འཕགས་པ་ཟ་མ་ཏག་བཀད་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད 3.19

3.19

, and bowed my head to the feet of Tathāgata Padmottama. I placed my palms together before him and said, ‘Bhagavat Padmottama, I must obtain this six-syllable mahāvidyā, which purifies all bad karma merely by the remembrance of its name. I seek to obtain that which is difficult for a bodhisattva to obtain. For that purpose I have been to many worlds, in distress. I have arrived here, exhausted and without any result.’

“Then Tathāgata Padmottama praised the qualities of this six-syllable mahāvidyā:

“ ‘Noble son, it is like this. As a comparison, I can know the number of atoms, but, noble son, I cannot calculate the accumulation of merit from repeating the six-syllable mahāvidyā once.

“ ‘Noble son, it is like this. As a comparison, I can count the grains of sand in the ocean, but, noble son, I cannot calculate the accumulation of merit from repeating the six-syllable mahāvidyā once.

“ ‘Noble son, it is like this. As a comparison, a person builds a building that is a hundred yojanas high and five hundred yojanas wide, and completely fills it with sesame seeds. There isn’t even a needle-sized hole in this building. At its door there is an immortal man who never ages. If every hundred eons that man takes out one sesame seed, I can calculate²³⁶ the time when such a building would be emptied down to the floor, but, noble son, I cannot calculate the accumulation of merit that comes from repeating the six-syllable mahāvidyā once.

“ ‘Noble son, it is like this. As a comparison, if the people in the four continents were all to work at various kinds of agriculture, such as barley, wheat, rice, green or black mung beans, and so on; and jujubes, horse gram, and so on; and the nāga kings sent rain at the appropriate times; and those grains grew, ripened, and were harvested; if Jambudvīpa were made into one threshing floor, and the grain was brought in carts, in animal loads, in bundles and baskets, and put on that threshing floor, trodden by oxen and donkeys, and made into one big heap;