by Harvey Kraft
Manjusri brought her in front of Sakamuni Buddha and the great assembly to illustrate a powerful principle, the instant achievement of Perfect Enlightenment, which the practitioners of the Three Vehicles could not imagine to be possible. Even Sakamuni had to train as a Bodhisattva for hundreds of thousands of lifetimes before becoming a Buddha, they observed.
Facing a chorus of skepticism, Manjusri introduced the enchanted little girl creature to the assembly as proof of the power of the One Vehicle to deliver any being into Perfect Enlightenment, instantly, in their present form, no matter their form, and without any prejudices.
He praised the dragon girl as one rooted in wisdom, a master of harmonic frequencies, saying she was open to the teachings of all Buddhas, able to grasp all the Buddha's doctrines, and capable of going into deep contemplation. In an instant, Manjusri said, she conceived a desire for Perfect Enlightenment and attained the highest level of a Bodhisattva's commitment. She had no hindrances to battle. She was kind, benevolent, gentle, and refined. Although a child she loved all living beings like a parent. She was endowed with blessings including the ability to expound Buddhism like a Buddha. He described her as having the attributes of the Buddha himself. In this way, Manjusri illustrated that she had the credentials to attain Buddhahood.
At that time the dragon princess came forward to present Sakamuni with the largest, most lustrous pearl from the oceans. The Buddha immediately accepted it. This jewel symbolized the True Self extracted from the depths of Existence. Describing its value as exceeding that of all the jewels to be found in the cosmos meant that Perfect Enlightenment was the boundless treasure inherent in anyone's present form, regardless of appearances.
In accepting her jewel, the Buddha formally eliminated the prerequisites required for Buddhahood, including the notion that one must perfect skilled techniques, study under a Buddha, and do so over the great arc of Transmigration.
This story appeared in the Lotus Sutra prior to the appearance of the Selfless Volunteers, setting the stage for their resurrection to represent the egalitarian scope of a universally endowed enlightenment, with no exceptions.
It was then established that the manifestation of Buddhahood could take place either instantly or after a great deal of time, thus relegating the relativity of time to be a superfluous measure in regards to its illumination. In other words, the passing of time was not a determining factor in the actualization of Perfect Enlightenment. The Perfectly Endowed Reality of Life Everlasting was immanent and ever-present, poised to arise at any moment, in any form.
Therefore, females, children, and all creatures were every bit as endowed with the seed of Perfect Enlightenment. The deliverance of Buddhahood was egalitarian without exceptions, unencumbered by form, time, place, skills, or circumstances.
To show that she had attained Buddhahood in an instant the dragon girl declared:
Let the Buddha now bear witness [to my attainment of Buddhahood]. I hereby vow to board the One Vehicle [of the Perfectly Endowed Reality] for I wish to deliver living beings from suffering.287
To illustrate her accomplishment she opened a portal to a distant cosmic realm in the southern direction called the Spotless Paradise. There the assembly would see her reborn as a Buddha and witness her teaching the Buddha-Dharma to numerous living beings.
The event inspired the women in the audience. Having heard the Buddha predict the Perfect Enlightenment for all who attended the Lotus Sutra, and witnessed the Buddhahood of a female, the women inquired as to their destiny. Sakamuni addressing his aunt, Prajapati, the Maha-Bhiksuni, noticed that she seemed anxious. He asked: "Have I not assured you of your future attainment of "Supreme Awakening" (Skt. anuttara-samyak-sambodhi) because I did not mention you by name?"
To make sure that she and all the women disciples clearly understood their inclusion in his predictions that all those present would achieve Buddhahood, he specifically assured her that she was destined to be reborn a Buddha named All-Beings-Gladly-See. He also predicted that his wife, Yasodhara, would become the Buddha Illuminating- Ten-Thousand-Rays-of-Light. Hearing the confirmation that all 6,000 women in the assembly were assured of their Buddhahood, which they never expected, they thanked Sakamuni expressing both relief and satisfaction.
The dragon princess story contrasted with that of Devadatta. She symbolized the instantaneous achievement of Perfect Enlightenment by one who epitomized graciousness. He embodied the achievement of Perfect Enlightenment after eons of expiation by one who had fallen from grace. Like bookends, together they showed that all who attended the Lotus Cosmology, without exception, were endowed with Perfect Enlightenment.
