འཕགས་པ་བྱམས་པས་ཞས་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད 10

10

and that he teaches the Dharma with such memorable words.”

“Exactly, Ānanda,” replied the Blessed One. “It is just as you have said—it is wonderful that the bodhisattva Maitreya is so supremely eloquent, that the bodhisattva Maitreya teaches the Dharma with such words of certainty, and all of what you said, up to his teaching the Dharma with such memorable words. Ānanda, this is not the first time that the bodhisattva Maitreya has praised me with such fitting verses. Why? Formerly, Ānanda, in times gone by, at a time when ten countless ages had passed, there came into the world a tathāgata, arhat, completely and perfectly enlightened buddha, endowed with perfect knowledge and perfect conduct, established in a state of bliss, commanding all worldly knowledge, an unsurpassed guide who converted all beings, a teacher of gods and men, the Buddha Arhat named Jyoti­vikrīḍitābhijña.¹⁵

“At that time, there lived a brahmin boy named Bhadraśuddha, good-looking, handsome, and beautiful to behold, endowed with a supremely good complexion and excellent figure. He was going to a pleasure grove, when between the villages he saw the Tathāgata, the Arhat, the completely and perfectly enlightened Buddha Jyoti­vikrīḍitābhijña. The Tathāgata was handsome and charismatic, controlled in his faculties and in his mind. He had attained excellence in control and calm abiding, and superiority in control and calm abiding. He guarded his faculties, elephant-like in control of his passions, and was radiant, unsullied, and clear like a lake. His body was adorned with the thirty-two marks of a great being, and with the eighty minor marks, like the blossoming flower of a royal sal tree, and towering like Mount Meru, the king of mountains. His face was as calm as the sphere of the moon,