Toh 44-37“The Scale of Life,” Chapter 37 of the Extensive Sūtra “The Ornaments of the Buddhas”
Pāli / Sanskrit:tshe’i tshad kyi le’u
Summary The bodhisattva King of Mind gives a teaching to an assembly of bodhisattvas on the relativity of time among different buddhafields. Eleven buddhafields are enumerated, with an eon in the first being equivalent to a day in the following buddhafield, where an eon is, in turn, the equivalent of a day in the next, and so forth.
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Summary
The bodhisattva King of Mind gives a teaching to an assembly of bodhisattvas on the relativity of time
among different buddhafields. Eleven buddhafields are enumerated, with an eon in the first being equivalent to
a day in the following buddhafield, where an eon is, in turn, the equivalent of a day in the next, and so
forth.
Acknowledgements
Translated, edited, and finalized by the Subhashita Translation Group. The translation was produced by
Lowell Cook, who also wrote the introduction. Benjamin Ewing checked the translation against the Tibetan and
edited the text and introduction.
The translation was completed under the patronage and supervision of 84000: Translating the Words of the
Buddha.
The generous sponsorship of Thirty and Twenty, which helped make the work on this translation possible, is
most gratefully acknowledged.
Introduction
The Chapter on the Scale of Life is the thirty-seventh of the forty-five chapters in the Ornaments
of the Buddhas (Skt. Buddhāvataṃsaka; Tib. sangs rgyas phal po che). This chapter continues the Ornaments of the Buddhas’ series of dialogues, which occur not long
after the Buddha’s awakening in Magadha. In this chapter a bodhisattva named King of Mind offers a
discourse on the relativity of time between buddhafields. In the preceding chapter, he had expounded on the
incalculable numbers of buddhas, bodhisattvas, and the worlds in which they appear. In this chapter, he focuses
more particularly on the theme of time. The chapter’s title, “The Scale of Life,” makes it clear that
the central theme of the varying spans of time found across different
buddhafields has a direct bearing on the immense lifespans of the buddhas who live in them, preside over them,
and are also responsible for their manifestation, as well as the lifespans of the bodhisattvas and other beings
who inhabit them. Eleven buddhafields are enumerated in a
formulaic manner, with an eon in the first being equivalent to a day in the following buddhafield,
where an eon is, in turn, the equivalent of a day in the next, and so forth. In this way, a
hierarchy of buddhafields is presented that begins with our world and
culminates with the paramount buddhafield, Padmaśrī. This language of incredibly vast scales of time
has the effect of testing the limits of human conception, thereby demonstrating that the qualities of
the buddhas and their buddhafields are beyond quantification or conceptualization.
The Chapter on the Scale of Life is nearly identical to two other sūtras, Expounding the Qualities
of the Thus-Gone Ones’ Buddhafields (Toh 104)
and The Sūtra of King of the Inconceivable (Toh 268). Of the
three versions, The Chapter on the Scale of Life is the most abbreviated because it lacks the narrative elements that frame
the discourse in the other two sūtras. Whereas Toh 104 and 268 are stand-alone sūtras that need to be
established in the historical narrative of the Buddha’s teaching career, The Chapter on the Scale of Life is part of the
more extensive discourse presented in the Ornaments of the Buddhas
collection, and thus is integrated into its narrative frame. The name of the primary interlocutor also differs across the three texts, as do
some of the names of the buddhas and buddhafields listed in them. In the case of Toh 268, the names of
most of the buddhafields are omitted altogether. Apart from these differences, the structure,
terminology, and content of the three texts is largely the same. A Sanskrit witness of Toh 104 with
the slightly variant title Anantabuddhakṣetraguṇodbhāvana (Proclaiming the Qualities of the Infinite Buddhafields) provides an
important resource for accessing the Sanskrit text for all three of these closely related sūtras.
The Ornaments of the Buddhas is listed in both the Denkarma (Tib.
ldan/lhan dkar ma) and Phangthangma (Tib. ’phang thang ma) catalogs, the two extant inventories of
translations from the Imperial Period (629–841 ce). While there is no colophon specific to The Chapter on the Scale of Life, the colophon to
the complete Ornaments of the Buddhas text states that it was translated by the chief editor-translator Yeshé Dé, together with
the Indian scholars Jinamitra, Surendrabodhi, and others.
The translation offered here is based on the version found in the Degé Kangyur in consultation
with the Sanskrit attested in the Anantabuddhakṣetraguṇodbhāvana.
