Note 26 — Chapter IX · The Islands of the Blest

The gem-trees abound in this Paradise. “Of some trees”, one account runs, “the trunks are of coral, the branches of red pearls, the small branches of diamonds, the leaves of gold, the flowers of silver, and the fruits of beryl.”26 In the “eastern quarter” there are “Buddha countries equal to the sand of the River Ganga (Ganges)”. The purified beings in the lands “surpass the light of the sun and moon, by the light of wisdom, and by the whiteness, brilliancy, purity, and beauty of their knowledge”.27 There are references to “the king of jewels that fulfils every wish”. It has “golden-coloured rays excessively beautiful, the radiance of which transforms itself into birds possessing the colours of a hundred jewels, which sing out harmonious notes”.28 The purified may become like Buddha “with bodies bright as gold and blue eyes”, for “the eyes of Buddha are like the water of the four great oceans; the blue and the white are quite distinct”.29 The imaginations of the Buddhists run riot in their descriptions of the Land of Bliss, and the stream of glowing narrative carries with it many pre-Buddhist beliefs about metals and precious stones, “red pearls, blue pearls”, and so on, and “nets of gold adorned with the emblems of the dolphin, the svastika (swashtika), the nandyāvarta, and the moon”.30 In their Paradise even the river mud is of gold. The religious ideas of the early searchers for “soul substance” in the form of metals and gems are thus found to be quaintly blended with Buddhist conceptions of the Earthly Paradise.