(2) they cultivated their minds with virtues and wisdom; endowed with grandeur and beauty, they were supreme in mien and form ; they abandoned all worldly ornaments ; their reputation reached far and wide; surpassing even Mount Sumeru; their faith was profound and as strong as a diamond; the Treasure of the Law [in their possession] showering rain of ambrosia; illumined all the world over, their voice was so exquisite that no other could excel;

(11) Wearing heavenly garlands and vestures, anointed with heavenly unguents, all-wonderful, resplendent, boundless, with faces on all sides.

(11) Containing many mouths and eyes, possessed of many wondrous sights, of many heavenly ornaments, of many heavenly weapons held up; Such a form He showed.

(13) Sariputra spoke : “ O sir, I have never seen before so small a chamber able to contain [so many] thrones, so high and so broad. And in the city of Vaisali or even in the villages and towns of the Jambudvipa and the four worlds and in the palaces of deities, kings of serpents and goblins, there is nothing diminished.”

(8) Then Vimalakirti spoke to Manjusri and said : “ Take one of those lion-thrones together with all Bodhisattvas and excellent men, and sit on it, posing thyself as if thou wert the image of that [Tathagata].” Then the bodies of those Bodhisattvas who possessed the supernatural power suddenly increased in size to the height of forty-two thousand Yojanas and seated themselves on those lion-thrones, but novices among the Bodhisattvas and the disciples could not ascend those thrones.

(11) Having seen Thy immeasurable Form, possessed, O Mighty-armed, of many mouths and eyes, of many arms and thighs and feet, and of many stomachs, and fearful with many tusks, the worlds are terrified, and I also.

(11) Arjuna said:

I see all the Gods, O God, in Thy body, as also hosts of various classes of beings: Brahma, the Lord, seated on the lotus-seat, and all Rishis and heavenly serpents.

(23) O Ananda, all the Buddhas are equal m their physical bodies, in their dignity and births, in their discipline, meditation, wisdom, liberation, and wisdom of liberation, in their ten powers, the [fourfold] fearlessness, and the attributes of their extraordinary qualities, in their greatness of mercy and compassion, in their attitudes, conduct, and longevity of life, in their discourses, teachings, in the perfection of beings, in the purification of the Buddha-lands, and in the equipment of Buddha quality. Therefore the Buddhas are called Samyak-sambuddhas, Tathagatas, and Buddhas.

(4) Therefore, O king of deities, he who holds, recites, and reveres the scripture is said to honour all the Buddhas of the past, the present, and the future. "O king of deities, if there be many Tathagatas so many in number even as the bushes, whether of sugar-cane, bamboo, reed, paddy, or hemp, and the three great Chiliocosms may be full of them, and a son or daughter of a noble family will honour, revere, praise, and pay homage to them and dedicate their dwellings to them for the space of one kalpa or thereabout, and after the passing of those Buddhas, he or she will elect a Stupa of seven jewels containing the perfect body of each of the Tathagatas as wide as the four worlds and as high as the heaven of Brahman, erecting a pole adorned with all magnificence and do homage to them with all the rarest flowers, all kinds of incense, garlands, banners and music, for the space of one kalpa or thereabout; what dost thou think, O king of deities, is the merit planted by this man much or little?”

(19) All things which the world can produce, are seen manifested therein; all assembled praise the lord beholding the wonder which has never been seen before. Adoration is due to the Honoured One in the three worlds. The Great Sage, the king of righteousness, is the only refuge of all beings; there is none who remains unhappy when once he with serene mind beholds the lord; everywhere he beholds the lord before him; this is a special feature of his supernatural powers.

(3) But they also depict them under the likeness of men, on account of the intellectual faculty, and their having powers of looking upwards, and their straight and erect form, and their innate faculty of ruling and guiding, and whilst being least, in physical strength as compared with the other powers of irrational creatures, yet ruling over all by their superior power of mind, and by their dominion in consequence of rational science, and their innate unslavishness and indomitableness of soul. It is possible, then, I think, to find within each of the many parts of our body harmonious images of the Heavenly Powers, by affirming that the powers of vision denote the most transparent elevation towards the Divine lights, and again, the tender, and liquid, and not repellent, but sensitive, and pure, and unfolded, reception, free from all passion, of the supremely Divine illuminations. Now the discriminating powers of the nostrils denote the being able to receive, as far as attainable, the sweet-smelling largess beyond conception, and to distinguish accurately things which are not such, and to entirely reject. The powers of the ears denote the participation and conscious reception of the supremely Divine inspiration. The powers of taste denote the fulness of the intelligible nourishments, and the reception of the Divine and nourishing streams. The powers of touch denote the skilful discrimination of that which is suitable or injurious. The eyelids and eyebrows denote the guarding of the conceptions which see God. The figures of manhood and youth denote the perpetual bloom and vigour of life. The teeth denote the dividing of the nourishing perfection given to us; for each intellectual Being divides and multiplies, by a provident faculty, the unified conception given to it by the more Divine for the proportionate elevation of the inferior. The shoulders and elbows, and further, the hands, denote the power of making, and operating, and accomplishing. The heart again is a symbol of the Godlike life, dispersing its own life-giving power to the objects of its forethought, as beseems the good. The chest again denotes the invincible and protective faculty of the life-giving distribution, as being placed above the heart. The back, the holding together the whole productive powers of life. The feet denote the moving and quickness, and skilfulness of the perpetual movement advancing towards Divine things. Wherefore also the Word of God arranged the feet of the holy Minds under their wings; for the wing displays the elevating quickness and the heavenly progress towards higher things, and the superiority to every grovelling thing by reason of the ascending, and the lightness of the wings denotes their being in no respect earthly, but undefiledly and lightly raised to the sublime; and the naked and unshod denotes the unfettered, agile, and unrestrained, and free from all external superfluity, and assimilation to the Divine simplicity, as far as attainable.

(44) You must not think, that in the Divine Pomp there come forth Beasts, Worms, and other Creatures in Flesh, as in this World they do; No; but I mean only the wonderful Proportion, Power, Virtue, and Comeliness of Feature in them. And

(37) O Sariputra, any [beings], either Sakra, or Brahman, or the four guardian gods, or deities, or serpents, or goblins, all entering this chamber, hear only tins excellent man preaching the law; and when they go out, they all cherish the thought of supreme enlightenment, finding pleasure in the odour of the virtues of Buddha.

(28) "With splendour she hath decked them, she hath made them of lofty stature

(86) "With splendour she hath decked them, she hath made them of lofty stature

(5) The Lord Buddha enquired of Subhuti, saying: “Can you imagine a man having a great physical body?” Subhuti replied, saying: “The Lord Buddha, discoursing upon the proportions of a physical body, did not maintain for these any real greatness, therefore it is merely termed ‘a great body.”’

(24) "With splendour she hath decked them, she hath made them of lofty stature

(11) The Blessed Lord said:

See, O son of Pritha, My heavenly forms, by hundreds and thousands, of different sorts, and of various colours and shapes.

(4) The Lord Buddha addressed Subhuti, saying: “Supposing a man with a body as pretentious as Sumeru, prince among mountains, would you esteem such a body as being great?” Subhuti replied, saying: “Exceedingly great, Honoured of the Worlds! And why? Because, the Lord Buddha referred not to a physical body, but to mental and spiritual concepts of bodies, in which sense a body may be regarded as really Great.”

(2) The Lord Buddha, continuing, said unto Subhuti: “If by means of his thirty-two bodily distinctions it were possible to perceive the Lord Buddha, then the Lord Buddha would merely resemble one of the great wheel-turning kings.”