PACIFIC WORLD - The Institute of Buddhist Studies

Willams: Seeing through Images 85
77. Yamabe Nobuyoshi, “Bonmōkyō ni okeru kōsōgyō no kenkyū: Toku ni
zenkan kyōten to no kanrensei ni chakumoku shite,” in Hokuchō Zui Tō
chūgoku bukkyō shisō shi, ed. Aramaki Noritoshi (Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 2000),
pp. 205–269. A revised English version of this paper has been published
as Yamabe Nobuyoshi, “Visionary Repentance and Visionary Ordination
in the Brahmā Net Sūtra,” in Going Forth: Visions of Buddhist Vinaya: Essays
Presented in Honor of Professor Stanley Weinstein, ed. William M. Bodiford,
Kuroda Institute, Studies in East Asian Buddhism, no. 18 (Honolulu:
University of Hawai’i Press, 2005), pp. 17–39.
78. Yamabe, “Bonmōkyō ni okeru kōsōgyō no kenkyū,” pp. 207–209.
79. Taishō, vol. 50, no. 2060, p. 496c.25–26. This is reminiscent of Daojing’s
situation after he received the bodhisattva precepts; see Yamabe, “Bonmōkyō
ni okeru kōsōgyō no kenkyū,” p. 208; and Yamabe, “Visionary Repentance
and Visionary Ordination,” p. 20.
80. A yojana is most commonly defined as the distance an ox can go in one
harnessing (usually within one day). Estimates of actual distance range
from 2.5 to 9 miles.
81. Taishō, vol. 15, no. 643, pp. 693c.28–695b.7.
82. Taishō, vol. 15, no. 643, pp. 693c.29–694a.18.
83. Reading yin (), “secret, hidden,” as wen (), “stable; stability.” This
name does not correspond exactly to the name of this buddha land known
from other sources, Āśoka “Without Sorrow.”
84. When a bodhisattva attains the first stage of bodhisattva practice he or
she obtains the ability to create up to one hundred multiple, or replicate,
bodies (fenshen, ) in order to visit various pure lands and receive
teachings. As the bodhisattva progresses along the bodhisattva path, the
number of replicate bodies he or she can produce increases. A buddha can
create an innumerable number of these bodies.
85. The transformation body (huashen, ) is a buddha’s nirmāṇakāya,
the body a buddha manifests in the human realm when he attains
buddhahood. By extension it represents the body through which he enters
the realms of samsara in order to save beings.
86. Shizi zuo, , commonly stands for , i.e., Simhāsana, the
Lion Throne, the seat from which the Buddha teaches.
87. I.e., in the so-called “lotus position” (padmāsana).
88. The value of a nayuta/niyuta varies and may be more or less than a koṭi,
usually translated as Krore and representing ten million (although this
may vary); see Edgerton, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary,
vol. 2, p. 98b, q.v. niyuta. Basing himself on the Tibetan, Edgerton remarks
that a niyuta may be vary from one million to one hundred billion.