Introduction

i.1The Detailed Account of the Previous Aspirations of the Blessed Bhaiṣajya­guru­vaiḍūrya­prabha opens in Vaiśālī, where the Buddha Śākyamuni is seated with a saṅgha of eight thousand monks, thirty-six thousand bodhisattvas, and a large gathering of gods, spirit beings, and humans. The bodhisattva Mañjuśrī rises from his seat and asks the Buddha to give a Dharma teaching about the names and previous aspirations of the buddhas, and to describe the benefits that buddhas can bring to those who live in future times when the Dharma has nearly vanished. In response, Śākyamuni discusses the twelve aspirations of the Buddha Bhaiṣajya­guru­vaiḍūrya­prabha, his buddhafield, and the benefits to be gained by those who hear and retain his name.

i.2The aspirations of Bhaiṣajya­guru­vaiḍūrya­prabha center on bringing benefit to others. The sūtra relays that, first and foremost, Bhaiṣajya­guru­vaiḍūrya­prabha seeks to elevate all beings to the same level of realization that he has achieved, and to illuminate the world with light capable of dispelling the darkness that hinders spiritual progress. He aims to use his wisdom and skillful means to bring immeasurable wealth to beings, and to steer them away from mistaken paths, thus leading them to the Mahāyāna and ensuring their ability to practice pure conduct and discipline. He aspires also to cure beings of any ailments they may face, including the diseases that may afflict them, promising good health so they can devote themselves to spiritual practice. In short, he aims to assist all beings facing unfortunate circumstances by freeing them from ailments, ultimately leading them to liberation from the cycle of birth and death.

i.3Having detailed these aspirations, Śākyamuni next turns to Bhaiṣajya­guru­vaiḍūrya­prabha’s buddhafield, explaining that it is completely pure and encouraging all Mahāyāna practitioners to make the aspiration to be born in that realm. He then lists the benefits associated with simply hearing Bhaiṣajya­guru­vaiḍūrya­prabha’s name.

i.4Mañjuśrī responds by vowing to teach this sūtra in the future and provides a short set of instructions on how to worship it as a written work. Śākyamuni then turns to his disciple Ānanda and asks if he has any doubts or reservations about what has just been taught. Ānanda assures Śākyamuni that he does not doubt what he has heard, but then suggests that other beings might have doubts. The Buddha assures Ānanda, and by extension anyone who might read this sūtra, that it is impossible for anyone who has heard the name Bhaiṣajya­guru­vaiḍūrya­prabha to be reborn in the lower realms.

i.5The text continues with a set of instructions from the bodhisattva Trāṇamukta about how making offerings to Bhaiṣajya­guru­vaiḍūrya­prabha can reverse the process of dying and call a dying or dead person’s consciousness back to the body. Trāṇamukta outlines a ritual that is performed over a forty-nine-day period and that begins with observing the eightfold purification vows, providing support for the offering rite to the monastic saṅgha, and contemplating Bhaiṣajya­guru’s name three times each day and three times each night. Then saṅgha members recite the text forty-nine times and offer oil lamps to seven statues of Bhaiṣajya­guru for a forty-nine-day period. Trāṇamukta states that kings can also perform this rite to avoid disaster and ensure the happiness of the kingdom. He concludes his instructions with a brief enumeration of nine types of untimely death, telling Ānanda that the problem of untimely death is the reason why Śākyamuni has taught the use of mantras and medicines. The sūtra concludes with Mañjuśrīkumārabhūta, the bodhisattvas, the Lord of Secrets Vajrapāṇi, and indeed the entire world including its gods, humans, asuras, and gandharvas rejoicing and praising what the Blessed One had said

i.6This sūtra survives in Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan. In Sanskrit, there are three available editions, compiled and edited from the cache of Buddhist Sanskrit manuscripts excavated from a stūpa in Gilgit in the early twentieth century. Gregory Schopen notes that at least five manuscripts of this text were found among the Gilgit collection, and his analysis of them shows that there were at least two distinct recensions of the text circulating in Gilgit during the fifth and sixth centuries ᴄᴇ. Some substantial passages in Sanskrit have also survived as several citations in Śāntideva’s (685–783 ᴄᴇ) Śikṣāsamuccaya , indicating that the text continued to be well known in the Buddhist heartland of India in the eighth century ᴄᴇ.

