Introduction

i.1The Questions of Ratna­candra is a sūtra that takes place on Vulture Peak Mountain outside of the city of Rājagṛha, the capital of the ancient country of Magadha. There Ratna­candra, who is described as one of the sons of King Bimbisāra, the ruler of Magadha, requests the Buddha Śākyamuni to reveal the names of the ten buddhas who dwell in the ten directions. Ratna­candra has been told that hearing the names of these ten buddhas guarantees one’s future awakening and so wishes to know them. The Buddha confirms the transformative power of these ten names, and during the course of the sūtra he discloses them and provides additional details of these buddhas, their respective realms, and their many unique qualities‍—including their cosmically long dispensations. Finally, the Buddha concludes the teaching by relating the events of a distant past that led to these ten buddhas conjointly attaining awakening.

i.2The message of the sūtra‍—that one can ensure the future attainment of awakening by coming into contact with the names of celestial buddhas‍—is one shared by a number of Great Vehicle sūtras. Nakamura includes this sūtra among more than twenty sūtras in the Chinese canon that prescribe the practice of chanting the names of various buddhas. The Tibetan canon likewise contains a significant number of such sūtras. However, since the organizing principles of the Degé Kangyur are not always thematic but often based on other criteria, such as titles, The Questions of Ratna­candra is grouped in the Degé Kangyur among the many sūtras named “The Questions of….” This sūtra is a prime example of the genre of Great Vehicle literature that places great emphasis on the transformative power of remembering, chanting, and venerating the names of the many buddhas who occupy other world systems concurrently with Buddha Śākyamuni’s presence here in our realm.

i.3No Sanskrit manuscript of this sūtra appears to be extant, but in addition to the Tibetan translation a single Chinese translation also exists (Taishō 437). This translation was produced by the Indian monk Dānapāla (fl. ca. 980 ᴄᴇ), a prolific translator credited with completing no less than one hundred individual translations. In spite of this relatively late date of translation into Chinese, Nakamura remarks that a certain “prototype” of The Questions of Ratna­candra is cited in the Daśabhūmikavibhāṣā, which is attributed to Nāgārjuna (ca. second–third century ᴄᴇ). The attribution of this text to Nāgārjuna is itself a topic of debate, but the text was undoubtedly translated by Kumārajīva, who lived from 344–413 ᴄᴇ. This means that the so-called “prototype” of The Questions of Ratna­candra must have been in circulation in India prior to the middle of the fourth century ᴄᴇ.

i.4The colophon of the Tibetan translation lists four figures involved in its production: the Indian preceptors Viśuddha­siṃha and Vidyākara­siṃha and the Tibetan translators Gewa Pal (dge ba dpal) and Devacandra (de ba tsan dra). Therefore, the Tibetan translation would have been completed during the early translation period. The ninth-century Denkarma (ldan dkar ma) catalog includes a text with a similar title, The Questions of the Child Ratna­candra (khye’u rin chen zla bas zhus pa), but this title may not refer to the text translated here. The Phukdrak (phug brag) Kangyur uniquely preserves texts with both titles, and while they are similar enough in content to suggest that they are closely related texts, The Questions of the Child Ratna­candra is substantially different. This sūtra shares the framing narrative and other structural features of The Questions of Ratna­candra but omits many of its specific descriptive elements, especially those concerning the Buddha’s entourage and the features of the individual buddha realms. There is also significant variation in the names of the buddha realms and their attending thus-gone ones, with most, but not all, being unique to each version. The Questions of the Child Ratna­candra found in the Phukdrak Kangyur also lacks the versified passage that closes The Questions of Ratna­candra. The text recorded in the Denkarma catalog as The Questions of the Child Ratna­candra is listed as a translation made by the same group of Indian preceptors and Tibetan translators as The Questions of Ratna­candra, suggesting it may in fact be the work translated here; however, the Phukdrak version lacks a translator’s colophon, making it impossible to determine any contextual relationship between the two translations. To confuse matters more, The Questions of Ratna­candra is preserved under the title The Questions of the Child Ratna­candra in extra-canonical dhāraṇī collections. In producing this English translation, we have based our work on the Degé xylograph while consulting the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma).