法苑珠林 69.38

69.38

Furthermore, the Yogācārabhūmi-sūtra states: When a person's conduct is mixed, sometimes good and sometimes evil, and they are due to reach the human realm, if the parents unite and the seminal essence is discharged at the proper time, the child to be born approaches. If the mother's womb is open and unobstructed, and her mind is joyful and free of depraved thoughts, it is then pliant and capable of receiving the child. If the seminal essence is neither too clear nor too thick, of moderate temperament and not overly strong, neither putrid nor red or black, not intermingled with wind, cold, or various toxins, and distinct from urine, the spirit destined to be born arises immediately. Supposing it is a male child who has not yet united with a woman, his five desires penetrate, and the male adoringly conceives desire toward the woman. When the father's semen descends, the spirit rejoices, thinking, 'This is my place!' At that moment, it abandons the five skandhas of the intermediate existence (antarābhava) and enters the womb. The parents' essences having united, being now in the womb, it leaps with double delight: this is the form skandha (rūpa-skandha). The moment of rejoicing is the feeling skandha (vedanā-skandha). Thinking upon the essence is the perception skandha (saṃjñā-skandha). Entering the womb by reason of past sins and merits is the karmic formations skandha (saṃskāra-skandha). The spirit dwelling within the womb is the consciousness skandha (vijñāna-skandha). Such a combination is called the five skandhas. While in the womb, it immediately obtains two sense-faculties: the mind-faculty (manindriya) and the body-faculty (kāyindriya). Up to the seventh day, it abides within without increasing or decreasing. By the second seventh day, the embryo alters slightly, like thin curd. By the third seventh day, it resembles unripened curd. By the fourth seventh day, the essence coagulates like ripe curd. By the fifth seventh day, the embryonic essence transforms, like raw butter. By the sixth seventh day, it changes into something like a fleshy polyp. By the seventh seventh day, it turns into something like a lump of flesh. By the eighth seventh day, it hardens like unbaked brick. By the ninth seventh day, it transforms into five vesicles: the two elbows, the two thighs, and the head and neck emerge from it. By the tenth seventh day, there are another five vesicles: the two wrists, the two ankles, and the head arises. By the eleventh seventh day, twenty-four vesicles continuously emerge: the ten fingers, the ten toes, and the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth emerge from it. By the twelfth seventh day, these vesicle-forms gradually reach completion. By the thirteenth seventh day, the form of the belly appears. By the fourteenth seventh day, the liver, lungs, heart, spleen, and kidneys are generated. By the fifteenth seventh day, the large intestine is generated. By the sixteenth seventh day, the small intestine is generated. By the seventeenth seventh day, the belly-cavity is formed. By the eighteenth seventh day, the stomach and the bowels arise from these two places. By the nineteenth seventh day, the thighs, shank-bones, palms, soles, and the sinews connecting the arm-joints are generated. By the twentieth seventh day, the bodily forms of the pudenda, navel, breasts, chin, and neck are generated. By the twenty-first seventh day, the bones of the body are partitioned, each as appropriate: two bones in the head, thirty-two bones attached to the mouth, seven bones attached to the neck, two bones attached to the thighs, two bones attached to the elbows, four bones attached to the arms, twelve bones attached to the chest, eighteen bones attached to the back, two bones attached to the pelvis, four bones attached to the knees, forty bones attached to the feet. There are further minute bones, totaling one hundred and eight, fully integrated with the flesh of the body. Eighteen bones are attached to the two flanks, and two bones attached to the shoulders. In this way, there are three hundred bones of the body in all, linked together. These bones are soft, like newly sprouted gourds. By the twenty-second seventh day, the bones harden slightly, like unripe gourds. By the twenty-third seventh day, the bones become still harder, like walnuts. These three hundred bones are each linked together: the foot bones