Chapter 17: Benefit of Prostration and Other Practices
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- Chapter 1: Giving One's Body, Possessions, and Virtues
- Chapter 2: Upholding the Dharma from the Perfection of Discipline
- Chapter 3: Perfection of Discipline: Protecting the Dharma Teacher
- Chapter 4: Perfection of Discipline: Discussion of Major Harms in the Sūtras
- Chapter 5: Perfection of Discipline: Avoiding the Harms
- Chapter 6: Protecting the Body
- Chapter 7: Protecting the Possessions and Merit
- Chapter 8: Expiation of Sinful Actions
- Chapter 9: Perfection of Patience
- Chapter 10: Perfection of Effort
- Chapter 11: Praise of Wilderness
- Chapter 12: Purifying the Mind
- Chapter 13: Mindfulness
- Chapter 14: Purification of the Body
- Chapter 15: Purification of Possessions and Merit
- Chapter 16: Enhancement of Body, Possessions, and Merit
- Chapter 17: Benefit of Prostration and Other Practices
- Chapter 18: Recollecting the Three Jewels
- Chapter 19: Enhancing Merit
Chapter 17 contains citations from different sūtras confirming the benefit and virtues of prostration, offering, confession, rejoicing, etc. in order to justify the practices discussed in the preceding chapter. "How is it clear that prostration and such other practices enhance merit?" Śāntideva asks rhetorically.[1] In response, he cites first The Sūtra of Avalokiteśvara (Avalokanasūtra), which lists the wonderful results of venerating the buddhas and listening to teachings. A person who venerates buddhas will avoid unfortunate rebirths without freedom, attain good attractive bodies, possess strength, eschew laziness, become rich and meritorious, take birth in rich families, become a heroic and generous person, become a universal leader, and be reborn as king of gods.
Even the merit accumulated from circumambulating a stūpa of the Buddha cannot be fully explained in tens of millions of eons. What need is there, then, to speak of the merit accumulated from prostrating to the stūpa having cultivated bodhicitta? The sūtra goes on to explain the merit accrued and the wonderful results obtained from going around the stūpa, making prostrations to it, offering garlands, incense, clothes, banners, lamps, parasols, music, and scents to it, cleaning it, and removing spiderwebs and old wilting flowers from it. Śāntideva then cites The White Lotus of Great Compassion Sūtra (Mahākaruṇāpuṇḍarīkasūtra), which states that even a person who throws a single flower to the sky thinking of the Buddha will eventually reach nirvana. What need is there, then, to speak of the merit for those who make offerings to the Buddha in person, to his physical remains, or to a stūpa of the Buddha?
The Great Questions of Nāga King Sāgara (Sāgaranāgarājaparipṛcchāsūtra) claims that those who engage in the ten things, including seeing the image of the Buddha, venerating the Buddha, praising the Buddha, making images of the Buddha, seeing the actual Buddha, praying to be in the realm where the Buddha teaches, having a courageous personality, and having a broad mind when seeking the wisdom of the Buddha, will constantly meet the Buddha. Furthermore, Śāntideva cites this sūtra and also other sūtras to argue how meeting the Buddha is significant for the enhancement of merit and how making offerings to the Buddha or to stūpas of the Buddha generates immeasurable merit. The Jewel Cloud Sūtra (Ratnameghasūtra) lists ten things by which a bodhisattva, if they possess them, will not be stained by the impurities of birth from a womb. They are making images of the Buddha, repairing a damaged stūpa, anointing scent to the stūpa of the Buddha, offering fragrant water to an image of the Buddha, sweeping a stūpa of the Buddha, plastering a stūpa of the Buddha, serving one's parents, serving one's master and teachers, and serving one's spiritual friends, doing all of these without a sense of attachment.
However, the highest form of offering to and veneration of the Buddha, Śāntideva argues citing The Questions of Sāgaramati Sūtra (Sāgaramatiparipṛcchāsūtra), includes cultivating bodhicitta, upholding the Dharma, and generating great compassion for sentient beings. It is thus the actual practice of the bodhisattva path that is the best form of offering to the buddhas.
Following the benefit of prostration and offering, Śāntideva explains the merit and benefit accrued from rejoicing in the virtuous actions by citing The Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra (Prajñāpāramitāsūtra) in which the Buddha addresses Indra to point out that it may be possible to measure the weight of the trichiliocosm with a scale, but it is not possible to weigh the merit of a bodhisattva rejoicing in the virtuous deeds. Anyone who cannot appreciate the unfathomable merit arising from rejoicing in the bodhisattva path starting from the initial generation of bodhicitta until the attainment of the perfect enlightenment of the Buddha is influenced by the evil force. One who appreciates and rejoices in the vehicle of the hearers, solitary realizers, and bodhisattvas will please the buddhas, will be respected and worshiped, will not encounter unpleasant form, sound, smell, taste, and touch, and will not be born in unhappy realms but in happy realms. Similarly, if one supposes that sentient beings in worlds as numerous as the sands of the Ganges have reached enlightenment, and in that state of enlightenment they engage in the four stages of meditation with apprehension for eons equal to the number of sand particles in the Ganges, merit from such actions would be indeed great. Yet, the Buddha tells Subhūti that if a bodhisattva, equipped with wisdom and skill-in-means, rejoices in the totality of discipline, meditation, wisdom, liberation, and the pristine wisdom of liberation of the buddhas of the past, present, and future, of the solitary realizers, and of the hearers, and dedicates the merit of such rejoicing, the merit accumulated from such an act will be a hundredfold greater. Śāntideva barely touches on the merit of requesting the buddhas to remain for a long time as he ends the chapter.
Notes
- ↑ See Karma Phuntsho, ed., རྒྱལ་སྲས་ཞི་བ་ལྷའི་གསུང་རྩོམ་བཞུགས་སོ།། The Written Works of Śāntideva (Bhutan: Loden Foundation, 2026), 577: ཕྱག་འཚལ་བ་ལ་སོགས་པ་བསགས་པ་དེས་བསོད་ནམས་འཕེལ་བར་འགྱུར་བར་ཅི་མངོན་ཞེ་ན།
