Introduction

i.1The Questions of the Nāga King Sāgara takes place in the unusual setting of the nāga king Sāgara’s court deep in the ocean. Here the Buddha gives a discourse on the importance of avoiding the ten nonvirtuous deeds. The sūtra begins with the Buddha Śākyamuni explaining how everything, including all the various life forms of beings in the ocean and even the awakening of a buddha, is created through the law of cause and effect. The Buddha explains the relationship between form and emptiness, showing how despite the essential emptiness of all phenomena, beings appear in various shapes and sizes due to their former virtuous and nonvirtuous actions. The remainder of the text concerns the ten nonvirtuous acts and the need to abandon them by practising instead the ten virtuous acts. First, the Buddha explains the various benefits of abstaining from each of the nonvirtuous acts and shows how this will lead to awakening. He then describes the perilous consequences of engaging in the nonvirtuous acts. Finally, the Buddha explains how cultivating additional positive qualities while engaging in these virtuous acts will lead to even greater spiritual boons.

i.2The Degé Kangyur contains three sūtras entitled The Questions of the Nāga King Sāgara. They can be distinguished by their length, one being quite long (Toh 153, 164 folio pages), one medium-length, which is translated here (Toh 154, 14 folio pages), and one very short (Toh 155, 1 folio page). All three of these are included as individual texts in the early ninth century Denkarma (ldan dkar ma) catalog, confirming their status as independent scriptures in Tibet during the imperial period. Of these, Toh 155 appears to be unrelated to the other two. It seems apparent, however, that at some point in its textual life (presumably in India), Toh 154 was taken as an excerpt from Toh 153 and transmitted as an independent text. A large number of minor differences and one whole section that is unique to Toh 154 distinguish these two versions, but their shared provenance is nevertheless clear.

i.3A further indication that the two texts had already circulated independently in India is that the two sūtras were translated into Tibetan by different translation teams. Toh 153 was translated by Jinamitra, Prajñāvarma, and Yeshé Dé while Toh 154 was translated by Jinamitra, Dānaśīla, Munivarman, and Yeshé Dé. Interestingly, in two versions of the colophon to Toh 154 it is explicitly mentioned that this text is an extract from a larger scripture, although Toh 153 is not specified as the source.

i.4Both texts were transmitted from India to China, with the longer of the two (Toh 153) appearing four hundred years before the shorter. Toh 154 was translated into Chinese twice under two different titles (Taishō 600 and 601). Taishō 600 is a translation made between 695 and 700 ᴄᴇ by the Khotanese monk Śikṣānanda (652–710 ᴄᴇ) and appears under the title The Sūtra on the Path of the Ten Virtuous Actions. Taishō 601 is a translation made relatively late, between 980 and 1017 ᴄᴇ, by Dānapāla (d. 1017 ᴄᴇ), a monk from the area of Uḍḍiyāna in northwestern India who was one of the four chief Indian translators during the Song dynasty; its title matches the Tibetan and Sanskrit title here. Given this information, we can surmise that Toh 154 was circulating as an independent text in India prior to 695 ᴄᴇ and that its subsequent transmission to both China and Tibet was also independent from Toh 153. It is difficult, however, to determine exactly when the split occurred.

i.5This English translation is based on the Tibetan translation in the Degé Kangyur in consultation with the Comparative Edition (Tib. dpe bsdur ma) and the Stok Palace Kangyur. We also occasionally compared these sources to the two Chinese translations.