Introduction

The Setting

i.1The sūtra is set at first on the banks of the Nairañjanā River, where the Buddha is dwelling together with a retinue of bodhisattvas including Avalokiteśvara, Vajrapāṇi, Maitreya, and Mañjuśrī, as well as great hearers like Subhūti, Śāriputra, and Maudgalyāyana. After Śakra and Brahmā pay their respects, the Tathāgata magically transports himself together with his entire assembly to a grove in Vārāṇasī, where he manifests his supernatural powers.

The Story

i.2The Buddha, upon entering into the state of state of concentration known as the garlands of the buddhas , asks Avalokiteśvara and Vajrapāṇi to summon miraculously all degenerate beings of the Sahā world system who must be led to awakening. Entering into the same state of concentration, Avalokiteśvara and Vajrapāṇi manifest light rays and inspirational verses to invite those beings to the mango grove. Once they arrive, the Tathāgata displays his supernatural powers by exerting his sovereign power over the whole world, turning it into a place similar to the pure realm of Sukhāvatī. With Mañjuśrī’s help, he teaches on how the tathāgatas manifest to beings in a series of dialogues with other protagonists. He explains that a tathāgata is like a doctor who knows the various diseases of beings and the methods to cure them. The Buddha finally displays his supernatural powers a third time by making many other buddhas appear all around him. The sūtra ends with a condensed summary of Buddhadharma.

The Main Points of the Subject Matter

i.3From a doctrinal perspective, the sūtra explores several important Mahāyāna topics in relation with the notion of miracles (prātihārya, cho ’phrul), supernatural powers (ṛddhi, rdzu ’phrul), and extraordinary transformation (vikurvaṇa, rnam par ’phrul):

i.4The necessity for miracles . At the beginning of the text, it is stated that sentient beings who could fall into negative forms of existence should be converted to the path in order to lead them to unsurpassable awakening. This can only occur, though, through the display of miracles.

i.5The description of miracles . In this sūtra, the miracles of the Buddha are presented in three different ways: as magical transformations, as the ability to know another’s mind, and as the capacity to destroy defilements by expounding the Dharma. First the Buddha performs supernatural actions that transform the immediate physical surroundings. Then he explains that beings should be helped according to their dispositions, inclinations, and capacities. Since the Tathāgata is able to know beings’ minds through his supernatural powers, he is able to assist them through various skillful means (upāya, thabs) corresponding to their circumstances. Vasubandhu explains this sequence in great detail in the Abhidharmakośa: the Buddha first ravishes the minds of beings he wishes to set on the path through the display of his extraordinary powers. Knowing their dispositions, inclinations, and capacities, he then imparts methods that will ultimately lead them to unsurpassable, truly perfect awakening. The use of such miracles by the Buddha as skillful means is a recurring theme of Mahāyāna sūtras, as can be seen, for example, in the Śūraṃgama­samādhi­sūtra (Lamotte 2003: 233) where there is a passage that mirrors the storyline of the present sūtra.

i.6The “magical show” as an analogy for the nature of reality. The Buddha­balā­dhāna­prātihārya­vikurvāṇa­nirdeśa makes the important point that conditioned phenomena are like a “show” or an illusion, as clearly explained by Mañjuśrī to the gods. Just like a reflection in a mirror, the Tathāgata neither comes nor goes. Things neither arise nor cease. Yet the Tathāgata appears in the world for the sake of beings. For him, however, there is no birth, no old age, and no death. The sūtra explains that since all conditioned phenomena are like illusions, the extraordinary activities of a tathāgata, such as teaching and leading beings to awakening, are not limited by time and space. His teaching remains even if he manifested the extinction of suffering eons ago. As an object of veneration, he is a means to reach awakening by accumulating merit. His purpose and meaning are not constrained by notions of his being present or absent. The same idea occurs in a sūtra found in the Ratnakūṭa, The Prophecy for Bhadra the Illusionist (Toh. 65), in which the Tathāgata displays similar miracles and in which it is stated that the Buddha can perform magic because he knows that all phenomena are illusory. Action (karma) is explained as being the great conjurer that magically creates beings and material objects. Thus, the basis of the Tathāgata’s supernatural powers is considered to be his realization that all phenomena are like magic and illusions.

i.7The nature of the cycle of rebirths (saṃsāra) and karma. In the Buddha­balā­dhāna­prātihārya­vikurvā­ṇanirdeśa, the Buddha explains that there is no birth, old age, and death. However, one’s state of life is dependent on the perception conditioned by the body, since beings are fixated on the physical basis of their existence. These perceptions trigger actions. On the basis of these actions, beings will experience suffering again and again throughout all their future rebirths. This endless cycle of arisings and cessations is what is called saṃsāra. The scales of a balance are used as a metaphor in the text to illustrate this process, and it is worth noting that this simile is also found in the Abhidharma­samuccaya in the same context (Rahula 2001: 94).

i.8Skillful means and practices. The sūtra puts forward various methods for venerating the tathāgatas‍—making offerings, chanting their names, supporting the Dharma, propagating the teachings, and making the Dharma available in any possible way. Of all these methods, those concerning the protection of the Dharma are deemed supreme.

