འཕགས་པ་ཆས་ཐམས་ཅད་ཀྱ་རང་བཞན་མཉམ་པ་ཉད་རྣམ་པར་སྤྲས་པ་ཏང་ང་འཛན་གྱ་རྒྱལ་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད 9.5

9.5

Thereupon the Bhagavān, in order to explain this topic,⁹⁵² gave a detailed teaching on this episode from the past by chanting the following verses to the youth Candraprabha:

“I remember many hundreds of eons ago
There was a guide of limitless renown.
Multitudes of humans, devas, and nāgas made offerings to him.
He was a jina named Tejaguṇarāja. {1}

“During that time there formed a community
Of a hundred and sixty million bhikṣus with higher cognitions,
Who had completely attained the power of the discernments,
Who practiced the austerity of the disciplines of mendicancy, and who had peaceful minds. {2}

“At that time there were in this Jambudvīpa
One billion seven hundred and sixty million towns,
And each of them was five yojanas wide,
And was particularly supreme, made of the seven precious materials. {3}

“At that time, all of those perfect towns
Were adorned by many hundreds of parks,
And all those parks were adorned
With fresh flowers and fruit, like massed clouds. {4}

“Those perfect parks were adorned
With various beautiful trees with edible fruits—
Covered with jackfruits, mangos, rose apples, and breadfruit,
And with hundreds of karnikara, magnolia, and puṇṇaga trees. {5}

“At that time, flocks of birds in banyan trees would sing—
Hundreds of cuckoos, avadavats, and peacocks,
And flocks of many other birds were heard:
The songs of parrots,⁹⁵³ partridges, and snipes. {6}

“There was the supreme sound of the songs of bees and partridges
That equaled that of Dhṛtarāṣṭra,⁹⁵⁴ the king of geese.
They had bright, multicolored bodies, brilliant with great hues,
And sang delightful, beautiful, charming songs. {7}

“At that time, there were gatherings of these birds,
There were the songs of avadavats, peacocks, and parrots,⁹⁵⁵
Cuckoos, mynas, and a variety of other birds—
Various kinds of songs from many birds. {8}

“They dwelt in those hundreds of parks
Where there were the blossoms of karnikara,
Gardenia, aśoka, and kachnar trees,
As well as red lotuses, blue lotuses, night lotuses, and white lotuses. {9}

“They were beautified by lotus flower ponds
That were adorned by a hundred thousand lotuses.
There were beautiful, exquisite lotus ponds