འཕགས་པ་གང་གའ་མཆག་གས་ཞས་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད intro.5

intro.5

Although the nirvāṇa that these women achieve is not the “unsurpassable and perfect awakening” of a buddha, but rather the “remainderless nirvāṇa” of a “worthy one” (arhat), there is no explicit claim made in the sūtra that this is somehow a lesser accomplishment. That it will be Gaṅgottarā’s future achievement is also suggested by the description of the light rays that issue from the Buddha’s smile, which the canonical version depicts as returning to disappear into the Buddha’s mouth. In other common descriptions of the Buddha’s smile, this indicates that the Buddha is giving a prediction of someone’s future awakening as a disciple (śrāvaka).³ In this way, the sūtra also combines two of the circumstances in which the Buddha smiles: he describes something that has happened in the same location in the past, and he gives a prediction of someone’s future awakening.