WICKED BABYLON
In the early days of the 6th century BCE, Emperor Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem (in 586 BCE) and exiled large numbers of its people en masse into captivity in Babylon. The Judean Daniel, his Magi dream interpreter, deciphering the emperor's dream-vision of a giant metallic figure had cast it as a prophecy of four empires destined to rule Babylon, culminating with the fiery end of the Persian Empire.
In Daniel's dream scenario, when the fourth empire arose it would choose the path of conquest over peace. The conspiracy and assassination that placed Darius on the throne cut short the Magi effort to transform Babylonian governance with peaceful and egalitarian intentions. By installing the God Assura Mazda in Esagila (522 BCE) he declared his will to conquer all the nations of the world to establish God's Kingdom on Earth under Persian rule.
Sixteen years earlier, when the first Persian Emperor Cyrus released the Judeans (538 BCE), the Hebrew prophet Zechariah was among those who returned to Jerusalem. He was a leading proponent for the rebuilding of the temple, which began two years later. However, its construction was halted due to objections among some of Jerusalem's religious leaders regarding the appropriate timing and the status of the nation as a vassal of Persia.
According to the Old Testament Bible, the prophet Zechariah returned to Babylon in 520 BCE seeking support from the Persian government to break the sixteen-year impasse that held up the construction of the second temple in Jerusalem. He had arrived in Babylon soon after Darius came to power and reformed the Magi with his Zoroastrian cohorts.
In the fourth year of the rule of King Darius, Zechariah had eight night visions. Zechariah prophesied that God's Truth would purify Jerusalem of sinners. In Zechariah's vision an angel showed him a basket symbolizing the future. Next the angel revealed a hag he called Wickedness and threw her into the basket closing its cover by placing a heavy lead weight on top of it. The wicked woman in this mythic tale referred to Babylon. Zechariah blamed the habits of greed and dishonesty of Judean people returning to Jerusalem from Babylon on the corrupting influences of a wicked city.
In this vision two female angels with wings picked up the basket of Wickedness and brought it back to Babylon. Placing it in an unnamed temple in that city, probably Esagila, an angel said to Zechariah, "she will be set there on her own pedestal." The vision expressed the prophet's view that those who opposed rebuilding a new Jewish temple in Jerusalem had been influenced by Babylonian worship of the Queen of Stars (Ishtar) whose gate led into Esagila. In mythic symbolism, she had been reputed to be a woman of loose mortals, which in the eyes of Zechariah equated her with a prostitute paid for her services. Through this image he contended that Babylonian materialism and idolatry had corrupted the Judeans, and that they must return to listening to God. By returning the cursed basket of Wickedness to Babylon, he predicted its future downfall, a corroboration of Daniel's prophecy.
In Zechariah's vision, God told him that the rebuilding of the new Grand Temple on Mount Zion would cause him to "dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem would be restored as the faithful city, the holy mountain of the Lord of hosts." It would then become a beacon for all of the people of the Lord to return from many lands, far and wide, and bring others with them knowing that the Lord dwelt in the temple-topped fortress on that Cosmic Mountain. The image evoked
the sacred tower-temple, seat of the divine.
God said to Zechariah that restoring the temple in Jerusalem would reclaim the holy land and bless it once more with clean garments (purity), olive trees (peace), and a golden lamp-stand (God's illumination).
In another vision Zechariah saw Four Chariots descending from heaven, each of a different hide: red, black, white and spotted. After declaring that God had allowed the Assyrians and Babylonians to exile the twelve tribes of Israel because of the failure of their own leaders to listen to God's guidance, Zechariah now said that having learned their lesson God was ready now to call upon his chastened believers to return home. The four riders in this vision would carry out the will of Elohim, who was now upset with those "enemies" who scattered the tribes of Israel and Judea. They would go to the north, east, south, and west to liberate his people, smiting their enslavers and avenging God for the atrocities visited upon his people in the past.