i.7Considerably earlier even than the Sanskrit manuscripts of Gilgit, however, a Chinese translation very similar to the later versions of the text was included as the twelfth and final fascicle of a longer work (Taishō 1331) translated by Śrīmitra in the early fourth century ᴄᴇ. In the seventh century, two new standalone Chinese translations were made, one in 616 ᴄᴇ by Dharmagupta (Taishō 449) and one in 650 ᴄᴇ by Xuanzang (Taishō 450).

i.8The Tibetan translation has a colophon telling us that it was made by two ninth-century Indian preceptors‍—Jinamitra and Dānaśīla‍—in conjunction with Bandé Yeshé Dé (mid-eighth to early ninth century), placing the date for its initial translation from Sanskrit into Tibetan in the early ninth century. This date is confirmed by the text’s appearance in both the Denkarma and Phangthangma royal Tibetan catalogs of translated works. Although both royal Tibetan catalogs indicate that this text was originally classified as a sūtra, Butön listed it in different works as both a sūtra and a tantra, and in all Kangyurs it is placed with the tantras of the Action (kriyā) class. In the Degé Kangyur it is presented among the texts of this category related to the principal figure of the tathāgata family (de bzhin gshegs pa’i rigs kyi gtso bo) as one work in a cycle of four that relate to the Buddha Bhaiṣajya­guru­vaiḍūrya­prabha. The first of the texts in this cycle, The Detailed Account of the Previous Aspirations of the Seven Thus-Gone Ones (Toh 503), first describes the aspirations of six other tathāgatas, and then reproduces almost verbatim the content of the present text centered on Bhaiṣajya­guru­vaiḍūrya­prabha, a passage that takes up half the length of the text. The historical relationship of these two texts remains to be investigated, but the existence of fourth and seventh century ᴄᴇ Chinese translations, as well as of fifth to sixth century Sanskrit manuscripts, of the present work‍—while the longer text only appeared in China in the eighth century‍—strongly suggests that the present work was the first to exist. It has no obvious tantric characteristics and it is perhaps surprising that it is not at least duplicated in the General Sūtra section, like many other works of its kind.

i.9Bhaiṣajya­guru­vaiḍūrya­prabha is a widely known figure of the Buddhist pantheon in all countries where the Mahāyāna is practiced, and he is familiarly known as the Medicine Buddha or the Buddha of Healing, the short form of his name in Tibetan being Sangyé Menla (sangs rgyas sman bla). As this text demonstrates, his aspirations and activity are by no means confined to the relief of suffering caused by illness, but his popularity stems no doubt from this universally experienced need. A large number of liturgies in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition were written for the purpose of invoking, visualizing, and praying to him, and in these texts as well as in many paintings and murals he is depicted as a blue-colored buddha, holding in his alms bowl a sprig of myrobalan to represent medicinal plants. He is often visualized or depicted surrounded by the other six tathāgatas with which he is associated, accompanied by the two bodhisattvas mentioned in 1.­22, and sometimes by the twelve great yakṣa generals mentioned in 1.­53. Practices dedicated to him often involve the recitation of the dhāraṇī included in the third text of the cycle, The Dhāraṇī of the Tathāgata Vaiḍūryaprabha (Toh 505), and of the homage and short mantra that compose the fourth, untitled text that we have numbered Toh 505a.

i.10This translation is based on the Tibetan translation from the Tantra Section in the Degé Kangyur, in consultation with the Tibetan translations in the Stok Palace Kangyur and the Comparative Kangyur (Tib. dpe bsdur ma). It was checked against the Sanskrit editions of the Gilgit manuscripts prepared by Dutt, Vaidya, and Schopen.