佛滅度後棺斂葬送經

Thus have I truly heard: At one time the World-Honored One was wandering and teaching in the country of Pāṭaliputra. At that time, Ānanda addressed the World-Honored One:

– After the Tathāgata's parinirvāṇa, in what manner should the rites for shrouding and interring your body be performed?

The World-Honored One taught:

– Be concerned for yourselves; there is no need to be concerned for me. After my parinirvāṇa, there will be brahmins who will see to the funerary rites.

Ānanda said:

– What is the form of these rites?

The Buddha taught:

– It is just like the funerary rites for the Flying-Borne Emperor.[1]

Ānanda said:

– We wish to listen and to carry out the rites accordingly!

The Buddha taught further:

– When a holy emperor ascends and passes away, according to custom, the people take a thousand lengths of white silk to wrap the body, pour fragrant water over it so that it soaks from top to bottom, then heap fragrant firewood all around the body, equal on the four sides and above and below, and afterward set it alight for cremation. When the cremation is finished, they gather the bones, wash them clean with fragrant water, and place them in a vessel of gold. Next they use six slabs of stone, each three feet in length and breadth and one foot thick, to form a coffer in which to enshrine the vessel of relics. At the same time they raise pillars and hang upon them precious silks of every kind, and they make complete offerings of all that is fitting. Finally they break ground and build a stupa, burn incense, and scatter flowers in offering. The funerary rites for the Buddha must surpass those of that holy emperor.

Why is this so? From innumerable kalpas I have employed the four immeasurable minds of loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity; I have practiced the six perfections without limit to rescue sentient beings throughout the ten directions; and through these lofty and profound merits I have become a Buddha—one to Whom Nothing Clings, of the True and Right Path, the Most Perfectly Enlightened, the Master of the Dharma, the Teacher of Gods and Humans, supreme and without equal.

If anyone offers earth to build a stupa, that person gains immeasurable blessings. In the defiled age of the Dharma's decline, people will live in misery, poverty, and want, and their wealth will suffer the calamity of being divided among the five houses. For this reason I leave behind relics and the alms-bowl, to relieve the calamities of misery, poverty, and want, and to console and aid sentient beings.

It is like the image of a holy king enshrined in an ancestral temple for the people to behold and revere. As for the śramaṇas who expound the scriptures and convert those who have not yet heard them, they cause the living to be forever far removed from the disaster of prison and bondage, and the dead to escape the offenses of the three evil destinies and assuredly to be born in the heavens. Thus, if one builds a temple in which to worship the Buddha, it should surpass that of the holy emperor.

Ānanda said:

– Must the bowl also be treated in this way, World-Honored One?

The Buddha taught:

– My bowl was offered by the four Great Heavenly Kings. The bowl from which the Buddha receives his food is formed from the four bowls of these four kings joined together. Sentient beings should not use this bowl. After my parinirvāṇa, the nations will contend with one another, the minds of the people will be perverse, they will hold life cheap and prize licentiousness, they will turn their backs on filial duty and righteousness and exalt sorcery and seduction. At that time my bowl will transform and emit light of five colors, flying about, rising and descending, to transform and influence the minds of sentient beings. The people, seeing this, will seek after the merits of the Buddha. Thereby their folly will be entirely cut off, wisdom will at once arise, they will follow the right teaching, and all will build temples and shrines to extol the merits of the Buddha. Afterward, my bowl will gradually move toward the east, and whatever nations the bowl passes through, their disasters and epidemics will at once cease, the king and his officials will be healthy and at ease, the grain will yield a good harvest, the silks will be fine and beautiful, there will be joy without calamity, and forever far removed from the three evil paths, they will be born in the heavens. Because the king of that far eastern region is benevolent and possessed of wisdom, the bowl will fly toward that quarter.

But after that king ascends and passes away, the king who succeeds to the throne will be licentious, abandoning the right and following the wrong, and the hearts of the people will likewise be so. When they see the bowl, they will not reverently bow before it. Seeing this, the heavenly dragons, grieving, will invite the bowl to return to their ocean palace, where they will reverently make offerings to it.

The king, having lost the precious bowl, will be sorrowful and anxious in his heart, and in his anger he will proclaim throughout all the nations and offer a reward: whoever finds the alms-bowl will be rewarded with a thousand pieces of gold. The king will issue this proclamation continually for many years, and the king's command will be conveyed everywhere; the people, coveting the great reward, will go searching everywhere but will not find it.

At that time there was a poor and wretched man named Sūra, who acted as a bhikṣu, yet was fond of eating meat and drinking wine, took a wife, and had children. One day, while he was drunk, he led his little child before the palace gate and said: "I know the place where the precious bowl is hidden!" When the king heard this, his heart was greatly delighted, and he at once had the śramaṇa summoned in and asked:

– Where is the bowl?

The bhikṣu replied: "First bring the gold here." The king then bestowed upon him a thousand catties of gold.

The śramaṇa said:

– It was simply stolen by those other śramaṇas!

Hearing this, the king at once gave orders to beat and torture the śramaṇas most cruelly. The people, seeing this, all resented the king.

