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ADORATION to the World-honored Ones (Bhagavat) 1 in all the ten quarters, who universally produce great benefits, whose wisdom is infinite and transcendent, and who save and guard [all beings].
[Adoration] to the Dharma 2 whose essence and
attributes are like the ocean, revealing to us the principle of anâtman and forming the storage of infinite merits.
[Adoration] to the congregation (samgha) of those who assiduously aspire after perfect knowledge (samyaksambodhi).
That all beings (sarvasattva) may rid themselves of doubt, become free from evil attachment, and, by the awakening of faith (çraddha), inherit Buddha-seeds, I write this Discourse. 1
46:1 There are ten appellations most commonly given to a Buddha: (1) Tathâgata (the one who thus comes, or he who has been expected and fulfils all expectations, the perfect one); (2) Arhat (the worthy one, but according to Nâgârjuna's Mahâprajñâpâramitâçâstra, Chinese translation by Kumârajîva, Vol. III., p. 17, one who has destroyed all enemies of evil passions, or one who is revered by gods and men, or one who will not be reborn; see also Vol. II., p. 20); (3) Samyaksambuddha (one who is perfect by enlightenment); (4) Vidyâcaranasampanna (one who is perfect in knowledge and conduct); (5) Sugata (one who goes well); (6) Lokavid (one who knows the world); (7) Anuttara (one who has no superior); (8) Purushadamyasârathi (the tamer of all beings); (9) Câstâdevâmanushyânâm (the teacher of gods and men); (10) Buddha (the enlightened one). When Lokavid and Anuttara are considered to be one title, as in the Sutra on the Ten Appellations, Bhagavat is added to make the tenth.
46:2 According to a general interpretation of Mahâyâna Buddhists dharma means: (1) that which exists; (2) the object of understanding. Dharma may therefore be rendered in the first sense by "object," or "thing," or "substance," or "being," including everything mental as well as physical in its broadest sense, and so sarvadharma will designate all possible existences in the universe; p. 47 while dharma in the second sense may safely be rendered by "law" or "doctrine" as generally understood by Western Buddhist scholars, to most of whom, however, the first significance of the term is strangely unknown. Max Müller fitly remarks in his introduction to the English translation of the Vajracchedîkâ, p. xiv: "Dharma in its ordinary Buddhist phraseology may be correctly rendered by law. Thus the whole teaching of Buddha is called the good law, Saddharma. But in our treatise dharma is generally used in a different sense. It means form (εῖ᾽δος) and likewise what is possessed of form, what is therefore different from other things, what is individual, in fact, what we mean by a thing or an object. This meaning has escaped most of the translators, both Oriental and Western, but if we were always to translate dharma by law, it seems to me that the whole drift of our treatise would become unintelligible." In this translation dharma is rendered sometimes by "thing," sometimes by "law," sometimes by "truth" or "doctrine," according to the context. But when it is synonymous with suchness (bhûtatathatâ), I have retained its original Sanskrit form, capitalised.
47:1 An almost similar passage is repeated in the succeeding paragraph, while it does not occur in the older translation It may be a mistake on the part of the new translation, but I have left it as it stands in the text.