འཕགས་པ་སྙང་རྗ་པད་མ་དཀར་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད 297

297

Your Majesty, the food and drink that you eat and enjoy each day, and that which is eaten and enjoyed by the queen’s attendants, and by the queen and by Your Majesty’s sons and daughters, all comes from what is collected from others. No one will voluntarily give it.’

“Then I was deeply saddened and thought, ‘To whom shall I give my dominion over the entire kingdom of Jambudvīpa?’ I made my five hundred sons aspire for enlightenment and I divided Jambudvīpa into five hundred parts. Then I went to a forest of ascetic practice, and, having gone forth as a ṛṣi, I lived the holy life. In the forest, which was not far from the great southern ocean, I ate the plants and fruits of the forest, and sat meditating in dhyāna at the foot of a fig tree until I attained the five clairvoyances.

“Then, at that time, five hundred merchants of Jambudvīpa set out onto the great ocean, where they discovered heaps of jewels. The head merchant, a fortunate and discerning man named Candra, found a wish-fulfilling jewel. When they were departing from the island of jewels, taking with them the vast heap of jewels and the wish-fulfilling jewel, the ocean became stormy, the nāgas who dwelt in it became angry, and the devas who lived on that island wailed. A bodhisattva ṛṣi named Āśvasta had been born there through the power of his previous prayers, and that mahāsattva successfully and safely rescued those merchants from the great ocean. Then a certain malevolent rākṣasa who was an enemy of the head merchant, seeking an opportunity to destroy him, followed after the merchants. He caused extremely fierce wind and rain that lasted for seven days.