The king asked the false śramaṇa: Whose śramaṇa are you?

He answered: I believe in and serve the Buddha!

The king asked: How many precepts does the Buddha have?

He answered: There are two hundred and fifty precepts.

The king asked: What are the most important precepts?

He answered: The first is that one must reverently keep a heart of loving-kindness and benevolence, bestowing grace upon all sentient beings, regarding the lives of all beings under heaven as one's own body. Further, one arouses a heart of compassion and pity, forgiving others as one forgives oneself, joyfully enlightening sentient beings. One protects them as one protects one's own body, and one's loving-kindness pervades even the grasses and trees, so that one does not let them be needlessly cut down and destroyed.

The king said:

– How excellent! The benevolent transforming teaching of the Buddha encompasses heaven and earth—what kind of sentient being would not take refuge in it?

The śramaṇa continued:

– The second is that one must keep the mind pure, not hoarding ill-gotten treasures, honoring one's country, not usurping the king's throne. Even with the smallest things, if they are not given, one must not take them.

The king said:

– How excellent! Truly a pure person.

The śramaṇa said again:

– The third is to guard one's chastity, the mind without lust, the mouth speaking no flirtatious words; deceitful sounds and lewd, depraved sights are all not to be heard or seen. Regard older women as one's mother or elder sister; regard younger women as one's younger sister. One would rather have one's body burned than commit an act of licentiousness!

The king said:

– How excellent! When it comes to a true heart and a pure mind, the teaching of the Buddha is foremost.

The śramaṇa said again:

– The fourth is that one must be careful in speech: not speaking with a double tongue, not speaking coarse and harsh words, not lying, not speaking ornate and flattering words, not praising before and slandering after, not falsely accusing the innocent, nor using venomous insects, ghosts and spirits, sorcery, or incantations to harm others. One would rather swallow burning coals than dare to speak malicious words!

The king said:

– How excellent! The transforming teaching of the Buddha is truly awe-inspiring. Must one be so careful in speech as this?

The śramaṇa addressed him again:

– The fifth is not to drink wine, for wine can cause a king to be without benevolence, cause a minister to be disloyal, cause parents to be without righteousness, cause children and grandchildren to be unfilial, and women to be wanton. Drinking wine can commit thirty-six faults; nations are lost and households ruined, all because of wine. One would rather drink poison and die than drink wine and be drunk and so live!

The king said:

– How excellent! The clear and luminous transforming teaching of the Buddha. He causes sentient beings to cultivate virtue, to keep the Way, to eradicate all evils, to develop wholesome deeds, the body pure, the will plain and simple. The scripture teaches everyone to be benevolent, yet this man tells me to kill. The precept teaches one to keep purity and not to be greedy, yet he steals gold. The precept teaches one not to be lustful, yet he keeps a wife and children. The precept teaches one to be truthful, yet he falsely accuses others.

The śramaṇa said:

– They stole the bowl; I am innocent!

The king said:

– Among the precepts, the drinking of wine is not permitted, yet you have come here dead drunk. Are those other śramaṇas persons of lofty conduct who fully keep these five precepts of virtue?

He answered: They are even worse than I am!

The king asked the official in charge of this matter:

– What do those śramaṇas take as their occupation?

He answered: They beg for food without moderation, and act even more wickedly than that teacher!

The king asked:

– The Buddha's precepts number two hundred and fifty; they are more benevolent than heaven and earth, as clear and still as the sky, as chaste as empty space, as true as the four seasons, brighter than the sun and moon. There surely could be no such persons who seize the Dharma robes, secretly steal the alms-bowl, falsely act as śramaṇas, and throw the right Dharma into confusion! Even a single precept they cannot keep—and yet they speak of two hundred and fifty precepts!

The king thereupon issued an edict to his officials:

– The pure temple where the Buddha is worshiped is the dwelling place of the worthy and the holy; it is not the lair of birds and beasts. Drive out all these filthy ones, and do not allow them to dwell within the temple where the Buddha is worshiped.

At that time, the gentlemen of noble character in the country wished to build temples for the Buddha, but only because there were no worthy and holy ones to dwell there and propagate the teaching of the Buddha, they could only grieve and shed tears. From this time on, the great Way declined, and the work of transformation grew ever weaker.

The Buddha said to Ānanda:

– Although I shall pass into parinirvāṇa, I still leave behind the bowl and the relics; if there be any worthy one who wholeheartedly serves and makes offerings to them, that person will assuredly be born in the heavens.

Ānanda said to the Buddha:

– After a thousand years, the bowl will manifest divine virtue and transformation as it does today—how much more so the miraculous transformations of the Supreme One, of the True and Right Path, the Most Perfectly Enlightened!

When the Buddha spoke this scripture, the heavenly dragons, ghosts and spirits, the king, the great ministers, and the fourfold assembly were all choked with emotion, and they bowed reverently and withdrew.

Notes:

[1] Flying-Borne Emperor 飛行皇帝: That is, the Wheel-Turning Holy King (Cakravartin).