|
ENT0990
THE GREAT CLOUD, Ritual Procedure
Mahāmegha
大雲經祈雨壇法
Translated By The Mahamegha Translation Team
Ritual Procedure
2.1
One who desires to produce a great rainfall should first go to an open, clean area and erect a blue canopy, decorating it with blue pennants. The Dharma practitioner should bathe their body, abide by the eightfold precepts, and don clean blue garments. Having anointed themselves with pleasant-smelling incense, they should consume the three white foods and seat themselves upon a blue cushion, facing east. After supplicating all the tathāgatas, they should read aloud this chapter on the array of winds from The Great Cloud, day and night without interruption.
2.2
They should set out four vases filled with blue water, together with as much offering cakes, incense, and flowers as they can gather. The Dharma practitioner should then use liquified cow dung to draw figures in the four directions. [F.263.a] In the eastern direction they should use cow dung to draw a three-headed nāga king, three cubits tall, with a retinue of various nāga attendants. In the southern direction they should draw a five-headed nāga king, five cubits tall, with a retinue of various nāga attendants. In the western direction they should draw a seven-headed nāga king, seven cubits tall, with a retinue of various nāga attendants. In the northern direction they should draw a nine-headed nāga king, nine cubits tall, with a retinue of various nāga attendants. The Dharma practitioner should guard their own body, abiding in loving-kindness, and establish an attitude of compassion toward all sentient beings. Then, they should supplicate all the buddhas and bodhisattvas and share the virtuous roots with the nāgas. This is the ritual procedure.
2.3
If one reads aloud this chapter on the array of winds from The Great Cloud during a time of drought, then within one full day, two full days, or up to seven full days, it is certain that rain will fall. The ocean may recede with the tides, but this ritual for bringing rainfall, the speech of the Great Sage, will never change. That being the case, however, one must abide in discipline and virtuous qualities and abandon lax discipline, meat, fish, and the like. One should consume rice gruel, curds, milk, rice with sugar, the three sweets, and so forth. In this fashion, the ritual will be successful. As this was spoken by the King of Sages, there should be no doubts about this.
2.4
From the noble Mahāyāna sūtra “The Great Cloud,” this is the sixty-fourth chapter “The Array of Winds That Send Down Rainfall” together with its ritual manual.
The Great Cloud
|