Day 10 concludes Chapter 6, Assurance of Future Buddhahood, and opens Chapter 7, The Parable of a Magic City.

Last month I promised to focus on the 16 princes.

On this twelfth time through these verses it is still hard not to feel like a “spoiler” when I discuss the princes.

At the end of Chapter 6, Assurance of Future Buddhahood, we get the great teaser of what is to come:

Now I will tell you
About my previous existence
And also about yours.
All of you, listen attentively!

Underline And also about yours

We then learn of a Buddha called Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence who lived in a time so long ago it is beyond calculation. More important than the distance in the past, is this:

I remember the extinction of that Buddha
As vividly as if he had passed away just now,
By my unhindered wisdom; I also remember
The Sravakas and Bodhisattvas who lived [with him].

Bhiksus, know this!
My wisdom is pure, wonderful,
Free from asravas and from hindrance.
I know those who lived innumerable kalpas ago.

And now the princes:

Before [the king who became Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence] left home, he had sixteen sons. The first son was called Accumulated-Wisdom. Each of the sons had various playthings. When the sons heard that their father had attained Anuttara-samyak-sambodhi, they gave up the playthings, left home, and came to that Buddha.

Note that these 16 princes gave up their playthings without needing to be offered various toy carts.

In praising the Buddha, the princes point out something that will be repeated several times in tomorrow’s section:

All living beings are suffering.
Being blind, they have no leader.
They do not know how to stop suffering,
Or that they should seek emancipation.
In the long night fewer people go to heaven,
And more people go to the evil regions.
They go from darkness to darkness, and do not hear
Of the names of the Buddhas.

You are the Most Honorable One.
You have obtained the peaceful Dharma-without-asravas. Not only we but also all gods and men
Will be able to obtain the greatest benefit.
Therefore, we bow and devote ourselves to you,
The Most Honorable One.

Without a Buddha in the world, “fewer people go to heaven, And more people go to the evil regions.”