華嚴五十要問答 1.20

1.20

Question: What are the characteristics and meaning of the Buddha's mother Māyā, his retinue, and so forth?

Answer: According to the Hīnayāna teaching, the Buddha's mother Māyā in this Jambudvīpa is the real Buddha's mother; in other worlds, there is no real one, because the Buddha is a transformation. According to the initial teaching of the triyāna, all the buddhas and others in a trichiliocosm are transformed buddhas, and Māyā, the retinue, and so forth are likewise not real. In other trichiliocosms, there are also other buddhas, whose transformative meaning is the same as before. In the pure lands, the Buddha's mother and other retinues are also solely transformations; however, they are transformations of the Dharma-gate, not transformations of the eight phases. In the final teaching of the triyāna, those who manifest the attainment of buddhahood in worlds of the same kind, such as trichiliocosms, are all transformed buddhas. How is this known? The Da zhidu lun extensively cites worlds of becoming a buddha as found in the commentaries, from which it is known that they are all the transformation realm of a single buddha manifesting bodies in many places, and therefore they are transformations. The body of the Maheśvara deva is also created by transformation. Because it provisionally reveals that [the Buddha] under the Bodhi tree in Jambudvīpa is a transformation, all the buddhas in the Padmagarbha-lokadhātu are true saṃbhoga[kāyas]. Encompassing essence, marks, and function, the buddhas manifested in the pure lands of the ten directions are saṃbhogakāya buddhas, and all their relatives are Dharma-gates, manifested to guide sentient beings of inferior capacities and different habits in this Sahā world, as spoken in the Larger Sukhāvatīvyūha-sūtra. According to the Ekayāna, all the buddhas manifested in name and meaning within the teaching-net transformed by Śākyamuni Buddha are the power of Śākyamuni Buddha's sāgara-mudrā-samādhi. By this principle, all retinues and so forth are likewise identical. The meanings of essence, marks, and function, as well as transformation and altering nature, can be understood by analogy with this.