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For some further remarks on the possible foreign origin of Mañjuśrî see below, chapter on Central Asia. Nik. This is his bodhi tree under which he will obtain enlightenment as Sâkyamuni under the Ficus religiosa. Takakusu, p. 213. See Johnston, From Peking to Mandalay, for an interesting account of Mt. Chinese, Tai-shih-chih. He appears to be the Arhat Maudgalyâyana deified.
These, though recognized by Mahayanists, do not as a rule contain expositions of the Sûnyatâ and Dharma-kâya and are not sharply distinguished from the more imaginative of the Hinayanist scriptures. But they introduce a multiplicity of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and represent Sâkyamuni as a superhuman worker of miracles.
It purports to be a discourse delivered by Śâkyamuni on the Vulture Peak to an assemblage of Bodhisattvas. The Lotus clearly affirms the multiplicity of vehicles, or various ways of teaching the law, and also the eternity of the Buddha, but it does not emphasize, although it mentions, the doctrine of śûnyatâ.
He appears to contemplate chiefly the veneration of images of Sâkyamuni but figures of Bodhisattvas were also conspicuous features in temples, as we know not only from archæology but from the biography of Hsüan Chuang, where it is said that worshippers used to throw flowers and silk scarves at the image of Avalokita and draw auguries from the way they fell.
The friendship between Sakyamuni and Ananda was very close and tender; and it is impossible to read much of what the dying Buddha said to him and of him, as related in the Maha-pari-nirvana Sutra, without being moved almost to tears. Ananda is to reappear on earth as Buddha in another Kalpa.
The relations of these works to one another are not quite clear. Samâdhirâja is a Vyâkaraṇa or narrative describing different forms of meditation of which the Samâdhirâja is the greatest and best. The scene is laid on the Vulture's Peak and the principal interlocutors are Śâkyamuni and Candraprabha, a rich man of Râjagṛiha.
He had been born in the Sakya house, to do for the world what the character of all his past births required, and he had done it. They could no more see him, the World-honoured one. Sudana or Sudatta was the name of the Bodhisattva in the birth which preceded his appearance as Sakyamuni or Gotama, when he became the Supreme Buddha.
Instead of "four," the Chinese copies of the text have "fourteen;" but the Corean reading is, probably, more correct. There may have been, as Giles says, "maids of honour;" but the character does not say so. The Sapta-ratna, gold, silver, lapis lazuli, rock crystal, rubies, diamonds or emeralds, and agate. No doubt that of Sakyamuni himself.
So Eitel says, p. 58; but this chapter does not say that Kasyapa is in the mountain alive, but that his body entire is in a recess or hole in it. It is of him that the chapter speaks, and not of the famous disciple of Sakyamuni, who also is called Mahakasyapa. This will appear also on a comparison of Eitel's articles on "Mahakasyapa" and "Kasyapa Buddha."
For the most part our traveller uses Buddha as a proper name, though it properly means "The Enlightened." He uses also the combinations "Sakya Buddha,"="The Buddha of the Sakya tribe," and "Sakyamuni,"="The Sakya sage." This last is the most common designation of the Buddha in China, and to my mind best combines the characteristics of a descriptive and a proper name.
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