DESCRIPTION

Chapter Twelve opens with the Buddha recalling a past life when he was a king practicing giving, and a ṛṣi sage, Asita, came bearing the Lotus Sutra. The Buddha reveals to the bhikṣus that the king was himself, and the ṛṣi was Devadatta, the Buddhas nefarious cousin and brother-in-law who attempted to kill him on several occasions to gain control of the monastic order. The very embodiment of ‘evil’, Devadatta, is shown to actually be a good friend (kalyāṇamitra), a cause for the Buddha to be able to perfect the six pāramitās, etc. and become enlightened. The Buddha proceeds to give Devadatta a secret prediction of future enlightenment and become a Buddha named Deva-rājaḥ (Heavenly King).

After this, we see the return of Mañjuśrī bodhisattva, who we have been seen or heard since the exchange with Maitreya in Chapter One. Mañjuśrī, sitting on a thousand-petaled lotus flower as large as a carriage wheel, emerges from the palace of the nāga king Sāgara in the great ocean. He introduces the daughter of the nāga king, who is only eight years old. She is wise and sharp-faceted, understands the faculties and karmic actions of all beings, has attained dhāraṇīs, and can fully retain all the profound secret treasuries spoken by the Buddhas. She has deeply entered samādhi and comprehends all dharmas. In a kṣaṇa (thought-moment) she can generate bodhicitta and attain non-retrogression, with unobstructed eloquence. And everyone in the audience witnesses her becoming a Buddha in another world.