法華文句記 2.89

2.89

Regarding “Longer Āgama” and so forth: that sūtra fully explains that four great rivers emerge from the lake, as in the Commentary. “A-” means “without” and “-navatapta” means “trouble”; it is because it is free of those three troubles. Regarding “originally abiding in the Lotus Samādhi”: everything verified by the real path is named the Lotus Samādhi; here, for the time being, “lotus” is used to explain “lotus.”
Regarding “the four kiṃnaras”: the Za xin says, “They are subsumed under the animal realm. The kiṃnara has one horn; the gandharva has no horn. Their physical appearances are roughly similar.” Now, in saying “playing the four teachings” and so forth: since through the five flavors there are kiṃnaras and so forth, one should know that what they play also differs as one-sided or perfect, and when coming to the present sūtra, it solely reveals the real truth. As in the Mahāvṛkṣa-kiṃnara-sūtra, the King of Kiṃnaras Great Tree, together with immeasurable kiṃnaras, immeasurable gandharvas, and immeasurable devas, playing eighty-four thousand pure and wondrous musical notes, came to the Buddha’s presence; once the strings and songs sounded, the vibration shook the great thousandfold world, Mount Sumeru leaped and submerged, dipped and rose, and all the śrāvakas rose from their seats as if dancing. Bodhisattva Tianguan asked Kāśyapa: “Foremost in having few desires, contentment, and dhūta practices, yet today you act like a child!” Kāśyapa replied: “This was not my original intention.” Thus we know that that sūtra belongs to the Vaipulya section, rebuking the small with the great; the kiṃnaras played the music of the distinct and perfect [teachings], thereby making the śrāvakas unable to remain composed; therefore, upon reaching the Lotus Sūtra, it is fitting that it is purely wondrous.
Regarding the “ten jewel mountains”: the Avataṃsaka fully lists them, as already recorded in the fifth fascicle of the Zhiguan. If according to the Kośa, it first lists seven mountains, together with Sumeru making eight. The treatise says: “Sumeru is situated in the center; next are Yugandhara and the others; outside the great continents and so forth is the iron Cakravāḍa mountain. The first seven are made of gold, Sumeru is made of four jewels, and together with Snow and Incense Mountains, they make ten mountains.” Since it says they play music for the devas, the devas also have differing capacities.
Regarding “singing praises of the ten powers”: since it says “not rising from the cessation absorption,” this means the first abidance and above. Therefore, the strings and pipes in their traces should also sing of the four teachings, each possessing ten powers. As in the Great Tree Sūtra, when he invited the Buddha south of the Incense Mountain to make offerings, after the Buddha accepted the offering, he predicted that he would attain buddhahood with the name King of Merit; in principle, this must be a prediction for the dharmakāya. If it were a prediction of the eight phases at the first abidance, it would still belong to the traces. That those brought in the present sūtra are not as many as in the Great Tree Sūtra is because hearing the real sūtra is not easy. Furthermore, in the present sūtra, the dragon kings cite eight, and the kiṃnaras and others each cite four, because something is symbolized: the eight corresponds to the eightfold noble [path], for each of the teachings has an eightfold noble [path]. Since the kiṃnaras [symbolize] the four teachings, the general import can be understood. The rest are worldly music, using the worldly to symbolize the real; the four gandharvas are matched with the teachings and explained according to their meaning.
“Banners” refers to climbing banners—that is, pole wood. “Inverting” refers to acrobatic somersaulting and so forth.
The four asuras are also said to be “without devas” because they lack the virtues of devas. In the Buddhabhūmi-śāstra they belong to the class of devas; in the Saddharmasmṛtyupasthāna to the class of ghosts and animals. As a manifestation of great provisional means, how could past causes be fixed? According to the Āgamas and other texts, the four asuras successively dwell beneath the ocean floor, each at a depth of twenty thousand yojanas. The phrase “classes such as animals and devas” is based on the original ancestors. Regarding “the five bonds binding Māra and the non-Buddhists”: this is fully treated in the fifth fascicle of the Zhiguan.
