Day 10

Day 10 concludes Chapter 6, Assurance of Future Buddhahood, and opens Chapter 7, The Parable of a Magic City.

Having last month covered the prediction of future Buddhahood for Subhuti in gāthās, we come to Great Kātyāyana.

Thereupon the World-Honored One said to the bhikṣus:

“Now I will tell you. This Great Kātyāyana will make many offerings to eight hundred thousand millions of Buddhas, attend on them, respect them, and honor them in his future life. After the extinction of each of those Buddhas, he will erect a stupa-mausoleum a thousand yojanas high, and five hundred yojanas wide and deep. He will make it of the seven treasures: gold, silver, lapis lazuli, shell, agate, pearl and ruby. He will offer flowers, necklaces, incense to apply to the skin, incense powder, incense to burn, canopies, banners and streamers to this stūpa-mausoleum. After that he will make the same offerings to two billions of Buddhas. Having made offerings to those Buddhas, he will complete the Way of Bodhisattvas, and become a Buddha called Jambunada-Gold-Light, the Tathāgata, the Deserver of Offerings, the Perfectly Enlightened One, the Man of Wisdom and Practice, the Well-Gone, the Knower of the World, the Unsurpassed Man, the Controller of Men, the Teacher of Gods and Men, the Buddha, the World-Honored One. The ground [of his world] will be even, made of crystal, and adorned with jeweled trees. The roads will be marked off by ropes of gold, and wonderful flowers will cover the ground to purify it. Anyone will rejoice at seeing it. The four evil regions: hell, the region of hungry spirits, that of animals, and that of asuras, will not exist in that world. Many gods and men will live there. Śrāvakas and Bodhisattvas, many billions in number, also will live there to adorn that world. The duration of the life of that Buddha will be twelve small kalpas. His right teachings will be preserved for twenty small kalpas, and the counterfeit of his right teachings also will be preserved for twenty small kalpas.”

Eventually I will extract all of the predictions of future Buddhahood and collect them in a spreadsheet in which I can then compare each Buddha’s future. Here, for example, we learn that in the world of Jambunada-Gold-Light (a world that goes unnamed) “The four evil regions: hell, the region of hungry spirits, that of animals, and that of asuras, will not exist in that world.” Why bring up this detail? Granted it’s not as big a puzzle as why Śāriputra as the Buddha Flower-Light in the world called Free-From-Taint will expound the teaching of the Three Vehicles according to his original vow, but it makes me curious.