that master of munificence, that great master of munificence, and connected with the confirmation in Arhatship, does not fetch the ^ P ar *, not the ij^, not the 10 000,000* not the iooo.ooo.ooo> not the x10,000,000) n °t the joo.ooox 10,000,000) n °t the 100, 000 x 10,000 x 10,000,000 part; it admits of no calculation, no counting, no reckoning, no comparison, no approximation, no secret teaching. So immense, incalculable, Agita, is the merit which a person, ranking the fiftieth in the series of the tradition of the law, produces by joyfully accepting, were it but a single stanza, a single word, from this Dharmaparyâya ; how much more then (will) he (produce), Afita, who hears this Dharmaparyâya in my presence and then joyfully accepts it ? I declare, Agita, that his