The mythic symbolism of the four metals and four charioteers also appear in the Lotus Sutra, yet another echo linking Siddhartha Gautama with Babylon. In the Buddha's vision, however, the Four Metallic Wheel-Rolling Kings were charged with peacefully delivering the Buddha- Dharma to liberate nations in all four directions.
Zechariah was able to gain favor with the Zoroastrian Magi. The words of his transcendent God were received as though they came from Assura Mazda. As the Persians deemed the gods of cooperative vassals to be subsumed creations or aspects of their Good God, Darius the Great approved the requested edict needed to force resumption of the rebuilding. The construction of the Second Temple was completed in 516 BCE, the sixth year of the reign of Darius the Great.
Despite its restoration, a large community of Judeans remained in Babylon.
XERXES
Xerxes (519–465 BCE), first son of Darius and his first wife, Atossa, daughter of Cyrus the Great, succeeded his father to the throne (485 BCE). His succession had been carefully prepared. But the Egyptians, eager to test his sovereign mantle, rebelled immediately (485 BCE). Xerxes met their challenge by putting them down with severe cruelty.
Expecting Babylon to rise up against him as well, in 484 BCE Xerxes ordered the Zoroastrian Magi Order to stop writing the city's archival records and ordered them to leave. Xerxes, a true devotee of Zoroastrian belief and a shrewd politician, wanted no records of his dealing with the city, should he wish to punish them at some point.
Eyeing the prize his father desired most, Xerxes turned his attention to Greece.
After his father Darius had been defeated in Marathon (490 BCE) over the next ten years the Athenians, expecting future attacks, built a navy of 200 ships. Athens and Sparta, speaking a common language and believing in the same religion, called upon some 30 Greek city-states to stop their interstate warring and form a united defense. But many other city-states were reticent to oppose the seemingly overwhelming forces of Persia.288
Among the Persian nobility few wanted to go to war across the Aegean Sea, but Xerxes was determined to pursue his father's dream of world conquest. He prepared his military for an onslaught seeing it as a necessary policy for establishing Persian supremacy on the European front. To undermine Greeks efforts to find allies among their neighbors, he pursed economic treaties with Carthage and Italy both seafaring competitors of the Greeks.
Xerxes mounted a huge multinational force of conscripted armies from all forty-two kingdoms of the empire, including Arabian camel riders, charioteers from Medes and the Indus, Egyptian sailors and ships, and foot soldiers conscripted from Scythia.
The primary base station for the Persian armies was in Cappadocia. The Immortals (Per. Anausa) or Immortal Companions (Per. Anûsiya), an elite heavy infantry of 10,000 men with veiled faces, assembled there. If any member of this force was killed, wounded, or fell ill, he was replaced immediately with a new soldier. Cyrus the Great first organized them to serve as his Imperial Guard. He outfitted them in fabulous robes decorated with gold jewelry and hoop earrings.
To feed this standing army the Persians placed supply depots in strategic locations. Foreign laborers suffered at the end of a whip to build the supply routes, canals, and pontoon bridges. They also conscripted warships and warriors from vassal states, and to prevent mutinies the top Persian generals, largely staffed by younger brothers of Xerxes, set various nationalities to guard one another under punishment of death for guards who failed to stop any rebellion.
To move against their Greek targets the Persian troops first had to cross the Hellespont waterway, but before they could do so a storm destroyed their pontoon bridges. Xerxes flew into a fit of rage and ordered that the waters be whipped and chains thrown into it to arrest it. He ordered that the bridge builders be put to death. Once he calmed down the bridges were rebuilt.
Xerxes sat on a white marble throne on a hill overlooking his army as they crossed. He won in Thermopylae, but not before the Spartans killed a great many Persian forces with spears that pierced their wicker shields and metal mesh armor. The Persians then marched into Athens and were said to have burned it down. Xerxes destroyed the original Acropolis and shipped the statues of Athenian heroes to his capital at Susa. But in a navy battle in the Peloponnesos straights near Salamis, the Greek navy was victorious (480 BCE).
The repelled Xerxes set up a winter camp nearby, intending to strike again once the weather improved. Just then, news of a revolt in Babylon had reached him, and he decided to send half of his army to quash it. Unexpectedly, the Greeks seized the opportunity to attack the diminished forces remaining on their front. They also sunk the Persian fleet, cutting off their supply routes and forcing the Persians to withdraw from the region.
