In chapter 16, the Buddha has made clear that he is alive at all times and, in this sense, universal or eternal. In chapter 17, having heard this, an incredibly large number of living beings, bodhisattvas, and bodhisattva mahāsattvas receive various blessings, such as the ability to memorize everything heard, unlimited eloquence, power to turn the wheel of the Dharma, supreme enlightenment after eight, four, three, two or one rebirths, or the determination to achieve supreme enlightenment. In all twelve different groups within the congregation assembled to hear the Buddha preach are mentioned here, each of them enormously large, and each having received various blessings as a consequence of hearing about the everlasting life of the Buddha.

In response to this joyous occasion, the gods in heaven(s) rained beautiful flowers and incense down on the innumerable buddhas of the ten directions who had assembled in the sahā world, on Śākyamuni Buddha and Many Treasures Buddha, then sitting together in the latter’s magnificent stupa, and on the great bodhisattvas, and on the monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen assembled there. Deep in the sky, wonderful sounding drums reverberated by themselves. The many Indras and Brahmas from the other Buddha-lands came. Then the gods rained all kinds of heavenly jewel-encrusted garments in all directions, and burned incense in burners which moved around the whole congregation by themselves. And above each of the buddhas assembled under the great jeweled trees, bodhisattvas bearing jeweled streamers and such, and singing with wonderful voices, lined up vertically, one on top of the other, all the way to the heaven of Brahma.

Clearly the events depicted here are both magical and cosmological in scope. The story involves countless worlds, buddhas, bodhisattvas, and wondrous events with flowers, sound, and incense — all in praise of the revelation, in the sahā world, of the good news of the Buddha’s ever-presence. Within the story it is, in a sense, important that there are many worlds in ten directions, and gods as well as buddhas, bodhisattvas, and humans. But, in another sense, how many directions there are, or how many different kinds of beings there are, has virtually no importance. In fact, here and I think only here, the text refers to nine directions, rather than the usual ten. What is important is that no matter how many directions there are, no matter how many worlds there are, and no matter how many kinds of living beings there are, all are delighted and transformed by and extol the ever-presence of the Buddha — the fact that none of them ever is or ever was or ever will be without the presence of the Buddha. The story uses a cosmological setting, but it does so for the purpose of proclaiming the significance and magnificence of Śākyamuni Buddha, the Buddha of the sahā world.
A Buddhist Kaleidoscope; Gene Reeves, The Lotus Sutra as Radically World-affirming, Page 186-187