Part 20: Sumatinātha’s omniscience

One day, the Lord, wandering in villages, mines, etc., came to Sahasrāmravaṇa, the place where he took initiation. As the Lord was engaged in meditation at the foot of a priyaṅgu, after he had mounted the ladder of destruction from the eighth guṇasthāna, his destructive karmas fell apart. On the eleventh day of the bright half of Caitra, the moon being in conjunction with Maghā, brilliant omniscience arose in the Master who had fasted for two days.

Knowing that from the shaking of their thrones, the Indras came with the gods and asuras and made a samavasaraṇa for the Master’s preaching. The Lord entered by the east door, and circumambulated the caitya-tree that was a kos and sixteen hundred bows high. After saying, “Reverence to the congregation,” the Lord sat down on the lion-throne, facing the east, and the gods made images of him in the other directions. The congregation, gods, asuras and mortals stood in their proper places.

Vajrabhṛt (Śakra) bowed to the Lord of the World and recited a hymn of praise as follows:

Stuti:

“The aśoka-tree^[1] is delighted, singing, as it were, with humming bees; dancing, as it were, with trembling leaves; delighted,^[2] as it were, by your virtues. For a yojana the gods scatter flowers with their stalks set straight down knee-deep on your preaching ground. The sound of your divine music purified by the grāmarāgas, Mālava, Kaiśikī, etc.,^[3] is absorbed by them with their necks erect from joy like deer. The row of chauris, white as moonlight, shines like a flock of haṃsas engaged in hovering around your lotus-face. While you, seated on the lion-throne, deliver a sermon, the deer come to listen, as if to serve a lion. Surrounded by masses of light,^[4] like the moon by moonlight, you give the highest joy to eyes as if they were cakoras. O Lord of the whole universe, a drum sounding in the sky first indicates your great sovereignty, as it were, over the authoritative persons of the world. Your three umbrellas, indicating your powerful lordship over the three worlds, resemble steps of the wealth of merit, one above the other. Who is not amazed, O Lord, when he has seen this amazing wealth of miraculous signs^[5] of yours? Even the heretics are.”

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

The caitya-tree.

[2]:

Rakta, with reference also to the red flowers.

[3]:

See I, n. 163.

[4]:

The bhāmaṇḍala.

[5]:

Prātihārya, the 8 of which have just been enumerated. See I, App. V.