Page 118 - Popular Deities of Chinese Buddhism (Illustrated) and Symbols

the purity of the six senses). Under the legs of the elephant lotus

flowers grow… the whiteness of the elephant is of the most bril-

liant of all shades of white which is so pure that even crystal and

the Himalaya Mountains cannot compare with it!”

e Lotus Sutra has done much to attract great numbers of

female devotees for Pu Hsien P’usa as they are promised that

they too could attain Buddhahood which is described in detail

in the 10th Chapter of the Sutra. In Chapter 28 Pu Hsien P’usa

also made this promise to the Buddha:

“In the latter five hundred years of the corrupt and evil age,

whoever receives and keeps this sutra I will guard and protect,

eliminate the anxiety of feeling away, and give ease of mind….

Wherever such a one walks or stands, reading and reciting this

sutra, I will at once mount the six-tusked white elephant king

and with a host of great bodhisattvas go to that place and, show-

ing myself, will serve and protect (him) comforting his mind,

also thereby serving the Law-Flower Sutra…. Moreover I will

give them dharanis, and obtaining these dharanis, no human

or non-human beings can injure them, nor any woman beguile

them.”

Still further on, one hears the Buddha extolling Pu Hsien with

this promise:

“…I, by my supernatural power, will guard and protect those

who are able to receive and keep the name of the Bodhisattva

Universal Virtue.”

