DESCRIPTION

In this chapter the story of the jeweled stupa from Chapter Eleven returns. First, the Buddha makes the ground quake and split open, and immeasurable numbers of bodhisattvas with their own assemblies come to the stupa where Prabhūtaratna Tathāgata and Śākyamuni Buddha, as well as all of Śākyamuni Buddha’s ‘transformation’ bodies that returned to the Saha world.

Among this assembly of bodhisattvas are four leaders: Viśiṣṭākāritra (Superior Practice), Anantakāritra (Boundless Practice), Viśuddhakāritra (Pure Practice), and Supratiṣṭhitakāritra (Steadfast Practice).

Then the assembly, beginning with Maitreya Bodhisattva, wonders why all these bodhisattvas have gathered together here. Even Śākyamuni Buddha’s ‘transformation’ bodies wonder. The Buddha explains that these are all bodhisattvas he caused to generate bodhicitta and who have already attained anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi. Everyone wonders how that could be, since it’s only been forty years or so since the Buddha’s enlightenment.