Introduction

i.1Not Forsaking the Buddha takes place at Vulture Peak Mountain in Rājagṛha, where the Buddha is accompanied by a large community of monks and numerous bodhisattvas. Ten of these bodhisattvas have recently turned away from the teaching because they have failed to make progress despite exerting themselves for seven years. However, a devoted bodhisattva called Undaunted requests the Buddha to give these ten bodhisattvas an instruction that will enable them to generate insight and wisdom. In response, the Buddha relates the past events that caused these bodhisattvas’ inability to make spiritual progress: in a distant past, in another world, these ten bodhisattvas had wrongly accused another Dharma teacher of having flawed discipline. As a result of this negative act, for many lifetimes afterward they were reborn in the lower realms. Only after suffering in the lower realms for a long time had they purified enough of their former negative action to once again attain human rebirth and go forth as monks. Still, due to the lingering obscuration created by their former negative act, they were unable to obtain any results from their practice for seven hundred lifetimes. Now, however, the Buddha explains that if they chant a certain dhāraṇī and train for one week by recalling the qualities of the buddhas, their remaining obscurations will be purified. The bodhisattvas practice accordingly and are finally able to make progress on the path. Following this instruction, the Buddha completes the discourse by explaining several other bodhisattva trainings that further support spiritual progress and secure the welfare of beings.

i.2The potential obstacles and pitfalls that practitioners of all levels may encounter on their path are mentioned in many sūtras, particularly in the context of future degenerate times when the Dharma is in the process of decline. Not many canonical texts, however, focus primarily on bodhisattvas who have become disheartened, as this one does. Again, while many sūtras speak of the attainment of a stage of realization after which progress toward awakening becomes irreversible, there are few concrete examples of what kinds of reversal bodhisattvas may face before they reach such an advanced stage. The bodhisattvas described here provide such an example, although the surprising fact that they are described nevertheless as “bodhisattva great beings” suggests that this term is not necessarily correlated with irreversibility. This text is particularly valuable, too, for its detailed prescriptions for remedying and overcoming such reversals. In these respects it has some features in common with one of the few other sūtras on a similar theme, Inspiring Determination (Adhyāśaya­saṃcodana, Toh 69).

i.3To our knowledge, no Sanskrit version of this sūtra exists. In addition to the Tibetan translation the sūtra was translated twice into Chinese. The first of these translations (Taishō 811) was produced sometime near the end of the third century ᴄᴇ by the Indo-Scythian monk Dharmarakṣa (ca. 233–310 ᴄᴇ). With this Chinese translation, we thus have a terminus ante quem for the composition of this sūtra, which places it relatively early in the formative period of the literature of the Great Vehicle in India. The second Chinese translation (Taishō 831) was produced in the early sixth century (ca. 508–535 ᴄᴇ) by the prolific Indian translator Bodhiruci.

i.4The Tibetan translation, according to the colophon, was produced by the Indian preceptors Jinamitra and Prajñāvarman and the Tibetan translator-editor Yeshé Dé. This suggests that the translation can be dated to the late eighth or early ninth century, which is also supported by the text’s inclusion in the early ninth-century Denkarma (ldan dkar ma) catalog. In producing this translation, we have based our work on the Degé Kangyur xylograph, while consulting the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma) and the Stok Palace manuscript Kangyur.