釋迦譜 1.75

1.75

今此釋種熾盛。五穀豐熟快樂無極。人民滋茂殖眾德本。迦維羅衛。眾人和穆上下相承。一切諸釋渴仰一乘。其白淨王性行仁賢。夫人妙姿性溫貞良。猶天玉女。護身口意。強如金剛。前五百世為菩薩母。應往降神受彼胞胎。於時菩薩問諸天子。以何形貌降神母胎。或言儒童形。或曰釋梵形。或言日月王形。或日金翅鳥形。彼有梵天名曰強威。從仙道來。報諸天言。象形第一。六牙白象威神巍巍。梵典所載。所以者何。世有三獸。一兔二馬三白象。兔之渡水趣自渡耳。馬雖善猛。猶不知水之深淺。白象之渡盡其源底。聲聞緣覺其猶兔馬。雖渡生死不達法本。菩薩大乘譬如白象。解暢三界十二緣起。了之本無。救護一切莫不蒙濟。菩薩過冬盛寒春末。夏初樹始花茂。不寒不暑適在時宜。沸宿應下。菩薩從兜率天化作白象。口有六牙。諸根寂定光色巍巍。現從日光降神母胎趣於右脇。所以處右。所行不左。王后潔妙晏寐忽覺。白象王來處于胎。身心安隱猶如逮禪。

'Now this Śākya clan flourishes; the five grains are abundant and ripe, and joy is limitless. The people are prosperous and multiply, planting numerous roots of virtue. In Kapilavastu, the multitudes are harmonious, superiors and inferiors mutually supporting one another, and all the Śākyas thirst for and look up to the One Vehicle. Its King Śuddhodana is benevolent and worthy in nature and conduct; the Queen is of wondrous beauty, gentle, chaste, and good in nature, like a divine jade-maiden of heaven, guarding her body, speech, and mind as firmly as adamantine (vajra). For the past five hundred lifetimes, she has been the Bodhisattva's mother. It is proper to go and descend my spirit there, entering her womb.' At that time, the Bodhisattva asked the devaputras: 'In what form should I descend my spirit into the mother's womb?' Some said in the form of a young brāhmaṇa; some said in the form of Śakra or Brahmā; some said in the form of the Sun and Moon King; some said in the form of a Garuḍa. There was a Brahmā-god named Qiangwei (Great Might) who arrived from the path of the ṛṣis and told the devas: 'The form of an elephant is supreme: a white elephant with six tusks, majestic and towering, as recorded in the Vedic scriptures. Why is this so? In the world there are three beasts: the first is the hare, the second the horse, and the third the white elephant. When a hare crosses the water, it merely manages to ferry itself across. Although a horse is skilled and fierce, it still does not know the depth or shallowness of the water. When a white elephant crosses, it reaches the very source and bottom. The śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas are like the hare and the horse: although they cross birth-and-death, they do not penetrate the root of dharmas. The Bodhisattva of the Great Vehicle is like the white elephant: comprehending the twelve links of dependent origination across the three realms, realizing their fundamental non-existence, rescuing and protecting all beings so that none fail to receive deliverance.' When the severe cold of winter had passed, at the end of spring and beginning of summer, when the trees first blossomed and flourished, neither cold nor hot and precisely in season, under the constellation Tiṣya when it was fitting to descend, the Bodhisattva from the Tuṣita heaven transformed into a white elephant with six tusks in its mouth, his sense-faculties tranquil and still, his light and complexion towering and magnificent. Manifesting from the sun's rays, he descended his spirit into his mother's womb, entering her right flank. That he entered the right was because his actions do not lean to the left. The pure and wondrous Queen, resting in sleep, suddenly awoke: the king of white elephants had come to reside in her womb. Her body and mind were tranquil and at ease, as though attaining dhyāna.