attach to the feet, the knee bones attach to the knees; likewise, the shank bones, thigh bones, pelvic bones, vertebrae, chest bones, rib bones, shoulder bones, neck bones, chin bones, arm, wrist, hand, and foot bones each link to one another. This collection of bones is like an illusory apparition, raised and moved according to the blowing of the winds. By the twenty-fourth seventh day, one hundred sinews are generated, connecting to the body. By the twenty-fifth seventh day, seven thousand vessels are generated, but not yet complete. By the twenty-sixth seventh day, all the vessels permeate throughout, fully complete, like the holes in a lotus root. By the twenty-seventh seventh day, three hundred and sixty-three sinews are all completed. By the twenty-eighth seventh day, the flesh begins to grow. By the twenty-ninth seventh day, the muscles and flesh thicken slightly. By the thirtieth seventh day, the appearance of skin barely emerges. By the thirty-first seventh day, the skin grows thicker and firmer. By the thirty-second seventh day, the epidermis becomes complete. By the thirty-third seventh day, the ears, nose, lips, fingers, and knee-joints are completed. By the thirty-fourth seventh day, nine hundred and ninety thousand pores for hair are generated, but not yet complete. By the thirty-fifth seventh day, the hair pores are fully complete. By the thirty-sixth seventh day, the nails begin to form. By the thirty-seventh seventh day, various winds arise within the mother's belly, opening the child's eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. Some winds arise to dye its hair, making it either handsome or ugly. Other winds arise to form its complexion, making it white, red, or black, fair or foul—all due to past deeds. During these seven days, wind, cold, and heat arise, and urination and defecation open up. By the thirty-eighth seventh day, natural winds arise within the mother's belly in accordance with its past actions. For one with good deeds in past lives, a fragrant wind arises, pleasant to its body and mind, soft and unblemished, aligning its bones and joints to make it handsome, so that none will fail to love and respect it. For one with evil deeds in past lives, a foul wind arises, making the body uncomfortable and displeasing to the mind, blowing upon its bones and joints so that they become bent, crooked, and deformed, even rendering it impotent, despised by others. This is the thirty-eighth seventh day. In nine months less four days, the child's body and joints become fully formed into a human being. The child's body has two components: one component comes from the father, and one component comes from the mother. All the body's hair, cheeks, eyes, tongue, throat, heart, liver, spleen, kidneys, intestines, blood, and soft parts come from the mother; the rest—the nails, teeth, bones, joints, marrow, brain, sinews, vessels, and hard parts—come from the father. The child in the mother's womb is situated below the stomach and above the bowels. If it is a boy, his back faces outward and his face inward, in her left flank; if it is a girl, her back faces the mother and her face outward, in the right flank. It dwells in a painful, foul, and impure place, soaked in filth, all its joints contracted and unable to stretch, residing in a leather bag wrapped in abdominal netting, smeared with visceral blood, confined in cramped quarters, reliant upon feces and urine—such is its defilement. During the remaining four days of these nine months, if one has good deeds from past lives, on the first day and the later day thoughts arise in the mind, saying: 'I am in a park or pleasure-terrace; I am in heaven.' For one whose deeds are evil, it thinks it is in hell, a worldly prison; by the third day it becomes sorrowful and unhappy. When the fourth day arrives, winds arise within the mother's belly, moving up and down, turning the child's body upside down so that its head faces the birth canal. For one with merit, its mind thinks at that time: 'I am jumping into a bath, playing in the water, as if falling onto a high bed in a place of flowers and fragrance.' For one without merit, the thought arises: 'I am falling from a mountain, plunging into an embankment, a ditch, a pit, or a cesspool, or into the thorns and nets of hell, or among the swords and halberds in a rocky wasteland,' full of grief and distress. The retributions of good