Selected Lectures on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (Pitāputrasamāgamanasūtra)

Original text: 大王。乃往过去。无量俱胝。那由他劫。有转轮王。名无边称。富贵自在。有大威德。象马车乘。众宝辇舆。最胜轮宝。无能坏者。已曾亲近。无量诸佛。于彼佛所。种多善根。随意所念。皆得成就。

Explanation: The Buddha said: Great King, countless immeasurable kalpas ago, there was a wheel-turning king named Anantakīrti, who was wealthy, at ease, and possessed of great majestic power. He had elephants, horses, and carriages, along with palanquins adorned with many jewels, and the most supreme wheel jewel that no one could destroy. In the past, this King Anantakīrti had drawn near and made offerings to immeasurable Buddhas, and at the places of those Buddhas he had planted abundant good roots. Due to the summons of these good roots and merit, whatever he wished for in his mind would all be accomplished—every thought he had could come true.

The World-Honored One told this story in order to teach and alert King Śuddhodana not to keep craving wealth, honor, and pleasure, for one whose mind knows no contentment will surely suffer calamity later. The story explains what kind of retribution follows from craving the world without satisfaction, and what kind of retribution follows from a mind without contentment. This story indeed demonstrates that when the human mind is never satisfied, those who have not eliminated greed find it difficult to know contentment regarding the five desires and the six sense objects—even King Anantakīrti, who had planted various good roots at the places of immeasurable Buddhas, was no exception.

The Indian terms "koṭi-nayuta kalpas" refer to an extremely, extremely long span of time. One full cycle of the earth's formation, abiding, decay, and emptiness constitutes one great kalpa, equivalent to 80 times 16.8 million years. Immeasurable great kalpas ago, there was a wheel-turning king named Anantakīrti. Wheel-turning kings are divided into four kinds: gold wheel kings, silver wheel kings, copper wheel kings, and iron wheel kings. The iron wheel king, the lowest in rank, can only govern one great continent—for instance, governing exclusively the southern continent of Jambudvīpa on Earth, or exclusively the eastern continent of Pūrvavideha, ruling only a single continent; a copper wheel king rules two continents, a silver wheel king rules three continents, and a gold wheel king rules four continents. Around the base of Mount Sumeru there are in total four great continents. All small world-systems have these four great continents surrounding Mount Sumeru. Our Sahā world has in total one billion Mount Sumerus, which means that Śākyamuni Buddha's Sahā world—one trichiliocosm—has one billion earths, one billion Jambudvīpas, one billion Pūrvavidehas, one billion Aparagodānīyas, and one billion Uttarakurus, and thus there would be one billion gold wheel kings, while copper wheel kings and iron wheel kings would number even more than one billion. The blessings and rewards these wheel-turning sage kings attained all came from making offerings to immeasurable thousands of millions of kotis of Buddhas; these are worldly blessings and rewards of mundane dharma.