The Hundred Deeds

The sūtra The Hundred Deeds, whose title could also be translated as The Hundred Karmas, is a collection of stories known as avadāna‍—a narrative genre widely represented in the Sanskrit Buddhist literature and its derivatives‍—comprising more than 120 individual texts. It includes narratives of Buddha Śākyamuni’s notable deeds and foundational teachings, the stories of other well-known Buddhist figures, and a variety of other tales featuring people from all walks of ancient Indian life and beings from all six realms of existence. The texts sometimes include stretches of verse. In the majority of the stories the Buddha’s purpose in recounting the past lives of one or more individuals is to make definitive statements about the karmic ripening of actions across multiple lifetimes, and the sūtra is perhaps the best known of the many works in the Kangyur on this theme.