Day 15

Day 15 concludes Chapter 10, The Teacher of the Dharma, and opens Chapter 11, Beholding the Stūpa of Treasures.


Having last month concluded Chapter 10, The Teacher of the Dharma, we consider the arrival of the Stūpa of Treasures.

Thereupon a stupa of the seven treasures sprang up from underground and hung in the sky before the Buddha. The stupa was five hundred yojanas high and two hundred and fifty yojanas wide and deep. lt was adorned with various treasures. It was furnished with five thousand railings and ten million chambers. It was adorned with innumerable banners and streamers, from which jeweled necklaces and billions of jeweled bells were hanging down. The fragrance of tamalapattra and candana was sent forth from the four sides of the stupa to all the corners of the world. Many canopies, adorned with streamers, and made of the seven treasures-gold, silver, lapis lazuli, shell, agate, pearl and ruby were hanging in the sky [one upon another from the top of the stupa] up to the [heaven of the] palaces of the four heavenly-kings. The thirty-three gods offered a rain of heavenly mandārava-flowers to the stupa of treasures. Thousands of billions of living beings, including the other gods, dragons, yakṣas, gandharvas, asuras, garuḍas, kiṃnaras, mahoragas, men and nonhuman beings, also offered flowers, incense, necklaces, streamers, canopies and music to the stupa of treasures, venerated the stupa, honored it, and praised it.

See The Reason the Stupa Rises Out of the Earth