Introduction

i.1The Mahāyāna sūtra called Evaluating Whether Progress is Certain or Uncertain explains five ways in which bodhisattvas may make progress on the path, describing five different ways of traveling as an analogy for that progress. It begins when its main interlocutor, Mañjuśrī, asks the Buddha how to evaluate whether it is either uncertain that a bodhisattva will attain unsurpassable, perfect awakening, or certain that he will attain it. Much of what follows is the Buddha’s answer: he explains five spiritual approaches for bodhisattvas, comparing each with a different method for traveling very great distances. The five methods are (1) using a cattle cart, (2) using an elephant chariot, (3) using the powers of the moon and sun, (4) using the magical power of the śrāvakas, and (5) using the magical power of the Tathāgata. Of these five approaches, the first two would surely not enable the traveler to reach the spiritual destination of unsurpassable, perfect awakening, while the last three would convey the traveler to that destination and would guarantee that they would not turn back before reaching it.

i.2The first two approaches are limited insofar as they follow the teachings of the Śrāvaka Vehicle, which thereby impedes the progress of bodhisattvas who follow such approaches. By contrast, the last three methods incorporate progressively greater adherence to and support of the Mahāyāna, which makes them more effective as spiritual vehicles. The final method is the most effective of all, insofar as it carries its adherence to the Mahāyāna to the highest degree. The sūtra also stresses the great benefits of devotion to the Mahāyāna. The section that follows ends with a long series of comparisons of the relative merits of many (mostly hypothetical) practices, while also working in the five methods of travel as types of the mind of awakening. In a subsequent concluding section, another long series of comparisons establishes the great merit of the highest practices of the Mahāyāna.

i.3This is a minor and generally overlooked sūtra in Tibet. We could not trace it as being quoted by even one Tibetan author. It is listed in both the Denkarma and Phangthangma imperial translation catalogs, which confirms it was translated into Tibetan no later than the early ninth century. It appears to have been better known elsewhere in South, Central, and East Asia. Although no full Sanskrit version is known to exist, the sūtra is quoted by Śāntideva twice in his Śikṣāsamuccaya , and several small Sanskrit fragments were discovered in Turfan. The sūtra is also quoted in the Khotanese anthology known in English translation as the Book of Zambasta. At least three Chinese translations exist: Bubi ding dingzhi ru yin jing 不必定入定入印經 (Taishō 645), translated by Gautama Prajñāruci in 542, Li zhuangyan sanmei jing 力莊嚴三昧經 (Taishō 647), translated by Narendrayaśas in 585, and Dingzhi buding yin jing 入定不定印經 (Taishō 646), translated by Yijing in 700. The fact that the sūtra was known in India, circulated in Central Asia, and was translated into Chinese no less than three times from the mid-sixth to the turn of the eighth century suggests that, despite its seeming insignificance in Tibet, the sūtra was well regarded in the rest of the Mahāyāna Buddhist world of the medieval period.

i.4The present translation from Tibetan is based on the Degé xylograph and the Comparative Edition (Tib. dpe bsdur ma).