Introduction

i.1The Hundred Deeds is a collection of stories or avadāna, a narrative genre widely represented in the Sanskrit Buddhist literature and its derivatives. The term avadāna can be analyzed and understood in several ways. One common interpretation is “legend,” but that understanding is perhaps too rigid, as well as too romantic, for what could be described as religious or spiritual biography. The general intention of avadāna literature is to elicit faith and devotion in the reader through an object lesson in karmic cause and effect: how, for example, a noble act motivated by faith and devotion toward the Three Jewels (Buddha, Dharma, and Saṅgha), or toward another object of veneration, yields a good result, while the result of an ignoble act is dreadful. Historically, the specific functions of avadāna literature were to propagate Buddhism and to provide inspiration and preliminary education in the Dharma, particularly for laypersons and the recently ordained. It can still perform these functions today.

i.2The collection was written at the beginning of the Common Era, and is most likely the product of the Sarvāstivādin school of Mahāyāna Buddhism; it is thus likely to have originated in the northwest of India in the vicinity of Kashmir. Léon Feer, a late nineteenth century scholar of The Hundred Deeds, suggests that the Sarvāstivādins were not responsible for the Sanskrit text, but does not offer any indication of which school he believes may have been responsible. Whatever the case may be, the Tibetan text closely resembles the texts of the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya found in the Kangyur in its wording and in its structural format‍—in parts, each with its list of contents. Indeed it shares with that corpus a large number of passages, not only stock phrases and modular passages but also whole episodes.

i.3The Hundred Deeds survives exclusively in Tibetan translation; the original Sanskrit version is no longer extant. The Tibetan has no translator’s colophon, and there is no direct evidence of when, or by whom, it was made. It may possibly have been first translated somewhat before the major imperial translation project of the early period began; several sources, including Butön’s History of the Dharma, mention that it was translated by Drenka (bran ka) Mūlakośa and Nyak Jñānakumāra during the reign of the father and immediate predecessor of King Trisong Detsen, King Tridé Tsuktsen (khri lde gtsug btsan, r. 705–55 ᴄᴇ, also known as mes ag tshoms). In any case, the Tibetan translation is included in the Denkarma (ldan dkar ma) inventory compiled during the Tibetan imperial period and usually dated 812 ᴄᴇ, so it must have been produced no later than that date.

i.4There are two accounts of how the text was saved from destruction during the period of upheaval around the reign of Langdarma (r. 836–42 ᴄᴇ ) by being taken to eastern Tibet. One account mentions that three monks from Palchubori Monastery transported The Hundred Deeds and other texts to the Amdo region while fleeing from persecution by King Langdarma. The other account states that Palgyi Dorje carried the text to the Kham region after he had assassinated the king.

i.5There is another collection of broadly similar narratives, the Avadānaśataka, that is perhaps the closest kin of The Hundred Deeds in terms of style and content, and thus may serve as a primary reference point for comparison and contrast. The temporal relationship between the two collections, as well as the seniority of one collection over the other, is a matter for debate. The Avadānaśataka has a definite plan and a clear, orderly structure: it has ten chapters, each containing ten stories based on a common theme, giving a total of one hundred stories. Although The Hundred Deeds is similarly divided into ten parts, it lacks the Avadānaśataka’s structural adherence to round numbers and its more developed thematic arrangement; The Hundred Deeds contains approximately 127 stories by Feer’s count (of these, some fifteen are also in the Avadānaśataka ), and the collection is not organized around fixed sets of common themes.

i.6The Hundred Deeds is not entirely lacking in thematic structure, however. The stories in the eighth chapter share a common theme, that of prophecy (vyākaraṇa), the same as the first chapter of the Avadānaśataka. Each prophecy is essentially an “explanation” of a person’s future buddhahood. The primary aspect that differentiates vyākaraṇa avadānas from the majority of other avadānas is that they end with a prophecy rather than in fulfillment; that is, the protagonist of each vyākaraṇa avadāna will certainly achieve enlightenment, but not by the story’s end.

i.7Furthermore, most of the texts in The Hundred Deeds share a basic structure. In general, a given text will begin with a narrative from the time of Buddha Śākyamuni, at the conclusion of which Śākyamuni explains to his monks which of the characters’ previous actions caused the present state of events. This explanation then leads to a second narrative, and occasionally also a third, within the same text. Through these interconnecting stories, the text gives practical examples of karmic cause and effect.

i.8The presence of the bodhisattva vow (pranidhāna) further differentiates The Hundred Deeds from the Avadānaśataka. In the present collection, the bodhisattva vow appears some ninety times, and in the Avadānaśataka only fourteen times. The preeminence of the bodhisattva vow in The Hundred Deeds would certainly seem to place it closer to the work of the Mahā­sāṅghika school. However, some scholars believe these are later interpolations in what was originally a Sarvāstivādin text.

i.9While calling attention to the relative lack of thematic structure in The Hundred Deeds, Feer nonetheless classifies several of the collection’s stories using the following categories: parallel, jātaka, and historical avadānas. The parallel avadānas are those in which both the past and present tales are essentially the same, with the common narrative generally lacking karmic punishment or reward. The jātaka (Buddha’s “birth story”) avadānas are further subdivided into partial and “pure” jātakas. The avadānas not considered “pure” are those in which the Buddha acts as protagonist for only a portion of the tale of the past. The historical avadānas are those that feature well-known Buddhist figures as protagonists or secondary characters as well as events from the history of Buddhism. These categories are by no means discrete; there are several instances in which Feer cites a single story as belonging to two categories, if not all three.

i.10The present English translation is based mainly on the Tibetan text of the Degé Kangyur; other Kangyurs were consulted where the Degé reading called for further investigation. Where one folio of the text was missing in the Degé Kangyur (vol. 73, folio 12a, see notes), the corresponding passage in the Stok Palace Kangyur was used to complete it.