In Praise of the World of Light   A Hymn of King Mani

We persons of the superior form, comprehending the venerable Lord of Light,
Can therefore believe in and accept clear speeches.
Since the Great Saint is the embodiment of good deeds,
So may it please Them to bestow mercy and make all people joyful.

The Father pities and remembers us and sends down Messengers of Light
Who can cure illness of nature and displace confusion and wrong,
And remove ties and bonds, many worries and afflictions:
Cause, universally, hearts and thoughts to be happy.

No secrecy is unrevealed, but it is made to shine;
All kinds of mysteries are open and exposed;
The so-called Two Principals, the two great forces,
Who can understand them except the good race?

No height or dimension forms limit and measure for the dominion,
Where everything is Light, and no place is dark;
Where all Buddhas and Messengers of Light Live.
It is exactly the dwelling place of the venerable Lord of Light.
There, Light is omnipotent, and everything is clean and pure,
Eternally happy, calm, and quiet, undisturbed and unhindered,
One receives happiness and has no worry and affliction.

To say that there is hardship is not true.

All the Halls of Law of the Saintly Masses are solemn and clean,
And so are the monasteries of all Buddhas:
They eternally receive happiness in the Land of Light.

To say that there is illness is not true.

Whoever is allowed to live in that country
Will eternally be free from all anxieties and sorrows.

The Saintly Masses are free and move at will,
There is never cause for tortures of bastinado, imprisonment, and chains.

The dwellings--dignified and solemn--are all clean and pure,
Where there are naturally neither vices nor filthy things,

Happiness spreads everywhere, and ease a peace persist.

To say that one fears another is not true.

In the unsurpassed World of Light,
Like grains of dust and sand are the many countries.
Naturally delicate and wonderful, precious, dignified, and solemn,
In which the Saintly Masses always stay and live.

These many worlds and countries
Have precious soil of diamond, radiating illuminatingly downwards
From the dim past until now, and to time forevermore,

To say that there is quaking and shaking is not true.

The Saintly Masses are unanimous and harmonious.
Rupture, swords, and daggers having no chance to be theirs.
They relax in mind and move at will without obstacles.

Monasteries and dwelling places are all solemn and clean.
There are no exchanges of intrigues and accusations.
And birth and death, destruction and matters of impermanency,
From all these the World of Light is free.

There is no enemy to invade the frontier districts,
Nor are there war-horses or armies guarding the outskirts;
If the devil-king were stirred by its greedy and passionate mind,
It naturally has no connection with the World of Light.

The precious soil of diamonds is extremely delicate and wonderful,
With innumerable miraculous colors illuminating each other;
On which all the Saints live comfortably without obstacles,
Forever free from vanishing and dissolving, sorrows and affliction.

The solemn countenances of the Saintly Masses are very strange and unique.
Light shines on Them, and Their bodies become splendid and transparent;
Compared with the brightness of a hundred or thousand suns and moons,
The radiance from the hair-tips of those Saints is even stronger.
Within and without there is Light but no dark shadow.
These wonderful bodies eternally glisten in a thousand or myriad ways.
Travelling on the triumphant, famous Soil of diamond,
They are not so heavy as a feather or a grain of corn.

All the famous Clothes They wear are delightful,
And were not fashioned by the labor of hands.
The Clothes of the Saintly Masses are only fresh and clean,
Incorrupt in spite of much care, and harboring no worms or earwigs.

Drink and food, legumes and viands are all like the fragrant Dew, (Ambrosia),
And the country is abundant and fertile without famines.

Crowns with ornaments of hanging jewels are eternally imperishable,
And never taken away from whoever once wore Them.

Whilst my carnal tongue wishes to praise, my imagination fails me;
Immeansurable are the wonderful colors, which never fade or diminish!

The bodies of the Saintly Masses are Light, always clean and pure,
Their hands and feet, limbs and joints are free from paralysis.
While they are not creating the active doings of birth and death, 
How can it be said they have fatigue and exhaustion?

Those Saints are pure, humble, and always happy in body;
Their frames of diamond require no sleep.

The Saintly Masses are always enlightened and with wonderful kindness.
The minds and thoughts of the Saints are all honest and true;
Pretension and deceit, vanity and affectation are naturally not Theirs,
Of Their bodies, mouths and minds, the deeds are always clean and pure;
How can it be said They ever uttered a false saying?

From a hundred streams, rivers, seas, and fountain-heads,
The Waters of Life, deep and clear, are all fragrant and wonderful,
In which one will neither drift away nor be drowned;
Nor are there floods which come to make damage and destruction.

There is naturally no complaint, disgust, and mutual oppression,
And no one flatters another in the face, and accuses them behind the back.

The miraculous feet move and whirl as swiftly as a thunderbolt;
Saints, responding, appear in ten directions without hindrance.
Their strange, unique, and wonderful appearnaces are really difficult to 
describe,
And no distresses, ills, and troubles can harm Them.

The distresses of compulsion and oppression, restriction and hardship,
Fear and dread, and all the activites of the devils,
Battles and attacks, mutual punishment and slaughters,
In the World of Light there is nothing of these.

The World is eternally safe, and free from terrors.