妙法蓮華經 6.47

6.47

Which is the ultimate Dharma.

I revealed it and taught it to others,

And caused them to abide in nirvana.

Throughout many lifetimes they preserved and kept

A sutra such as this.

Only after myriads of koṭis of koṭis

Of kalpas have passed,

A time inconceivable,

Can they hear this Lotus Sutra.

Only after myriads of koṭis of koṭis

Of kalpas have passed,

A time inconceivable,

Do the Buddha Bhagavats

Expound this sutra.

For this reason, all you practitioners

Who hear this sutra

After the nirvana of the Buddha

Should feel no doubt about it.

You must wholeheartedly

Expound this sutra far and wide.

You will then meet the buddhas lifetime after lifetime

And quickly attain the buddha path.

The Transcendent Powers

of the Tathāgata

Thereupon the bodhisattva mahāsattvas equal to the number of particles in the great manifold cosmos, who had emerged from the earth, all in the presence of the Buddha gazed singlemindedly at his face with their palms pressed together, and spoke to the Buddha, saying: “O Bhagavat, after the parinirvāṇa of the Buddha, we will teach this sutra extensively in the lands of the Bhagavat’s separate forms, at the time of his extinction. Why is this? Because we also wish to attain this true, pure, great Dharma, and to preserve, recite, explain, copy, and make offerings to it.”

Then the Bhagavat manifested his great transcendent powers in the presence of Mañjuśrī and other immeasurable hundreds of thousands of myriads of koṭis of bodhisattva mahāsattvas who had long lived in this sahā world, such humans and nonhumans as monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen, devas, nāgas, yakṣas, gandharvas, asuras, garuḍas, kiṃnaras, and mahoragas.

He put out his wide and long tongue which reached upward to the Brahma world. He emitted innumerable and immeasurable colored rays of light from all his pores and universally illuminated the worlds of the ten directions.

All the buddhas sitting on the lion seats under the jeweled trees also put out their wide and long tongues and emitted immeasurable rays of light in the same way. Śākyamuni Buddha and the other buddhas under the jeweled trees manifested transcendent powers while fully hundreds of thousands of years passed.

After this they drew back their tongues, coughed, and snapped their fingers together in unison. Those two sounds penetrated throughout the various buddha worlds of the ten directions and the earth quaked in six ways.

Through the transcendent powers of the Buddha, all the sentient beings in these worlds—humans and such nonhumans as devas, nāgas, yakṣas, gandharvas, asuras, garuḍas, kiṃnaras, and mahoragas—saw all the buddhas

sitting on the lion seats under the immeasurable, limitless hundreds of thou-

sands of myriads of koṭis of jeweled trees in this sahā world.

They saw Śākyamuni Buddha sitting on the lion seat in the jeweled

stupa, together with Tathāgata Prabhūtaratna. They also saw immeasurable,