Lecture Notes on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (225)

King Ananta Tests the Power of His Own Merit

Original text: 大王。彼无边称王。忽于一时。作是思惟。我当自试。福德之力。以我福故。令四天下。所有一切。树木花果。皆得茂盛。受用无尽。作是念已。彼四天下。所有花果。而得敷荣。

Explanation: The Buddha said: Great King, this King of Boundlessness (Anantarāja), the wheel-turning sage king, at a certain time suddenly thought of something: I should test how great my merit is and how strong its power is; with the power of my merit, I will make all the trees, flowers, and fruits throughout the fourfold continent—Jambudvīpa, Pūrvavideha, Aparagodānīya, and Uttarakuru—flourish abundantly, and after they grow, they will be inexhaustible for enjoyment, never fully picked. After the wheel-turning sage king King of Boundlessness gave rise to this thought, all the trees, flowers, and fruits throughout the fourfold continents indeed flourished to his heart's content, laden with abundant fruit.

Without merit, one cannot even make a single sapling grow sturdily, let alone the flowers, fruits, and trees of the four great continents and fourfold continents. A wheel-turning sage king can make the flowers, fruits, and trees of the fourfold continents all grow very luxuriantly, with the melons and fruits they bear being extremely abundant and flourishing, so that the sentient beings of the fourfold continents can never exhaust them in enjoyment. A single thought of the wheel-turning sage king can accomplish this—how strong must his mental power be? Is this the function of mental power? In fact, it is the power of merit (puṇya-bala).