དམ་པའ་ཆས་པད་མ་དཀར་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད 4.18

4.18

Will in a future time be self-arisen jinas,
So their conduct you should hear from me.” {39}

Chapter 7

The Past

“Bhikṣus, in the past, in a time gone by, beyond and even further beyond the most countless, innumerable, incalculable, unquantifiable, inconceivable asaṃkhyeya eons ago, at that time, in that era, in an eon named Mahārūpa, in a world named Saṃbhavā, there appeared in that world the tathāgata, the arhat, the perfectly enlightened buddha, the one with perfect wisdom and conduct, the sugata, the one who knows the world, the unsurpassable guide who tames beings, the teacher of devas and humans, the buddha, the bhagavān named Mahābhijñā­jñānābhi­bhū.

“Bhikṣus, how long has it been since that tathāgata appeared? Bhikṣus, it is like this: A man crushes all the earth of the worlds in this realm of a billion worlds into powder. Then that man takes a single smallest particle of dust from those worlds and goes beyond a thousand worlds in the eastern direction and puts it down. Then that man takes a second²⁹⁰ smallest particle of dust, and passing beyond an even further thousand worlds puts down that second²⁹¹ smallest particle of dust. In that way the man removes the entire element of earth into the eastern direction.

“Bhikṣus, what do you think? Is it possible to calculate the end, the furthest extent of those worlds?”

“Bhagavān, it’s impossible.” they answered. “Sugata, it’s impossible.”

“Bhikṣus,” continued the Bhagavān, “a mathematician, a great mathematician could calculate the number of the worlds in which particles were placed and the number of those in which a particle was not placed.