The History of Buddhist Thought c22.23

c22.23

The Tathāgata, who was so long ago enlightened, is of unlimited length of life, and has always existed. Without having attained Nirvāṇa he makes a show of attaining Nirvāṇa for the sake of those who have to be trained. And not even to-day is my ancient course as bodhisattva completed, nor is the length of my life fulfilled, but even to-day twice as many ten million myriads of hundreds of thousands of cycles will be required for completing my length of life. Now again, though not attaining Nirvāṇa, I announce my attaining of Nirvāṇa. And why? In this way I ripen beings, lest if I were to stay for a very long time, and through being often seen, beings with imperfect roots of goodness . . . if they saw that the Tathāgata stays, would get the idea that it is mere sport . . . they would not exercise energy to escape from the threefold world, and they would not get the idea that Tathāgatas are hard to obtain. Hence the Tathāgata through his skill in devices has said to those beings, “hard to obtain, O monks, is the appearing of a Tathāgata.” ¹