གསལ་རྒྱལ་གྱ་ཚགས་ས་བཅད་པ intro.5

intro.5

As its stanzas progress, Verses for Prasenajit casts a wide net over its imagined audience. Although the Buddha is ostensibly addressing Prasenajit, a king who might be inclined to sponsor the wholesale construction of a stūpa, his words conjure up a world in which many people, not just wealthy monarchs, interact with sacred sites and images. Certain people might not be able to fund a stūpa’s construction entirely, but perhaps they could support the construction of the spire, for example. Still others might not have the resources to offer things like bells and parasols, but they could help keep a stūpa and its grounds clean. At one point, the Buddha tells Prasenajit that those who offer “whatever special offerings they have and can afford…will attain unsurpassable awakening,” encapsulating the idea that stūpa veneration can be realized in many ways by people of various inclinations and means.