Regarding the “five entrenchments”: others explain that they are merely the views and thoughts within the realms. If so, how do they differ from the four entrenchments? Others say: views of the three realms are the entrenchment-ground of the unified locus of views; desire-realm thoughts are desire-attachment; form-realm thoughts are form-attachment; formless-realm thoughts are formless-attachment; and the nescience of the three realms is the entrenchment-ground of nescience. However, according to the school of the five natures, they take the seeds of views, doubt, nescience, and so on as the entrenchment-ground of nescience. Our interpretation now is not so: the five entrenchments serve as causes for the two kinds of death; that is, the common afflictions of the three realms constitute the four entrenchments, and adding the distinctive afflictions constitutes the fifth entrenchment, so that the distinctive afflictions comprehensively contain both internal and external ignorance as well as nescience that obstructs the middle. Compared to Consciousness-Only and other schools, the only difference is that they add seeds.
“Correct text” refers to the Zheng fahua. Regarding “crystal entering the body”: this may be sentient or insentient. If it is insentient, its meaning is identical to moisture-born while also participating in womb-birth. As in the Āgama sūtra, there was a woman facing a fire; the warm vapor entered her body and she became pregnant. Her father suspected and reproached the daughter, until it reached the king, who wished to punish her. The woman said: “How can there be such an unprincipled king wishing to discipline an innocent person? I request that the king put it to the test.” The king, knowing she was innocent, took her as his consort. This is fully explained in the fourth fascicle of the Zhiguan.
Regarding “form and mind are originally pure”: this is in contrast to the ugliness and jealousy of the traces. In the origin, because form is pure, prajñā is pure; prajñā being pure is mind being pure.
Regarding “here translated as ‘obstructing and holding’”: this means capable of obstructing and holding; what the world says about “constantly holding” lacks evidence.
Regarding “solar eclipse”: if one entirely rejects the existence of secular reckoning, yet according to astrological calendars one can also calculate and know it in advance. Why is this? Because the receptacle world naturally conforms to the principle of human yin and yang; hence the five phases in the human body correspond to the measures of heaven and earth. Therefore, the phenomenon of waning and waxing must accord with astrological calculations—how could this hinder primary karma? Regarding the words “various heterodox explanations”: the sun and moon illuminate the four continents, and the four continents also differ in yin and yang; can it be that waning and waxing would cause all kings and so forth to decline? Calamities of flood and drought are also like this. Hence we know that although one part conforms to the principle of yin and yang, another part must rely on the karma of sentient beings. Thus, in general, all environmental lands conform to primary rewards: just as the Lotus Store Land must conform to the reward buddha and the bodhisattvas, where environment and primary [rewards] are sovereign, the provisional means are also thus.
Regarding “the time of terrifying the sun and moon” and so forth: the eleventh fascicle of the Dazhidulun says: “When Rāhu wished to devour the moon, the Moon Devaputra was terrified, ran quickly to appeal to the Buddha, and spoke in verse: ‘Buddha, the World-Honoured One of great wisdom and vigor, / I now take refuge and bow my head in homage. / This Rāhula afflicts and disturbs me; / may the Buddha have pity and rescue me.’ The Buddha spoke a verse for Rāhu: ‘The moon can illuminate darkness and is cool; / it is a great bright lamp in the empty sky. / Its colour is white and pure, with a thousand rays of light; / do not swallow the moon, release it swiftly.’ At that time, Praheti saw that Rāhu was sweating and released the moon, and asked in verse: ‘Rāhula, why are you trembling, / as if terrified by illness and so uneasy?’ Rāhu replied: ‘If I did not release the moon, / my head would split into seven pieces; / even if I obtained life, it would not be secure; / therefore I now release this moon.’”
Regarding “formerly being a brahman” and so forth: as the Kośa states: “Gods of the desire realm, in krośas, / increase by one quarter for each, up to the sixth heaven, / which is only one and a half krośas.” Since it says his body height was eighty-four thousand yojanas, he could still be equal to the highest in the form realm, for in the Akaniṣṭha heaven, the lifespan is sixteen thousand kalpas and the body height is sixteen thousand yojanas; this must be a transformed body that can become eighty-four thousand.
Regarding “fond of fighting” and so forth: when these four asuras fought with Śakra, they deployed their armies successively as listed here. In the eighteenth fascicle of the Longer Āgama, on the southern continent there is the Vajra Mountain, within which is the palace of the asuras; their domain of governance is six thousand yojanas, with balustrades, rows of trees, and so on. However, for three times during one day and one night they undergo suffering, and instruments of suffering spontaneously enter their palace; that they belong to the four evil realms is indeed with good reason. The third fascicle of the Bieyi Ahan explains in detail the asuras fighting with Śakra; those who need it may go and inspect it.