Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 21.djvu/54

6 followed by many hundred thousand myriads of ko/is of demons, viz. the chief of the demons Bali, Kharaskandha *, Vema^itri 2, and R£hu ; along with the four Garuda chiefs followed by many hundred thousand myriads of ko/is of Garudas, viz. the Garuda chiefs Mahite^as, Mah&k£ya, Mah&pfiraa, and Maharddhipr£pta, and with A^&ta^atru, king of Magadha, the son of Vaidehl.

Now at that time it was that the Lord surrounded, attended, honoured, revered, venerated, worshipped by the four classes of hearers, after expounding the Dharmapary&ya 3 called 'the Great Exposition/ a text of great development, serving to instruct Bodhi- sattvas and proper to all Buddhas, sat cross-legged on the seat of the law and entered upon the medita- tion termed 'the station of the exposition of Infinity;' his body was motionless and his mind had reached perfect tranquillity. And as soon as the Lord had entered upon his meditation, there fell a great rain of divine flowers, Manddravas 4 and great Mandiravas, Ma^fishakas and great Maw^Hshakas 4, covering the Lord and the four classes of hearers, while the whole Buddha field shook in six ways : it moved,

Burnouf has Suraskandha.

This is a wrong Sanskritisation of a Pr&krit Vema^itti, P&li Vepa&tti; the proper Sanskrit equivalent is Vipra£itti.

I. e. turn, period, or roll of the law ; it may often be rendered by 'a discourse on the law.' In the sense of period, term, end, it is used as the title of the closing chapter of the whole work.

Mand&rava, or rather MSnddrava, derived from mand£ru= manddra, Erythrina, is here a heavenly flower, or, as the Indians say, 'a cloud-flower/ meghapushpa, i. e. raindrop and hailstone. Man^usha is a name of the Rubia Manjista; the word is also said to mean, 'a stone;' in this case perhaps a hailstone or dewdrop.