Introduction

i.1The King of Prayers of Good Conduct is among the few Kangyur texts familiar to most practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism, as it is regularly recited, and the first twelve verses in particular are often incorporated into sādhanas.

i.2The full prayer, in sixty-three verses, commences with a form of the seven branches: homage, offering, confession, rejoicing, requesting that the wheel of Dharma be turned, requesting the buddhas not to pass into nirvāṇa, and the dedication of merit. This is followed by the aspiration to be pure in mind and conduct, and to benefit beings by teaching the Dharma through miraculous powers and the ability to speak many languages. Dedication is then made to benefiting infinite beings throughout all time, and to receiving teachings from the countless buddhas that pervade every atom of the multiverse. The prayer then describes the benefits that come from its recitation: purification of karma, excellence in life, rebirth in Sukhāvatī, and eventually buddhahood. The prayer concludes with the aspiration to be reborn in Sukhāvatī, and the aspiration that the prayer may benefit all beings.

i.3The Prayer of Good Conduct is included in all the Kangyurs as a standalone text in sixty-three verses, and is also found, in sixty-two verses, at the end of The Stem Array, which itself concludes A Multitude of Buddhas (Skt. Buddhāvataṃsaka, Tib. phal chen; Toh 44). In The Stem Array, it is stated that the prayer was put into verse by the bodhisattva Samantabhadra. As a result, it is also referred to as “The Prayer of Samantabhadra” (Tib. kun tu bzang po’i smon lam).

i.4The prayer likely first appeared in textual form in Sanskrit sometime before the fifth century ᴄᴇ. Its inclusion at the end of the Gaṇḍavyūha is considered a relatively late accretion, since earlier versions of the sūtra, such as those translated into Chinese by Shengjian between 388 and 408 ᴄᴇ (Taishō 294), by Buddhabhadra between 418 and 422 (Taishō 278), and by Śikṣānanda between 695 and 699 (Taishō 279), did not include it. It was first translated into Chinese as a standalone prayer in forty-four verses by Buddhabhadra between 418 and 420 (Taishō 296), though he did not include it in the translation of the Gaṇḍavyūha that he was working on in the same period. Amoghavajra’s eighth-century Chinese translation of the standalone prayer contains sixty-two verses (Taishō 297). The prayer then appears for the first time at the conclusion of the Gaṇḍavyūha in the Chinese translation made by Prajñā in 798 (Taishō 293), reputedly from a Sanskrit manuscript donated to the Tang emperor by the king of Orissa.

i.5The translation of the Gaṇḍavyūha into Tibetan in the early ninth century likewise includes the prayer in sixty-two verses. The translators, as stated in the colophon to the entire A Multitude of Buddhas in the Degé Kangyur, were the Tibetan master-translator Yeshé Dé, together with Jinamitra and Surendrabodhi, indicating a translation made under Tibetan imperial sponsorship in the early ninth century. The colophons of the Narthang, Lhasa, Stok Palace, Ulaanbaatar, and Phukdrak Kangyurs, however, ascribe the translation to Vairotsana, while the catalog (Tib. dkar chag) of the Degé Kangyur mentions the three translators as above but adds that Lochen Vairotsana acted as the editor.

i.6The prayer is a fitting conclusion to The Stem Array, even if it was not originally a part of it. The Stem Array often repeats the phrase “the completely good conduct and aspiration of a bodhisattva,” and its longest chapter centers on the bodhisattva Samantabhadra. As the name Samantabhadra means “completely good,” it can be ambiguous in the Tibetan whether the sūtra is referring to “completely good conduct and aspiration” or to “Samantabhadra’s conduct and aspiration.” The Sanskrit syntax makes it clear that it is the former, but in both name and qualities, Samantabhadra is perfect for the recitation of the prayer.

i.7The Tibetan standalone version of the prayer in sixty-three verses has no colophon, which suggests that it was extracted from The Stem Array. However, the prayer is listed as a standalone text in both the Denkarma and Phangthangma translation catalogs.

i.8The Tibetan throughout is in nine-syllable meter and four-line verses for ease of recitation, and quickly became well known in Tibet. A verse from the prayer was inscribed on a temple bell at Yerpa (near Lhasa) in the early ninth century. The prayer is also found in many iterations among the Tibetan manuscripts retrieved from the cave library at Dunhuang and now kept at the Bibliothèque National de France and the British Library. A fine manuscript of the standalone prayer in sixty verses is found, for example, at the beginning of Pelliot tibétain 116.

i.9Five commentaries on the prayer are included in the Sūtra Commentary (mdo ’grel) section of the Tengyur (Toh 4011–4015). These are attributed to Nāgārjuna (Toh 4011), Dignāga (Toh 4012), Śākyamitra (Toh 4013), *Subhūṣita (Toh 4014), and Vasubandhu (Toh 4015). It was also the subject of what may be among the first commentaries written in Tibetan, composed by the translator Yeshé Dé. This is found in the Miscellaneous (sna tshogs) section of the Tengyur (Toh 4359).

i.10The earliest extant Sanskrit manuscript of the Gaṇḍavyūha dates to 1166, several hundred years after the Chinese and Tibetan translations were made. It consists of 289 palm-leaf pages and was obtained from Nepal and presented to the Royal Asiatic Society in London by Brian Houghton Hodgson in 1835. Modern critical editions of the Sanskrit text are primarily based on this source. The Sanskrit Buddhist tradition has continued in Nepal, where the Gaṇḍavyūha remains one of the nine central works (Skt. navadharma) of Newar Buddhism.

i.11The Tibetan standalone text of The Prayer of Good Conduct is among a selection of important aspiration prayers found variously located in different Kangyurs. In Kangyurs of the Tshalpa lineage that have a Compendium of Dhāraṇīs (gzungs ’dus), it is found at the end of that section, and in those that do not, it is found at the end of the corresponding part of the Tantra (rgyud) section. In the Themphangma lineage of Kangyurs, it is found at the end of the General Sūtra (mdo sde) section. In the Yongle, Peking Qianlong, Lithang, Choné, and Berlin Kangyurs, the standalone text is also duplicated at the end of the Vinaya (’dul ba) section. The prayer is also found in the Dedication and Aspiration Prayers (bsngo smon bkra shis) section of the Degé Tengyur (Toh 4377). Though there are numerous small orthographic variations among these many Tibetan editions of The Prayer of Good Conduct, no major divergences have been identified. The main identifying features of the standalone prayer, as compared to the version at the end of The Stem Array, are the homage to Mañjuśrīkumārabhūta at the beginning, and an additional verse at the end.

i.12The prayer has been translated a number of times into English and other languages, particularly the first twelve verses that appear as part of many practices in Tibetan Buddhism. It has been the subject of many commentaries in the past, and in the present day continues to be a frequent subject of oral teachings. With the exeption of the last verse of the prayer, this translation has been excerpted in its entirety from the 84000 translation of The Stem Array.