Mr. Altig’s Overview of the Wonderful Dharma of the Lotus Sutra

The Master once more addressed the gathered monks: I want to share with you, monks, that the senior Maha-Katyayana, my disciple here, will pay homage to eighty billion Buddhas. He will show them respect, honor, reverence, veneration, and devotion. After the passing of these enlightened ones, he will erect stupas—monumental towers that are a thousand leagues high and fifty leagues around, made from seven precious materials: gold, silver, lapis lazuli, crystal, red pearls, emeralds, and coral. He will honor these stupas with flowers, incense, perfumed garlands, ointments, powders, robes, umbrellas, flags, and victory banners.

Later, he will pay a similar homage to two hundred billion Buddhas, showing them respect, honor, reverence, veneration, and worship. Then, in his final bodily existence, his last physical incarnation, he will become a Tathagata—an enlightened one—known as ‘Gambunada-prabhasa’ or ‘Gold Shine.’ He will be endowed with knowledge and ethical conduct, among other virtues.

His Buddha realm will be absolutely pure and even, pleasing to the eye, beautiful, crystal-like, adorned with jewel trees, interlaced with threads of gold, and strewn with flowers. It will be free from animals, hellish realms, and the host of demons, filled instead with numerous humans and gods. It will be adorned with hundreds of thousands of disciples and as many Bodhisattvas.

His lifespan will span twelve intermediate epochs. His true teachings will last for twenty such epochs, and the facsimile of his teachings will endure for the same length of time.

On that occasion, the Master voiced these verses:

Listen to me, monks, as I speak the truth,
Katyayana, my disciple, will show the Leaders his youth.

He’ll venerate the Leaders in many ways, with uncouth,
Build stupas for them, with flowers and perfumes, in sooth.

^⁠In his last earthly form, he’ll be a Jina, a sleuth,
In a pure realm, he’ll preach to billions; that’s the truth.

^⁠He’ll be a mighty Buddha, an illuminator, with couth,
Honored in this world as Gambunada-prabhasa, forsooth.

^⁠Many Bodhisattvas and disciples, beyond measure and computation,
Will adorn that Buddha’s reign in jubilation,
All of them freed from existence, in exultation.