Meanwhile, in Babylon the insurgency appeared to have been inspired by religious advocates wishing to restore Marduk to his former prominence.289 When the armies pulled from Greece arrived at the city, Xerxes laid siege to it for several months before breaking through its gates and fortifications. First his armies crushed the rebellion and sacked the city.
Furious at the rebels for taking him away from his battles on the Aegean coast, Xerxes blamed his setback in Greece on Babylon. The Zoroastrian clergy had charged that Angra Manyu fomented Babylon's rebellions to distract the Persians away from Greece.
In his eyes Marduk now personified the Devil God.
Admitting that they failed to exorcise the evil influences of the place they now called the "Devil's Tower," the Persian clergy called for the Immortals to destroy his temple.
Xerxes ordered Esagila destroyed and vowed to teach the city a lesson they will never forget.
His soldiers plundered, desecrated, and burned the Ziggurat complex.290 They killed the guardian priests devoted to serving Marduk and carried off the solid gold idol of Marduk to Susa, where it was melted down.
The Esagila Temple complex was left a mere shell of its former glory.
But Xerxes was not finished.
He ordered the breaking of the embankments on the Euphrates River, causing Babylon to be flooded (482 BCE).291 He found inspiration for the flooding of Babylon from the Assyrian Emperor Sennacherib (705– 681 BCE) who similarly punished Babylon some two hundred years earlier. Following a rebellion that resulted in the killing of his son, whom he had appointed governor of Babylon, Sennacherib in a rage razed the original Esagila built by the Amorites, plundered it, carried off its treasures, and then caused the city to be flooded (689 BCE). The Assyrian flooding was inspired by the story of the Great Flood. Xerxes recreated the divine punishment intending to wipe away the centuries of Babylonian reliance on the city's God.
Xerxes then stripped away Babylon's status as an independent region of the empire and incorporated most of it into the province of Assyria. Large parcels of land belonging to the Babylonians were confiscated and turned over to Persian noble landowners and a heavy tax was imposed on the city. In place of Babylon, Nippur and its clergy was given the power to manage the lands of the Tigris-Euphrates.
With the diminution of Babylon Xerxes strengthene
d his hand with the Assyrians. They had served his father well. Darius depended on them to bring in logs from Lebanon for building his palaces. Their provinces produced a bounty of agricultural products of great importance to the economic sustenance of the Persian Empire. Their soldiers were the largest group to be deployed in heavy infantry. Recognizing their contributions, the Persians had given the Assyrians the independence to make local decisions without interference from Susa, a status previously granted only to Babylon.
The proto-Assyrian lineage of ancient Akkadian gods, and the Assura, the Assyrian gods, were respected as kin to the heritage of Assura Mazda. The devout Xerxes may have urged the adoption of the Assyrian Fravashi, a winged Sun-disc with an overlay of the image of Assur as an archer. The identical Faravahar symbol of the Zoroastrian faith may have served as a statement of alliance and represented the merger of god with the royal soul. The Sun disc originated as an Egyptian symbol, with the wings first apparent in Nippur and merged with the sun by Akkad, before evolving into the Assyrian and then Persian-Zoroastrian renditions.
Upon his return to Persia after his military adventures, Xerxes focused his attention on construction projects, including the completion of palaces his father had left unfinished in Susa and Persepolis. Although he had failed to conquer the Greeks, his public pronouncements listed only his victorious battles over them. His defeats were never mentioned.
Despite his setbacks he was still the King of Kings from Egypt to the Indus.
Returning to his capital, Xerxes found it to be a bevy of intrigue.
He followed in his father's footsteps holding court and hosting grand feasts. During one such four-month feast in Susa, the emperor commanded that his queen appear before him and his guests. When she refused to appear, to avoid embarrassment he decided to replace her. A royal decree went forth announcing that the most beautiful young virgins from all of the kingdoms in the empire be gathered. Xerxes chose from them the beautiful and eloquent Esther, also known as Amestris, but he did not know she was of Judean faith.
