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Willams: Seeing through Images 79
well as all of the verses in the Daśabhūmivibhāṣa, Inagaki’s work provides
very useful tables and annotated lists for those buddhas whose names
appear in this chapter. It is important to note that this chapter forms an
introduction, or prologue, to the next chapter on the elimination of karma
which outlines a four-limbed pūjā of repentance (chanhui, ), requesting
the buddhas to stay in the world and teach (quanqing, ), rejoicing in the
merits of others (suixi, ), and transfer of merit (huixiang, ). These
two chapters in effect outline a repentance ritual where the first chapter
parallels our rosters of buddhas and the second provides the repentance
prayer and ritual format for the repentance.
40. Taishō, vol. 26, no. 1521, pp. 41b–42c.
41. Taishō, vol. 15, no. 643, pp. 678a, 688b–c, and 694b–c. This text has
recently been the subject of an extensive study by Nobuyoshi Yamabe,
“The Sūtra on the Ocean-Like Samādhi.”
42. See p. 50 of this essay.
43. In the ritual’s prologue the practitioner is instructed to perform the
repentance surrounded by the thirty-five buddhas (sanshi wu fo qian,
; other versions of the text read qian [] for bian [], “in front of the
thirty-five buddhas”); see Taishō, vol. 12, no. 325, p. 38c.19. The injunction
to visualize the thirty-five buddhas is given in the ritual’s epilogue:
In this way the bodhisattva should visualize the thirty-five
buddhas as if they were in front of your very eyes, meditating upon
those qualities that the tathāgatas possess. In this way he should
perform his purification and repentance. Should the bodhisattva
be able to purify these offenses, at that time the buddhas will
manifest their bodies before him and will also explain a variety of
practices in order to convert sentient beings….
….
44. P. 2849 (DHBZ 124.466b–472b). See also note 55, below.
45. P. 2849 (DHBZ 124.472b–474a).
46. P. 2849 (DHBZ 124.474a–476a).
47. See Nishimoto Teruma, “Sangaikyō shinshutsu shiryō P 2849 no
kisoteki kenkyū,” Nanto Bukkyō 72 (1995): pp. 75–85 (Zhifa), 85–86 (texts
on eating), 86 (Shou bajie fa); Sangaikyō no kenkyū (Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1998),
pp. 190–196, 196–197, and 197–198.
48. See Stevenson, “The T’ien-t’ai Four Forms of Samadhi,” pp. 278–279.
49. Taishō, vol. 47, no. 1958, p. 14c. For an alternative translation see Inagaki,
Ōjōronchū, p. 18. My translation of jun () as “constrain,” i.e., focus, is based
on the simile that Tanluan provides immediately following this passage: