chapter 12...this one many leader should leran,,,
...the many thing going on in china floods/sickness in quakes.
can be laid out as the bad karma of taking over Tibet where the golden light sutra is held in worshiped.....
Chapter 12
Chapter on the Royal Treatise entitled
The Inviolable Commitments of Divine Kings
Homage to the Tathagata, the Arhat, the Fully Enlightened Ratnakusumagunasagara-
vaiduryakanakagirisuvarnakanchanaprabhasashri.
Homage to the Tathagata, the Arhat, the Fully Enlightened Shakyamuni, whose body is adorned with hundreds of thousands of millions
of virtues and who makes the light of this Dharma blaze forth.
Homage to the great goddess Shri, endowed with boundless virtue, grain and good
fortune.
Homage to the great goddess Sarasvati, endowed with wisdom's limitless qualities.
"Then at that time, at that moment, King Balendraketu said this to his son King
Ruchiraketu, whom he had enthroned and who had been not long in the royalty: ..Son,
there is a royal treatise called The Inviolable Commitments of Divine Kings which, not long after I was enthroned, I received from
my father King Varendraketu. I reigned the kingdom for twenty thousand years according to that royal treatise, and I do not recollect
being on the wrong side for even a single moment of thought. O son, what then is this royal treatise, The Inviolable Commitments of
Divine Kings?'
"O noble goddess, at that time, at that moment, King Balendraketu clearly expounded The Inviolable Commitments of Divine Kings, the
royal treatise, to his son King Ruchiraketu in these verses:
I will explain the royal treatise
Which benefits all beings,
Cuts through misgiving
And extinguishes every misdeed.
O kings, all, one by one,
Be in a state of delight!
Listen with your hands folded in reverence
To this entire Commitments of Divine Kings.
Here at Vajrakara, the king of mountains,
When the divine lords assembled,
All the world protectors stood up
To ask Brahma, the divine king:
..O Brahma, you are the principal god;
You are the deva king.
May you cut through our qualms;
May you dispel our doubt.
Why is a king born among humans called ..divine'?
For what reason is he called ..divine son'?
Born in the world of humans,
He would be a human king;
How do gods wield divine kingship among men?'
When the Lord Brahma was asked thus
By the protectors of the world,
Brahma, the chief of gods,
Replied in this way:
As the guardians of the world asked me thus,
For the benefit of all beings
I will reveal this sublime treatise.
I will explain the origin of kings
Who are born in the realm of humans
And by what means they
Become kings of their lands.
Blessed by divine kings
They enter into their mother's womb;
Being first blessed by gods,
Afterwards, they enter her womb.
Once born in the human world,
They become kings of humans.
From gods they are born;
Thus they are called ..divine son.'
Granting them a share of royalty
And saying, ..You are the son of gods,'
The divine rulers of Thirty-Three
Create such human kings in this way
In order to bring misconduct to an end,
Thwart what is against the Dharma
And set beings in virtuous deeds
So they may ascend to celestial abodes.
The kings of humans be they gandharva, rakshasa
Low-caste, human or god bring the end of evil deeds.
These human lords, blessed by devas
To show actions' ripening effects,
Are like parents to those who engage in virtue.
They are empowered by gods
To show the fruition of deeds
Of actions done well and
Wrongly done in this life.
When the lords overlook
Evil acts committed in their land
And to those who are unlawful
Fail to mete out befitting revenge,
Through neglect of unlawful deeds
That which is not Dharma will triumph.
Conflicts and clandestine acts
Will befall the region over and over again.
The lords of gods will be enraged
In the palatial dwelling of the Thirty-Three.
When a king overlooks the presence
Of evil doers in his region
Terrible clandestine acts
Will ruin and destroy that land.
Upon arrival of a foreign army,
The country will utterly succumb.
Resources and race too will fall away.
Those who amassed wealth
Through trickery and deceit
Will rob each other entirely of means.
When a king does not perform the function
For which kingship had been bestowed,
He demolishes his own realm
As the elephant lord destroys a lotus pond.
Unfavorable winds will arise;
Unfavorable rains will fall;
The sun and moon will be unfavorable,
And likewise the planets and stars.
Where a king is negligent,
Famine will descend upon the land;
Seeds, crops, flowers and fruit
Will cease to grow and flourish.
When a king overlooks
Those who do wrong in his realm,
Unhappiness will befall
The gods in their abodes.
The kings of gods
Will lament to each other:
..Unlawful is this king, for he
Remains on the side of the lawless.'
Before long, the king will incur
The wrath of the gods.
When the gods reveal their rage
His kingdom will wither away.
Mayhem will prevail in the land;
By weapons too it will give way.
Covert acts, strife and disease
Of every variety will come to be.
Overcome by rage, the lords of gods
And gods too will ignore him.
That land will lie in ruin,
Anguish the sole company of that king.
He will lose his beloved ones,
Brothers and even sons.
From his beloved wife too he will part;
His daughters will meet with death.
Shooting stars will rain down;
Likewise, mock suns will shower.
Fear of foreign armies
And famine will greatly occur.
His valued minister, beloved elephant
And cherished camels will die too.
People will pillage one another,
Seizing homes, resources and wealth.
Region by region throughout the land,
They will slay one another with arms.
Strife, squabbles and deception
Will tear apart their land.
Demons will enter into the region.
Terrible diseases will plague them.
Even the venerable ones,
Their ministers and retinues too,
Will succumb to wickedness and deceit.
When those devoid of virtue
Become venerated in the land,
Those law-abiding and virtuous ones
Will always be victimized.
When the wicked are honored
And the virtuous persecuted,
Three things stars, water and wind
Will become calamitous there.
When the wicked are embraced,
Three things the flavor, essence and power
Of the sublime Dharma, the strength of beings
And quality of the earth will utterly perish.
When the corrupt are esteemed
And the sublime dishonored,
Three things famine, thunderbolts
And death will occur in that place.
Fruit and crops will have no taste
And no potency thereafter.
Beings sickened with disease
Will fill those regions completely.
Large sweet fruit will shrivel, becoming bitter and sharp.
Play, humor and fun the pleasures of previous times
Now rife with infinite delusion
Will lose the touch of joy.
Fruits and crops will lose their succulence and force.
They will cease to nourish body, elements or senses.
Pale and lacking complexion,
Beings will become weak, feeble and without strength.
Though they may consume much food
They will remain unfulfilled.
Their strength, prowess and energy will disappear.
The country will become a mass
Of beings utterly without vitality.
Multitudes of beings will become
Afflicted by various illnesses.
Due to various cannibalistic deeds,
There will arise inauspicious planets and stars.
When the king is un-dharmic
And on the side of those lacking virtue,
The triple realms in the sphere
Of the three worlds will completely perish.
When the king is partisan,
Ignoring those who commit misdeeds,
Misfortunes such as these
In their regions will come to be.
When he overlooks those evil doers,
A king neglects to wield his kingship
According to the role bestowed upon him
By the lord of gods.
Those who perform virtuous actions
Will be reborn in the deva abodes.
Those who commit negative deeds
Will be reborn among hungry ghosts,
Animals and hell beings.
When a king ignores those who
Carry out misdeeds in his realm,
Through those misdeeds, gods will fall
From the Heaven of the Thirty-Three.
When a king does not fulfill his duty,
He is no longer his forefather's son
And the kings of gods
Will rain misfortune upon his kingdom.
When his lands are ravaged
By rampant disorderly acts,
He should quell these transgressions
And encourage positive deeds.
Thus have the lords of gods vested
Kingship upon him in the human realm.
It is he who effects fruition
For beings in this life,
For he demonstrates the
Ripened effects of deeds
Done well and wrongly done;
For this reason he is called ..king.'
For his own welfare and that of all others,
For the sake of order in that land,
He is blessed and approved by hosts of gods.
In order to bring harmony to his kingdom,
He should renounce life and sovereignty
And subdue the wicked and sinful in his domain.
Should he tolerate lawlessness
And wittingly ignore the unlawful,
No other threat could be
As terrible as this.
As evil and wickedness arise
If those responsible are not indicted,
The country will be overrun
By utterly objectionable criminals;
As elephants demolish great pools,
So these regions will be destroyed.
As the abodes of the gods perish,
The kings of gods become wrathful;
Then all things in that realm
Will be doomed to misfortune.
Hence, those who commit misdeeds
Must be tamed according to their crime.
In the realm protected in keeping with the Dharma,
The king should not commit unlawful deeds.
Giving up even his life for the sake of justice,
He should never succumb to bias.
Should even once the king take the side
Of people related and unrelated
Or of any person in his realm,
He will utterly fall into prejudice.
The fame and renown of that king
Who is virtuous in Dharma fills the triple worlds
And makes the lords of gods happy
In the dwelling of the Thirty-Three.
Those gods will say:
..Our son in Jambudvipa is such an honest king.
Establishing beings in virtuous deeds,
He rules his realm according to the Dharma.
Through good deeds, this king
Helps beings arrive in our lands.
He fills the abodes of gods
With devas and their divine sons.
As he rules his realm according to the Dharma,
We kings of gods are indeed well pleased.'
Being pleased, the kings of gods
Will offer protection to this human king.
The sun, the moon and likewise
The stars will move well.
The winds will arise in due time;
In due time too rain will fall.
Prosperity will be ensured in the gods' abodes
And likewise in the realm of the king;
Gods and gods' divine children
Will always abound in that place.
Hence, the king should forsake his own cherished life,
But never give up the Dharma jewel.
To ensure the welfare of the world,
He should seek company with those sublime ones
Fully adorned with virtue, happy with their people
And renounced from sinful deeds.
Protecting his realm according to the Dharma
Teaching well the laws of the Dharma too,
Those engaged in virtue should be encouraged
And he himself must refrain from evil deeds.
When those who do evil deeds
Are accordingly tamed,
A year of abundance will ensue.
Magnanimous will be the king
Possessed of renown and fame
Who reigns his subjects in peace.
Thus ends the twelfth chapter, the Chapter on the Royal Treatise entitled The Inviolable Commitments of Divine Kings from the King
of Glorious Sutras, the Sublime Golden Light.