Source Text and Various Versions

i.9The source text is extant in Tibetan, Chinese, and (partially) Sanskrit. The Tibetan text is found in the various editions of the Kangyur with no major variations. A glimpse of what might have been the source text for the Tibetan translation of the sūtra is afforded by some Sanskrit fragments in the collection of Gilgit manuscripts. The Gilgit manuscripts are among the oldest manuscripts in the world, dating back to the 5th and 6th centuries A.D., and include famous works from the Buddhist canon such as the Lotus Sūtra. The language of these manuscripts is a form of Sanskrit with Prakrit vocabulary and inflections. The Gilgit fragments of this sūtra, although far from representing the whole text, show no major variations from their Tibetan counterparts. It is, however, not possible at this stage to establish whether this specific Sanskrit version of the text was the basis for the Tibetan translations.

There is unfortunately no colophon to this sūtra, and therefore no direct mention by name of the Indian and Tibetan translators. We were unable to find any reference to this sūtra elsewhere in the Tibetan canon.

i.10Regarding the relationship between this sūtra and others, it is worth noting that the text belongs to a corpus of sūtras containing passages in which miracles play a significant role: one Vinaya text, the Vinaya­kṣudraka­vastu (Toh 6); two Prajñā­pāramitā­sūtras, the Prajñā­pāramitā in 25,000 lines (Toh 9) and Prajñāpāramitā in 10,000 lines (Toh 11); the Buddhāvataṃsaka (Toh 44); six sūtras from the Ratnakūṭa, The Secrets of the Realized Ones (Tathāgatācintya­guhya­nirdeśa, Toh 47), Bodhi­sattva­piṭaka (Toh 56), Bhadra­māyākāra­vyākaraṇa (Toh 65), Mahā­pratihārya­nirdeśa (Toh 66), Maitreya­mahā­siṃha­nāda (Toh 67), and Acintya­buddha­viśaya­nirdeśa (Toh 79); and twenty-eight sūtras from the mdo sde, the Bhadra­kalpika (Toh 94), Saṃghāṭi­sūtra­dharma­paryāya (Toh 102), Karuṇā­puṇḍarīka (Toh 112), Saddharma­puṇḍarīka (Toh 113), Sarva­dharma­guṇa­vyūha­rāja (Toh 114), Ratna­karaṇḍa (Toh 117), The King of Samādhis Sūtra (Toh 127), Praśānta­viniścaya­prātihārya­samādhi (Toh 129), Śūraṃgama­samādhi (Toh 132), Catur­dāraka­samādhi (Toh 136), Mahā­samnipāta­ratna­ketu­dhāraṇī (Toh 138), Tathāgata­mahā­karuṇā­nirdeśa (Toh 147), Sāgara­mati­paripṛcchā (Toh 152), Anavatapta­nāga­rāja­paripṛcchā (Toh 156), Druma­kinnara­rāja­paripṛcchā (Toh 157), Vikurvāṇa­rāja­paripṛcchā (Toh 167), Mahāyānopadeśa (Toh 169), Ākṣaya­mati­nirdeśa (Toh 175), The Sūtra of the Teaching of Vimalakīrti (Toh 176), Buddha­balā­dhāna­prātihārya­vikurvāṇa­nirdeśa (this text, Toh 186), Mahā­bherī­hāraka­parivarta (Toh 222), Trāyastriṃśat­parivarta (Toh 223), Buddha­saṅgīti (Toh 228), Mahā­megha (Toh 232), Paramārtha­dharma­vijaya (Toh 246), Saddharma­smṛtyupasthāna (Toh 287), mdzangs blun (Toh 341), and Sumāgadhāvadāna (Toh 346).

In addition, the pure realm of Sukhāvatī is mentioned in the text, as are some names of tathāgatas and of a specific samādhi also found in the Buddhāvataṃsaka.

Translation Issues and Academic Research

i.11To the best of our knowledge, no complete English translation of this sūtra was available prior to the one published here. Schopen, however, edited some Sanskrit fragments of the sūtra, compared them to the Tibetan text, and provided an English translation on the basis of the Sanskrit and Tibetan versions.

