The whole assembly joined their palms, took refuge, and chanted together:

合掌皈依 — palms together, taking refuge. And 都念, they all chanted — the cue for what follows, and it is not a poem but a liturgy. What comes next is enclosed in speech marks that open here and do not close for five hundred characters. The printer indents the whole of it, so it is set as verse; the edition is showing you a congregation chanting, and the words are a real one. Any Chinese Buddhist would recognise this roll-call and could join in.

“Homage to Dipamkara, Buddha of Antiquity.

南無 — namas, the Sanskrit word of homage, transcribed into Chinese and read ná mó rather than by the ordinary values of its two characters. It opens every one of the next sixty-three lines. 燃燈 is Dipamkara, the Lamplighter — the buddha of a previous age who prophesied that Sakyamuni would become a buddha. The list starts before the beginning, exactly as the ledger of ordeals did last chapter.

“Homage to Bhaisajyaguru, King of Lapis-Lazuli Radiance, the Medicine Buddha.

The Medicine Buddha, lord of the eastern paradise, who heals. His lapis-blue body is one of the most-painted images in East Asian Buddhism.

“Homage to Sakyamuni Buddha.

The historical Buddha, third in the list — after the Lamplighter of a previous age and the Medicine Buddha of the east. He is the one who has been sitting on the Spirit Mountain giving out posts for the last two blocks, and here his own congregation names him among the rest.

“Homage to the Buddhas of past, future and present.

Three tenses in one line, and the order is not the English one: past, future, present. Chinese Buddhist formulas usually run past–present–future; this edition puts the future in the middle.

“Homage to the Buddha of Pure Joy.

From here the list runs on epithets rather than famous names — purity, joy, light, jewels, banners. Most of these are drawn from the standard rosters of buddha-names used in penance liturgies.

“Homage to Vipasyin Buddha.

One of the seven buddhas of the past, the first of them. The transcription is loose — the standard Chinese is slightly different — which is normal for a text meant to be chanted rather than parsed.

“Homage to the King of the Jewelled Banner Buddha.

幢 is a temple banner — a long silk streamer hung from a pole. Several buddhas in this list are named for one, and it will come round again twice.

“Homage to Maitreya, the Honoured Buddha.

彌勒 — Maitreya, the buddha who is to come. His second character is read lè, the reading it takes in this name; the bare reading gives the lēi of pulling a strap tight, which would be the wrong character-sense entirely. He appeared in person in chapter sixty-six and caught a demon in a sack.

“Homage to Amitabha Buddha.

The most-spoken sentence in East Asian Buddhism. 阿彌陀佛 — Amitabha, the Buddha of Boundless Light, whose name repeated is itself the practice of the Pure Land school. Its first character is read ē, part of the transcription, not the ā of the ordinary exclamation.

“Homage to the Buddha of Measureless Life.

And this is the same buddha again. Amitāyus, Measureless Life, is Amitabha's other name — the Sanskrit has two forms and Chinese translated one and transcribed the other. The list has him twice, back to back, and does not notice. 量 is read liàng, a measure.

“Homage to the Buddha Who Receives and Leads Back to the True.

接引 — to receive and guide in. It is the technical word for what Amitabha does at a deathbed: comes to meet the dying and lead them to the Pure Land. And the reader has met the word already. The Receiving Buddha poled the bottomless boat at the Cloud-Touching Crossing two chapters ago.

“Homage to the Buddha of the Indestructible Diamond.

金剛 — vajra, the diamond-thunderbolt: the hardest thing there is, and the standard image for what cannot be broken. It is also the word for the eight guardians who have been carrying the pilgrims about all chapter. The congregation is chanting their escort's name back at them.