釋迦譜 1.97

1.97

The Guanfo sanmei jing says: The Demon King was greatly enraged, and sent an order everywhere throughout the six heavens and to all the eight classes of beings to go to Gautama's place. At that time, the ghosts converged like clouds. Some ghosts had heads like ox heads with forty ears, out of which sprouted iron arrows with molten tips shooting upward. Other ghosts had heads like fox heads with ten thousand eyes, their voices like thunderclaps. Great generals of the wilderness ghosts and spirits had six heads on a single neck, six faces on their chests, two faces upon their knees, and body hair like arrows, violently shaking their bodies to shoot at people, their eyes opened wide, raw and red, with blood streaming down. They rushed forward and arrived. Māra told the ghosts, 'Gautama is a virtuous man and may know spells. We must raise the fourfold army.' They transformed into a fourfold army arrayed like a forest, exceedingly terrifying, descending straight from the air to the side of the bodhi tree. Māra thought again, 'This host may still be unable to subdue Gautama.' He then took off his precious crown and aimed it at the ground, right above King Yama's palace, ordering the ghosts: 'You hell wardens and King Yama, raise up all the sword-wheels, swords, halberds, fire-chariots, furnaces, and burning coals of the Avīci Hell toward Jambudvīpa!' The Demon King roared loudly and ordered the soldiers to swiftly destroy Gautama. Above, fiery thunder cracked, raining down hot iron pellets; sword-wheels and weapons crisscrossed in the air, but the fiery arrows did not approach the Bodhisattva. At that time, the Bodhisattva gently raised the hair between his eyebrows and directed it toward the Avīci Hell, causing the sinners to see a stream of water flowing from the white hair, pouring like cart-axles. The great fires were temporarily extinguished, and they remembered the sins committed in their past lives; their minds gained coolness, and they cried out, 'Namo Buddhāya!' Through this cause and condition, their punishment came to an end, and they were reborn straight into the human realm. Seeing this sign, Māra was withered and distressed, and suddenly returned to his palace. The white ūrṇā reached straight up to the six heavens, where from the pore of the white hair precious lotus flowers were seen, with the past seven Buddhas upon the flowers. In this way, the white hair reached up to the formless realm, shining everywhere like a crystal mirror. The eighty-four thousand heavenly maidens looked upon Pāpīyān's body, which appeared like charred wood; they only gazed upon the light of the mark of the Bodhisattva's white ūrṇā hair. Countless devaputras and devakanyās all generated the thought of supreme bodhi.