Day 30

Day 30 covers all of Chapter 26, Dhāraṇīs.

Just how much merit is there in keeping, reading, reciting, understanding or copying the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma? The Buddha said:

Suppose some good men or women make offerings to eight hundred billion nayuta Buddhas, that is, as many Buddhas as there are sands in the River Ganges. What do you think of this? Are the merits given to them many or not?

“Very many, World-Honored One!” [said Medicine-King Bodhisattva]

The Buddha said: “More merits will be given to the good men or women who keep, read or recite even a single gāthā of four lines of this sūtra, understand the meanings of it or act according to it.”

Subsequently, Medicine-King Bodhisattva, Brave-In-Giving Bodhisattva, Vaiśravaṇa Heavenly-King, World-Holding Heavenly-King, the 10 female rākṣasīs and their mother each offer dhāraṇīs to protect the person who keeps this sūtra and the teacher of the sūtra. Attacks on these people under protection are to be considered attacks on countless Buddhas.

The 10 rākṣasīs and their mother say:

“World-Honored One! We also will protect the person who reads, recites and keeps the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma so that he may have no trouble. No one shall take advantage of the weak points of this teacher of the Dharma.”

They also predict:

Anyone who attacks this teacher of the Dharma
Will receive the same retribution
As to be received by the person who kills his parents,
Or who makes [sesame] oil without taking out worms [from the sesame],
Or who deceives others by using wrong measures and scales,
Or by Devadatta who split the Saṃgha.

In reply to the rākṣasīs, the Buddha says:

“Excellent, excellent! Your merits will be immeasurable even when you protect the person who keeps only the name of the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma. Needless to say, so will be your merits when you protect the person who keeps the sūtra itself, and makes to a copy of this sūtra hundreds of thousands of offerings such as flowers, incense, necklaces, powdered incense, incense applicable to the skin, incense to burn, streamers, canopies, music, and various lamps like lamps of butter oil, oil lamps, lamps of perfumed oil, lamps of sumanas-flower oil, lamps of campaka flower oil, lamps of vārṣika-flower oil, and lamps of utpala-flower oil. Kuntī! You [rākṣasīs] and your attendants should protect this teacher of the Dharma.”