PACIFIC WORLD - The Institute of Buddhist Studies

Willams: Seeing through Images 55
Stability.’ 83 Immeasurable koṭis of jewels take on koṭis of thousands
of forms, which are thereby used to form [the land].
“The Buddha is called Bhadraśrī, who both lets forth innumerable
rays of light to illuminate everywhere hundreds and thousands
of countries and, with innumerable koṭis of replicate bodies 84 and
all of his transformation bodies, 85 sets himself in front of the practitioner.
The color of his body is like a golden mountain, upright,
solemn, and fully without comparison. He sits in a large diamond
cave. The rays of innumerable varieties of jewels adorn and form
halls and pavilions. In front of each and every hall and pavilion
are hundreds of koṭis of jeweled trees as immeasurable as motes of
dust. Below each and every jeweled tree are eighty-four thousand
Lion Seats. 86 Each and every Lion Seat has a replicate body of the
Buddha, seated cross-legged, 87 in samādhi seated below the jeweled
tree. The body of Bhadraśrī Buddha is two hundred fifty koṭis of
nayutas of yojanas long. 88 Each and every hair follicle on his body
[shows] all the unsurpassable [thirty-two] major and [eighty] minor
marks as innumerable as motes of dust. In each and every major
and minor mark are innumerable transformation buddhas.
“Each and every transformation buddha’s height appears lofty
and majestic, like Mt. Sumeru. [Each] lets forth a great radiant
brightness, seated on a jeweled lotus flower set in empty space.
Each of the replicate bodies of all the buddhas emits a subtle and
wondrous radiant brightness that puts forth innumerable hundreds
and thousands of transformation buddhas. Each and every transformation
buddha sits on a jeweled lotus flower. Each and every
lotus flower has one thousand pennants and tubular banners. Each
and every pennant and tubular banner gives off hundreds of koṭis
of subtle and wondrous sounds. [From] among all of these sounds
are taught the visualization of the innumerable buddha-bodies of
the ten directions.
“When these marks become manifest, one will see the realms
of the ten directions as if they were diamonds. The color of the
hundreds of koṭis of jewels will neither decrease nor increase. After
one has seen these [thirty-two] marks, in front of all the buddhas,
one will receive the Dharma at the princely throne. One in a realm
such as this is named a bodhisattva of the gotrabhūmi.” 89