Chapter 7: The Praise to All Dominions of the Perfectly Complete Buddhas Who Arise Throughout the Past, Future and Present
Then, the Bhagavān granted teaching in the following words to that good goddess, Bodhisamuccaya: “Good goddess, at that time, at that moment, a king called Suvarṇabhujendra honored all Tathāgatas, deeply praising the Buddha Bhagavāns of the past, future and present with the following [praise], which is called The Source of Lotuses:
The Jinas who arose in the past,
And those yet enduring in the worlds of the ten directions,
To those Jinas, I bow;
To all those Jinas, I pay tribute.
The Mighty Sages are serene, utterly serene, and totally pure,
Their bodies shine intensely with the color of gold.
Their voices are the most pleasing of all melodies;
For their voice powerfully resounds with the tone of Brahmā.
Their heads bear a blue akin to that of the bee, peacock, and utpala flower,
With curly locks that are deep jet-blue, like a blue jay bird.
Their teeth, bright white, as snow and conch;
Ever gleam with sheer beauty, like gold.
Their eyes, long, dark blue and flawless,
Resemble blue utpala flowers in full bloom.
Their tongues, large and lovely, are of the color of a lotus;
Like a lotus do they sparkle, and the anthers of a lotus do they resemble.
The treasure hair of their face, like lotus root and conch,
Swirls to the right, and is of a color like blue sapphire.
The eyebrows of the Sages are like slender moons;
And waning moons; and the gleam of their eyes a bee.
The noses on their lofty faces are always magnificent,
For they are smooth and of an excellent color like earthen gold.
Always and ever, the supreme taste senses of all Jinas are sensitive;
And the best, the greatest, the most splendid of the superb.
From their every hair pore a single hair emerges,
The hairs that emerge curl to the right,
And are like blue sapphire;
Like unto the exquisite neck of the peacock, beautiful with blue.
As soon as they are born, their bodies send out light,
That fills the worlds of the ten directions,
Sooths the limitless suffering in the three worlds;
And satisfies sentient beings with all happiness too.
Sentient beings roving in the hells, those drifting in the animal realms,
Those wayfaring in the abodes of ghosts and gods, and in the transitory stations of humans too,
All of those sentient beings are thereby satiated with bliss;
And all the living beings of sad transmigrations are alleviated thereby.
Light of excellent color, like gold,
Body intensely shining, like refined gold,
The Sugata’s face is an utterly spotless moon;
With a mouth that is smiling, utterly lovely and robustly stainless.
Like a newborn youth, soft are the limbs of their bodies,
Like a lion, supreme are they in overcoming through dynamic energy,
Their long arms are exceptionally long;
And are like branches of a sāla tree, swaying in the wind.
Glowing with light for a full arm’s length, powerfully sending out rays of light,
They are intensely luminous like a thousand suns.
The supreme body of the Mighty Sages are faultless;
Powerfully illuminating all limitless lands.
As the light of the Buddha is intensely luminous,
In a hundred, a thousand of limitless lands;
All the light of midnight moons and suns, in all their multitude,
Is made naught.
The sun of the Buddhas is the lamp of the universe,
For hundreds and thousands of Buddha suns,
In limitless hundreds and thousands of realms;
Are beheld by sentient beings: The Sun of the Tathagāta.
Bodies endowed with a hundred thousand merits,
Bodies fully adorned with all good qualities,
The arms of the Jinas resemble the regal elephant’s trunk;
And striking and immaculate is the light of their hands and feet.
Equal to a number approaching that of the particles on the earth’s surface,
And as many subtle particles one could find therein are the Buddhas of bygone;
Buddhas yet to come are as numerous as the subtle particles in existence;
And those abiding now are as numerous as tiny molecules.
To those Jinas, with strong faith
Of speech, mind and body, I offer flowers,
I offer incense and a hundred praises;
And moreover, with a virtuous mind, I make prostrations.
The good qualities of the Jinas are of the very nature of virtue,
Of the highest essence, various and manifold;
Had I a hundred tongues and a thousand eons,
I still could not convey the good qualities of the Buddhas.