The many compounds found in the text remain, unsurprisingly, one of the main issues for translators. Some Tibetan expressions in which terms appear in a different order are apparently used for the same Sanskrit compound, for instance, bsod nams las skyes pa’i dge ba’i rtsa ba (145b.2) instead of dge ba’i rtsa ba las skyes pa’i bsod nams (150b.7).

i.12Another good illustration of the difficulty of translating compounds is the title of the sūtra itself, Buddha­balādhāna­prātihārya­vikurvāṇa, which Schopen does not translate in his study of the Sanskrit text. Although the Sanskrit term balādhāna is translated in the Mahāvyutpatti as stobs skyed pa, different transliterations are found in the various Kangyur editions. For example, the Degé Kangyur reads balavadhana, the Stok Palace reads balādhana, the Narthang reads baladhana, and so forth. The Pedurma (dpe sdur ma, comparative edition, see bibliography) settles for balavardhana. In the present case, we chose to follow Schopen, who opts for balādhāna (1978: 319). Edgerton, in his Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary, offers a detailed explanation of this term, which he understands as “the attainment of (usually some particular) power,” such as the powers of a tathāgata (1953: 398a). As for the rest of the compound, we have translated prātihārya as “miracle” and vikurvāṇa as “extraordinary transformation.” In the Śūraṃgama­samādhi­sūtra (Lamotte 2003: 233), prātihāryabala and vikurvāṇabala are often used as synonyms. Lamotte reads them as karmadhāraya compounds (in the way of adjective+noun) respectively meaning “wondrous powers” and “prodigious powers.” Burnouf, on his part, understands ṛddhi­prātihārya as “supernatural transformation” (2010: 189). La Vallée Poussin translates prātihārya as “magical powers” in v. VII.47–48 of the Abhidharmakośa (and bhāṣya). In this context, prātihārya is used by a buddha to convert beings through the manifestation of miraculous powers, the ability to know others’ minds, and the capacity to teach, all of which correspond very much to the subject matter of our sūtra. In this context, the third prātihārya is deemed to be superior since it cannot be attained by means of magic formulae (La Vallée Poussin 1988–90: 1166–68 and 1209–1210). For these reasons, we have not read prāti­hārya­vikurvāṇa as a dvandva in this context, as we were originally tempted to do. It is probably a karmadhāraya (noun+noun) and possibly a tatpuruṣa. In the Tibetan cho ’phrul rnam par ’phrul pa, the two terms stand in apposition, indicating rather a karmadhāraya. The complete title of the sūtra can therefore be translated as “The Teaching on the Extraordinary Transformation That Is the Miracle of Attaining the Buddha’s Powers,” and indeed the message of the sūtra is that the ultimate miracle is to attain the state of buddhahood. Supernatural powers are only a means to lead beings to awakening.

i.13Another translation issue concerns the mention in the sūtra of a grove (shing a mra srung ba’i tshal / a mra srung ba mo’i tshal) located in Vāraṇasī. Although there is no extant Sanskrit fragment for this passage, Schopen translated the phrase a mra srung ba mo’i tshal from the Tibetan as “the grove of Āmrapālī” (see Schopen 1978: 323 fragment [1288]), taking it as a reference to the grove offered to the Buddha by the courtesan Āmrapāli in which several events and teachings recorded in the canonical texts took place. This translation is problematic here, however, because Āmrapālī’s grove was located in Vaiśālī and not Vāraṇasī. There are several reasons for thinking that these phrases do not refer to Āmrapālī’s grove. In the narratives of the Vinaya texts‍—the only instances in the Kangyur in which Āmrapālī is a protagonist in her own right as opposed to mentions of her grove‍—her name is rendered in Tibetan as a mra skyong ma, while the phrase a mra srung ba, which is often taken as an alternative rendering, is in fact only used in the sūtra section of the Kangyur, and only within the phrase a mra srung ba’i tshal, i.e. referring to a grove. There are, it is true, several sūtras explicitly located in Vaiśālī in which a mra srung ba’i tshal can be reasonably taken as referring to Āmrapālī’s grove. In this text, however, we are faced not only with the anomalous location, but also with the variant phrases shing a mra srung ba’i tshal and a mra srung ba mo’i tshal, both of which occur only here and nowhere else in the entire Kangyur. A literal translation of the syntactic construction in this text, shing a mra srung ba’i tshal (F.143.b) would be “grove of the caretaker of mango trees,” and our understanding is that the term a mra srung ba (āmrapāla / āmrapālī) is simply a generic name with this meaning, not a proper noun. In a word, the translation of a mra srung ba’i tshal as “Āmrapālī’s grove” is technically wrong, although it is semantically correct when the grove is located in Vaiśālī. Other possible hypotheses to explain the anomaly would be that at some point in the transmission of the text a geographical or nominal inaccuracy has been introduced; or else that the translocation of Āmrapālī’s grove to Vāraṇasī is intended to be understood as part of the Buddha’s miraculous display.