39. 'And now, O Ananda, stand up, facing westward, and
having taken a handful of flowers, fall down. This is the quarter where that
Bhagavat Amitabha, the Tathagata, holy and fully enlightened, dwells, remains,
supports himself, and teaches the Law, whose spotless and pure name, famed in
every quarter of the whole world with its ten quarters, the blessed Buddhas,
equal to (the grains of) the sand of the river Ganga, speaking and answering
again and again without stopping, extol, praise, and eulogize.'
After this, the blessed Ananda said this to the Bhagavat: 'I wish, O
Bhagavat, to see that Amitabha, Amitaprabha, Amitayus, the Tathagata, holy and fully
enlightened, and those noble-minded Bodhisattvas, who are possessed of a stock
of merit amassed under many hundred thousand niyutas of kotis of Buddhas.'
At that moment this speech was spoken by the blessed Ananda, and immediately
that Amitabha, the Tathagata, holy and fully enlightened, let such a ray of
light go out of the palm of his own hand, that even the most distar Buddha
country was shining with the great splendour. And again at that time, whatever
black mountains, or jewel-mountains, or Merus, great Merus, Mukilindas, great
Mukilindas, Makravadas, great Kakravadas, or erections, or pillars, trees,
woods, gardens, palaces, belonging to the gods and men, exist everywhere in
hundred thousand kotis of Buddha countries; all these were pervaded and overcome
by the light of that Tathagata. And as a man, followed by another at a distance
of a fathom only, would see the other man, when the sun has risen, exactly in
the same manner the Bhikshus, Bhikshunis, Upasakas (laymen), Upasikas
(laywomen), gods, Nagas, Yakshas, Rakshasas, Gandharvas, Asuras, Garudas,
Kinnaras, Mahoragas, men and not-men, in this Buddha country, saw at that time
that Amitabha, the Tathagata, holy and fully enlightened, like the Sumeru, the
king of mountains, elevated above all countries, surpassing all quarters,
shining, warming, glittering, blazing; and they saw that great mass of
Bodhisattvas, and that company of Bhikshus, viz. by the grace of Buddha, from
the pureiless of that light. And as this great earth might be, when all covered
with water, so that no trees, no mountains, no islands, no grasses, bushes,
herbs, large trees, no rivers, chasms, water-falls, would be seen, but only the
one great earth which had all become an ocean, in exactly the same manner there
is neither mark nor sign whatever to be seen in that Buddha courtry, except
Sravakas, spreading their light over a fathom, and those Bodhisattvas,
spreading their light over a hundred thousand kotis of yoganas. And that
Bhagavat Amitabha, the Tathigata, holy and fully enlightened, overshadowing
that mass of Sravakas and that mass of Bodhisattvas, is seen, illuminating all
quarters. Again at that time all those Bodhisattvas, Sravakas, gods and men in
that world Sukhavati, saw this world Saha and Sakyamuni, the Tathagata, holy
and fully enlightened, surrounded by a holy company of Bhikshus, teaching the
Law.
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