and evil differ in this manner. Once the child is born and falls to the ground, blown by external winds, touched by women's hands, and washed with warm water, it is oppressed by agonizing pain, just like an excruciating illness. Because of this suffering and fear of death, delusion arises; therefore it is confused and bewildered, not recognizing whence it came or whither it goes. Born in a foul place of blood and loathsome discharges on the ground, demons and spirits come to afflict it, epilepsy and malignant forces strike it, contact with corpses touches it, and sorcery and mad ghosts each lie in wait to assault it. Just as when a piece of meat falls at a crossroads, crows, kites, eagles, and wolves each come to fight over it, so too do various evil specters and ghosts surround the child, seeking an opportunity to seize it. If one possesses past good deeds and virtues, the evil spirits cannot gain an advantage. When the child has grown and is nourished with balls of food, just as it acquires the energy of grains, eighty kinds of worms are generated within its body: two kinds at the hair roots, one named 'Tongue-piercer' and the second 'Double-piercer'; three kinds in the head, named 'Firm', 'Wounder', and 'Destroyer'; one kind in the brain; two kinds on the surface of the brain, the first named 'Spider', the second 'Perturber', and the third 'Confuser'; two kinds on the forehead, the first named 'Lowly' and the second 'Rotten'; two kinds in the eyes, the first named 'Piercer' and the second 'Double-piercer'; two kinds in the ears, the first named 'Taste-knower' and the second 'Taste-revealer'; two kinds at the root of the ears, the first named 'Red' and the second 'Red Again'; two kinds in the nose, the first named 'Fat' and the second 'Fat Again'; two kinds in the mouth, the first named 'Shaker' and the second 'Agitator'; two kinds in the teeth, the first named 'Vicious' and the second 'Fierce'; three kinds at the root of the teeth, named 'Gasping', 'Resting', and 'Snapping-destroyer'; one kind on the tongue, named 'Sweetness'; one kind at the root of the tongue, named 'Pliant'; one kind on the upper palate, named 'Coming-and-Going'; one kind in the gullet, named 'Coughing-throat'; two kinds in the pupils, the first named 'Raw' and the second 'Unripe'; two kinds on the shoulders, the first named 'Hanging' and the second 'Hanging Again'; one kind on the arm, named 'Standing-still'; one kind on the hand, named 'Circling'; two kinds on the chest, the first named 'Forehead-pit' and the second 'Vast-universal'; one kind at the heart, named 'Mottled'; one kind on the breasts, named 'Child-manifest'; one kind at the navel, named 'Encircler'; two kinds on the flanks, the first named 'Moon' and the second 'Moon-face'; two kinds on the spine, the first named 'Moon-traveler' and the second 'Moon-appearance'; one kind between the backbones, named 'Abundant-peace'; one kind under the skin, named 'Tiger-claw'; two kinds in the flesh, the first named 'Skin-consumer' and the second 'Pounding-burner'; four kinds in the bones, the first named 'Utter-poison', the second 'Habitual-poison', the third 'Fine-bone', and the fourth 'Mixed-poison'; five kinds in the marrow, the first named 'Murderer', the second 'Non-killer', the third 'Breaker', the fourth 'Mixed-skeleton', and the fifth 'White-bone'; two kinds in the intestines, the first named 'Dung-beetle' and the second 'Beetle-beak'; two kinds in the small intestines, the first named 'Offspring' and the second 'Offspring Again'; one kind in the liver, named 'Silver-snarl'; one kind in the stomach, named 'Envious-gatherer'; one kind in the bowels, named 'Deep-sigh'; one kind in the rectum, named 'Heavy-body'; three kinds in the feces, the first named 'Sinew', the second 'Eye-knot', and the third 'Eye-plaited-hair'; two kinds in the buttocks, the first named 'Flowing-down' and the second 'Flowing-down Again'; five kinds in the bladder, the first named 'Clan', the second 'Evil-race', the third 'Sleeping-waking', the fourth 'Then-waking', and the fifth 'Juice-protector'; one kind on the thigh, named 'Beating-branch'; one kind on the knee, named 'Manifest-wound'; one kind on the calf, named 'Iron-beak'; one kind on the toes, named 'Burning-blaze'; and one kind on the sole of the foot, named 'Skin-eater'. These are the eighty kinds of worms that dwell in a single body, consuming the physical form day and night.