Day 12 concludes Chapter 7, The Parable of the Magic City, and completes the Third Volume of the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.
Having last month considered in gāthās the enlightenment of Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Buddha, we consider in gāthās Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Buddha teaching of the Dharma.
The Brahmans came also from the three other quarters,
From the four intermediate quarters, zenith, and nadir.
They strewed flowers, offered their palaces,
And begged the Buddha to turn the wheel of the Dharma, saying:“It is difficult to meet you.
Open the gate of the teachings as sweet as nectar
Out of your great compassion towards us,
And turn the wheel of the unsurpassed Dharma!”Assenting to their appeal,
The World-Honored One of Immeasurable Wisdom
Expounded the various teachings, that is,
The four truths and the twelve causes, saying:
“All the causes, from ignorance to aging-and-death,
Rise one after another.
You should know
All these illusions.”When he expounded these teachings,
Sixty quadrillions of living beings
Eliminated sufferings,
And became Arhats.At his second expounding of these teachings also,
Tens of millions of living beings, that is,
As many living beings as there are sands in the River Ganges,
Became Arhats because they gave up wrong views.Those who attained the enlightenment [of Arhats] afterwards
Were also innumerable.
No one would be able to count them
Even if he tried to do so for a billion kalpas.The sixteen princes renounced the world,
And became śramaṇeras.
They begged the Buddha to expound the teaching
Of the Great Vehicle, saying:
“We and our attendants wish to attain
The enlightenment of the Buddha.
May we have the purest eyes of wisdom
Just as yours!”Knowing the wishes of the [princes who were] young boys
And the practices they performed in their previous existence,
The Buddha taught them the six paramitas
And many supernatural things
With innumerable stories of previous lives
And with various parables and similes.The gāthās of the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma
Were sung [by the Buddha] to expound the true teaching,
That is, [to expound] the Way which Bodhisattvas should practice.
The gāthās were as many as there are sands in the River Ganges.