Introduction

i.1The Four Boys’ Absorption is a Mahāyāna discourse that relates events surrounding the Buddha Śākyamuni’s passing away at the Yamakaśāla Grove near Kuśinagara in the country of the Mallas. It is much less well known than the Mahā­pari­nirvāṇa­sūtras (Toh 119 and 120) or the classic account in the Mūlasarvāstivāda vinaya literature, and is unique in adding to the unfolding of those events the story of four young bodhisattvas who appear in the world at the same time and travel to the scene to witness the Buddha’s passing.

i.2The sūtra begins with Ānanda relating a disturbing and portentous dream, which the Buddha confirms as signifying that his parinirvāṇa is indeed imminent. Tremendous lamentation and grieving ensues, not just among the humans present but also among the gods, nāgas, and other beings, who depart their various abodes to converge on the grove and see the Buddha for one last time.

i.3The narrative then shifts away from scenes of intense mourning in the grove of śāla trees to four bodhisattvas who pass away in distant buddha fields in the four directions and are reborn in Jambudvīpa as the sons of prominent figures in four major cities of the Gangetic Plain. One appears in Rājagṛha as the son of King Ajātaśatru of Magadha, two as the sons of merchants in Śrāvastī and Vārāṇasī, and one as the son of a general in Vaiśālī. Each of the infants is able to speak as soon as they are born and announce their intention to hear the teachings of the Buddha Śākyamuni. They also deliver sermons on a variety of topics, in the case of Ajātaśatru’s son chastising the king for the terrible crime of having killed his own father. When the bodhisattva infants discover that the Buddha Śākyamuni is soon to pass away, they insist on going to him, and they set off with huge entourages toward Kuśinagara. Their spectacular arrival at the grove of śāla trees is accompanied by various miracles, whereupon the Buddha explains their arrival to his assembled followers, illustrating his knowledge of world systems far beyond our own, and he explains the liberating power of countless other buddhas.

i.4Throughout this text, Ānanda is the primary interlocutor and protagonist, whose grief at the impending loss of his teacher cannot be assuaged. Ānanda’s grief affords Śākyamuni and several śrāvaka and bodhisattva disciples (including the four boys of the title) the opportunity to deliver teachings, mostly in verse, on the transitory and illusory nature of compounded phenomena. Besides this general theme of impermanence, a further theme in the text is the importance of developing roots of virtue before a living buddha, and also receiving a prophecy from him, in order to achieve awakening. In this regard, the Buddha consoles his followers with teachings that emphasize the infinite multiplicity of buddhas, whom he sees in all directions.

i.5One of the literal meanings of the terms nirvāṇa and parinirvāṇa used throughout this text to refer to the Buddha’s death, are “extinguished.” In light of this, it is notable that on two occasions in this sūtra similes are used that liken the Buddha’s imminent passing to a fire going out once its fuel is used up, and on one occasion to a fire being doused by water. The term nirvāṇa was translated into Tibetan as mya ngan ’das, the literal meaning of which is “passed beyond suffering,” so this connotation in the Sanskrit is otherwise lost.

i.6The “absorption” mentioned in the title of this sutra is not explicitly referred to or defined in the text itself. The term absorption (Skt. samādhi, Tib. ting nge ’dzin) normally refers to a peaceful meditative state wherein the senses are collected into a concentrated state of mind, but it can also at times signify a list of concepts and terms that together function as a literary unit. As Andrew Skilton has noted, absorption in the Mahāyāna context is also frequently associated with the magical powers obtained through familiarization with various meditative states. The “absorption” of the four boys, then, is perhaps best understood here as a general descriptor related to the four boys, whose miracles serve as evidence of their advanced spiritual realization, which the Buddha extols at length.

i.7No Sanskrit version or fragment of the text is to our knowledge extant, either independently or in the form of confirmable quotations. The text was translated into Chinese twice: the first translation was completed in 269 ᴄᴇ by Dharmarakṣa (Taishō 378), and the second (Taishō 379), a partial retranslation, was completed several centuries later during the Sui Dynasty (581–618 ᴄᴇ) in Gandhāra, possibly from the Gandhārī language, by Jñānagupta. As Hajime Nakamura has observed, The Four Boys’ Absorption appears to predate the more influential Mahāyāna Mahā­pari­nirvāṇa­sūtras (Toh 119 and 120), implying that it appeared in textual form no later than around 200 ᴄᴇ.

i.8According to the colophon to the Tibetan translation, the sūtra was translated into Tibetan by the Indian scholars Jinamitra and Prajñāvarman together with the Tibetan translator Bandé Yeshé Dé and others, indicating that the translation was made from Sanskrit during the height of Tibetan imperial sponsorship of Buddhism in the late eighth and or early ninth century. This dating is confirmed by the text’s inclusion in both the early ninth-century Phangthangma and Denkarma imperial catalogs.

i.9The text, with its emotive narrative of the parinirvāṇa and its eloquent teachings, has many interesting and idiosyncratic features, such as an unusual enumeration of eight buddhas of the past (nine including Śākyamuni). However, its influence on later tradition has been limited, and it does not appear to have been widely remarked upon in either the Tibetan scholarly tradition or modern western scholarship.

i.10This translation, to our knowledge the first English translation to be published, was prepared from the Tibetan as found in the Degé Kangyur, in consultation with the variants noted in the Comparative Edition (Tib. dpe bsdur ma) and the Stok Palace Kangyur. Where variant readings have been preferred over the Degé edition, or where variants offer plausible alternatives, this has been recorded in the notes. The Chinese translations have not, as yet, been consulted.