Since just the good qualities of one Jina cannot be slightly articulated,
Even with even a thousand tongues,
How could I express the qualities of all Jinas,
With tongues a hundredfold?
Should all the worlds, including those of the gods, become an ocean,
Filling everything up to the peak of conditioned existence,
To be able to measure it by hairtips would be possible;
But for a single quality of the Sugatas, that is not so.
With clear devotion of body, speech, and mind,
I make praises to all Jinas;
Through the supreme fruits of the positive potential I collect thereby,
May sentient beings arrive at the state of the Jinas.’
[The Buddha said:] “The king praised the Buddhas thus;
And then the king made aspiration prayers in the following way:
‘In limitless eons of the future too,
Wherever I am born,
May I see a Drum like that in the Dream;
And from it, may I hear such a confession.
May I find a hymn to the Jinas like this victorious Source of Lotuses;
In each and every lifetime.
May I hear of Buddha’s qualities, limitless and peerless,
Hard to find in a thousand eons,
Even in dreams;
And during the daytime too, may I expound them.
May sentient beings be freed from the ocean of suffering;
And culminating the Six Far-Reaching Perfections,
May they thereafter attain unparalleled Awakening;
May my dominion be unrivaled.
By the fully ripened result of offering the Drum,
And the cause of praising all Jinas,
May I directly see the Mighty Sage of the Śākya;
And thereupon, may I obtain a prophecy [of enlightenment].
As for Suvarṇabhujendra and Suvarṇaprabhā,
Who are my two offspring,
May both of these boys, as well,
Obtain a prophecy of Unsurpassed Awakening.
Sentient beings who are insecure and without support,
Those who, being without refuge, are downtrodden,
For them as well, in future times;
May I be a protector, friend, reinforcement and support.
May I dissipate the origination of suffering,
Become the source of all happiness,
May I **sngon mtha’ ‘das pa de dag ji srid pa**
And engage in the practices of Awakening for eons into the future.
Through the Confession of Transcendent Golden Light,
May I dry up the ocean of destructive activities,
May I drain the ocean of my karma;
May I drain the ocean of disturbing emotions.
May I perfect my ocean of positive potential,
And through the transcendent illumination of stainless discerning insight,
May my ocean of deep wisdom be totally pure;
May I become an ocean of all good qualities.
*byang chub yon tan yon tan rin chen rdzogs
Through the power of the Confession of Transcendent Golden Light,
May my positive potential powerfully illuminate;
May the luminosity of my Awakening be utterly pure.
Through the transcendent illumination of stainless deep wisdom,
May the light of my positive potential radiate intensely;
And in order to brighten the brilliance of positive potential,
May I become uniquely exalted in the three worlds.
May I always be imbued with the power of positive potential,
Thus by liberating from the ocean of suffering,
And being like an ocean of all happiness;
I will practice Awakening into the eons of the future.
Just as the dominions of all those who, from the reaches of the past, have arrived
throughout the three worlds,
Are uniquely exalted by the limitless good qualities of all Jinas,
May my dominion of limitless good qualities become,
In future times, exactly like them.’
[The Buddha said:]
“Ruciraketu, try to understand.
King Suvarṇabhujendra,
In previous times, made this aspiration prayer;
And that very one is now you.
The two boys of a previous time,
Golden Hand and Golden Light,
Are themselves called ‘Silver Pinnacle’ and ‘Silver Light’;
I, at that time, gave them a prophecy [of enlightenment].
The many retinues, having heard this,
Have given rise to the Mind of Awakening (bodhicitta);
Now and in times of the future,
May they always perform this confession.”
FROM THE SOVEREIGN KING OF SŪTRA TEACHINGS, THE TRANSCENDENT GOLDEN LIGHT, THIS WAS THE SEVENTH CHAPTER: ‘THE PRAISE TO ALL THE DOMINIONS OF THE PERFECTLY COMPLETE BUDDHAS WHO ARISE THROUGHOUT THE PAST, FUTURE, AND PRESENT’.
You can find the text at The Sūtra of Golden Light: The 29 Chapter Version, Chapter 7 – The Praise to All Dominions of the Perfectly Complete Buddhas Who Arise Throughout the Past, Future and Present
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