Additionally, the variant readings recorded in the Comparative Edition (Tib. dpe bsdur ma) and the Stok Palace Kangyurs were consulted, and Expounding the Qualities of the Thus-Gone Ones’ Buddhafields and The Sūtra of
King of the Inconceivable informed the translation. A Chinese
translation of the Ornaments of the Buddhas was produced by Buddhabhadra
(359–429) in the fifth century and is included in the Chinese canon (Taishō 278, Da fang guang fo hua yan jing
大方廣佛華嚴經). The “Scale of Life” chapter has been translated from the Chinese in
The Flower Ornament Scripture, Thomas Cleary’s translation of the
entire Ornaments of the Buddhas. Where possible, the Sanskrit names of
buddhas and buddhafields have been supplied by the Anantabuddhakṣetraguṇodbhāvana.
The Translation
The Chapter on the Scale of Life
It was then that the bodhisattva King of Mind addressed those bodhisattvas: “O children of the
Victorious One, the extent of an eon in this Sahā world, the buddhafield of the blessed Thus-Gone One
Śākyamuni, is but a single day in Sukhāvatī, the buddhafield of the Thus-Gone One Amitāyus.
“O children of the Victorious One, the extent of an eon in Sukhāvatī is but a single day in the
realm of Kaṣāyadhvajā, the buddhafield of the Thus-Gone One Vajrapramardin.
“O children of the Victorious One, the extent of an eon in the realm of Kaṣāyadhvajā is but a
single day in the realm of Avaivartikacakranirghoṣā, the buddhafield of the Thus-Gone One
Padmaphullitagātra.
“O children of the Victorious One, the extent of an eon in the realm of Avaivartikacakranirghoṣā
is but a single day in the realm of Virajā, the buddhafield of the blessed Thus-Gone One Dharmadhvaja.
“O children of the Victorious One, the extent of an eon in the realm of Virajā is but a single day
in the realm of Excellent Lamp, the buddhafield of the blessed Thus-Gone One Siṃha.
“O children of the Victorious One, the extent of an eon in the realm of Excellent Lamp is but a
single day in the realm of Suprabhā, the buddhafield of the blessed Thus-Gone One Vairocanagarbha.
“O children of the Victorious One, the extent of an eon in the realm of Suprabhā is but a single
day in the realm of Duratikramā, the buddhafield of the blessed Thus-Gone One Lotus Body Blooming from
the Light of the Dharma.
“O children of the Victorious One, the extent of an eon in the realm of Duratikramā is but a single day in the realm of
Vyūhā, the buddhafield of the blessed Thus-Gone One Light of All Supernatural Abilities.
“O children of the Victorious One, the extent of an eon in the realm of Vyūhā is but a single day
in the realm of Color of the Mirror Disk, the buddhafield of the blessed Thus-Gone One Candrabuddhi.
“O children of the Victorious One, continuing with this system for calculating eons and traversing
tens of thousands of countless realms, we arrive at the equivalent of a single day in the realm of
Padmaśrī, the buddhafield where the blessed Thus-Gone One Bhadraśrī resides.
“According to this system of calculation, all realms are brimming with bodhisattvas who follow the
conduct of Samantabhadra.”
This was “The Scale of Life,” the thirty-seventh chapter of the extensive sūtra, the Ornaments of the
Buddhas.
Notes
Bibliography
A bodhisattva who is the primary interlocutor for the “Scale of Life”
chapter (Ch. 37) of the Buddhāvataṃsaka.
Light of All Supernatural Abilities is a buddha who inhabits the
buddhafield Vyūhā.
Lotus Body Blooming from the Light of the Dharma
chos kyi ’od zer gyi sku’i pad mo shin tu rgyas pa
ཆོས་ཀྱི་འོད་ཟེར་གྱི་སྐུའི་པད་མོ་ཤིན་ཏུ་རྒྱས་པ།
Lotus Body Blooming from the Light of the Dharma is a buddha who
inhabits the buddhafield Duratikramā.
Samantabhadra
kun tu bzang po
ཀུན་ཏུ་བཟང་པོ།
Samantabhadra
Samantabhadra (Entirely Excellent) is one of the eight principal
bodhisattvas. He is known for embodying the conduct of bodhisattvas through his vast
aspirations, offerings, and deeds for the benefit of beings.
Color of the Mirror Disk is a buddhafield inhabited by the Buddha
Candrabuddhi.
Excellent Lamp is a buddhafield inhabited by the Buddha Siṃha.
Sahā world
mi mjed
མི་མཇེད།
Sahā
This universe of ours, or the trichiliocosm (but sometimes referring
to just this world system of four continents), presided over by Brahmā. The term is
variously interpreted as meaning the world of suffering, of endurance, of
fearlessness, or of concomitance (of karmic cause and effect).
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