Introduction
i.1The setting for this discourse is the Jetavana, Anāthapiṇḍada’s Park, where the Buddha spent many rainy-season retreats and where many of the Buddha’s discourses are said to have been delivered. In this particular discourse, the Buddha succinctly describes thirty-seven ways in which the wise give gifts, as well as the results that ripen from their gift giving. More specifically, the first five ways in which the wise give gifts that the Buddha enumerates are relatively general and pertain primarily to the manner in which gifts are given and the purpose for which gifts are given. The wise are said, for example, to give gifts with faith in order to dispel stinginess, or respectfully in order to dispel mental agitation. For each of the remaining thirty-two ways in which gifts are given, the Buddha describes the result that ripens from the particular act, and in each case the result that ripens is similar to the gift that was its cause. For example, giving a gift of food ripens as the elimination of hunger in all one’s future lives. The discourse concludes with the Buddha proclaiming the thirty-seventh and final way in which the wise give gifts, namely, without any expectation of reward, the full ripening of which is the unsurpassed and perfect awakening of a buddha.
i.1本經的背景設在祇樹給孤獨園，這是給孤獨長者的園林，佛陀在此地度過許多雨季安居，許多佛陀的開示都說是在此處宣講的。在這部開示中，佛陀簡明地描述了智者布施的三十七種方式，以及從布施中產生的異熟果。更具體地說，佛陀列舉的智者布施的前五種方式相對較為籠統，主要涉及布施的方式和布施的目的。據說智者會懷著信心布施以消除慳貪，或者恭敬地布施以消除掉舉。對於布施的其餘三十二種方式中的每一種，佛陀都描述了從這個特定行為中產生的異熟果，而在每種情況下，產生的果報都與導致它的布施相似。例如，布施食物會在一個人未來的所有生命中都消除飢餓。這部經以佛陀宣揚第三十七種、也是智者布施的最後一種方式作為結尾，即不抱有任何回報的期望而進行布施，其圓滿的異熟果就是成佛的無上正等菩提。
i.2No Sanskrit text that completely matches the content of this sūtra is known to be extant, but a version in Sanskrit known as the Dānādhikaraṇa is preserved in the Nepalese manuscripts of the Divyāvadāna, a collection of avadāna narratives drawn mostly from the Mūlasarvāstivāda vinaya that may have been compiled from earlier sources in late medieval times (although no manuscripts exist from earlier than the seventeenth century). The text, like the version of the sūtra translated here, contains thirty-seven ways of giving gifts, although some differ to a varying degree in their detail. A much earlier Sanskrit text that probably resembled the present version more closely is represented by a fragment identified among the manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection by Matsuda in 2003. It is written on a piece of leather, in a Gupta Brāhmī script that allows it to be dated to the fifth or sixth centuries, but the fragment includes only the last seven ways of giving.
i.2這部經的完整梵文本目前已知沒有傳存下來，但在尼泊爾的《天譬喻經》手稿中保存著一個梵文版本，稱為《施論》。《天譬喻經》是一部本生譚集合，主要取材於根本說一切有部律藏，可能在晚期中世紀由早期資料編纂而成（儘管現存最早的手稿不超過十七世紀）。這部經文和這裡翻譯的經文版本一樣，都包含了三十七種布施的方式，雖然某些細節有不同程度的差異。松田在二〇〇三年於施約恩收藏中的手稿中發現了一個更早期的梵文文本片段，它可能更接近現在的版本。這個片段寫在一塊皮革上，使用笈多婆羅米文字體，可以追溯到五至六世紀，但該片段只包含了最後七種布施方式。
i.3The Tibetan translation of this sūtra, the colophon tells us, was made by the Indian preceptor Surendrabodhi and the Tibetan translator-editor Yeshé Dé. It is also listed in the Denkarma (ldan dkar ma) and Phangthangma (’phang thang ma) imperial catalogs, so we can infer that this sūtra was translated from Sanskrit sometime during the late eighth- to early ninth-century. In the Degé Kangyur, this sūtra is placed after The Perfection of Generosity, a longer, explicitly Mahāyāna sūtra, also translated by Yeshé Dé during the imperial period, that also treats the topic of generosity. Not only is the present sūtra significantly shorter than The Perfection of Generosity, but its content, apart from a small number of references to the result of buddhahood, is not in the same way explicitly or exclusively concerned with the bodhisattva path.
i.3本經的藏文翻譯，根據版本記載，是由印度阿闍黎蘇仁波提和藏文譯者兼編輯業西德翻譯而成。該經也列在丹噶爾目錄和棒唐目錄等皇帝敕編目錄中，因此我們可以推斷本經是在八世紀晚期至九世紀早期期間從梵文翻譯成藏文的。在德格版藏經中，本經被置於《般若波羅蜜多經》之後。《般若波羅蜜多經》是一部篇幅較長且明確屬於大乘的經典，也是業西德在皇帝時期翻譯的，同樣論述布施的主題。本經不僅在篇幅上遠短於《般若波羅蜜多經》，而且其內容除了少數關於成佛果報的提及外，並不像《般若波羅蜜多經》那樣以相同的方式明確地或專門地關注菩薩道。
i.4A version of the sūtra is also included in the Chinese Buddhist canon (Taishō 705, 佛說布施經), translated in the tenth century by Faxian. The opening section, which describes the circumstances under which the discourse was delivered, is the same in the Tibetan and Chinese versions, as is the closing section. However, the enumerated gifts, the descriptions of how these gifts should be given, and the ripened results are a close match only in just over half of the stanzas.
i.4這部經典的版本也被收錄在中文佛經大藏經中（大正藏705，《佛說布施經》），由十世紀的法賢翻譯。開頭部分描述了說法的情境，在藏文版本和中文版本中是相同的，結尾部分也是如此。然而，列舉的布施、這些布施應當如何進行的描述，以及異熟果只有在一半多一點的偈文中才能密切對應。
i.5The Divyāvadāna version of the sūtra was translated from the Sanskrit into English by James Ware in 1929 (along with passages from the Tibetan version), and more recently by Andy Rotman in the second volume of his translations from that collection. An abbreviated translation of the sūtra made by Kalpana Upreti appeared in 1989, and the most recent version in English is Peter Skilling’s translation, with helpful notes, in his 2021 anthology Questioning the Buddha: A Selection of Twenty-Five Sutras.
i.5《天譬喻經》中的這部經文由詹姆斯·韋爾在1929年從梵文翻譯成英文（同時包含了藏文版本的段落），後來安迪·羅特曼在他的該集合的翻譯第二卷中再次翻譯。卡爾帕納·烏普雷蒂在1989年發表了一個簡略的英文翻譯，最近的英文版本是彼得·斯基林的翻譯，附有有幫助的註釋，刊登在他2021年的選集《質疑佛陀：二十五部經文選集》中。
i.6The present translation is based on the version in the Degé Kangyur, with reference to the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma).
i.6本譯本以《德格版藏經》為基礎，並參考《對勘版》進行翻譯。