一切經音義 36.72

36.72

Taking the body of a bodhisattva as a lion throne (a lion throne is the seat sat upon by one who turns the wheel of the Dharma, colloquially called an elevated throne. The sūtra text has an esoteric explanation: when the Tathāgata in the past, on the causal stage, practiced the bodhisattva path, he sequentially cultivated the bhūmi-pāramitās from the initial first bhūmi and second bhūmi up to the tenth bhūmi, the stage of equal enlightenment, and the stage of wondrous enlightenment, thereby achieving correct enlightenment. One should know that all of these take the practices of the preceding stages as their foundation, accumulating the merits of the previous eleven stages to achieve wondrous enlightenment and sit atop them; at each stage, he turned the wondrous Dharma wheel and rested in his position, hence it is said, 'taking the body of a bodhisattva as a lion throne').