Introduction

i.1Surata’s Questions, the twenty-seventh sūtra in the Heap of Jewels section of the Kangyur, displays many of the common tropes of Mahāyāna literature, including the Buddha’s unimaginably vast retinue, his performance of miracles, such as lights emanating from his body, and the conversion of a previously stubborn interlocutor. Also typical of Mahāyāna sūtras, the main protagonist is the eponymous figure of the sūtra, in lieu of the Buddha. Surata’s Questions thus mainly focuses on the story of Surata in a narrative that can be conceptualized in six movements.

i.2First, Surata, identified simply as a “poor city-dweller,” is tested by the god Śakra in Śrāvastī, the city where the Buddha himself happens to be residing. With his divine eye, Śakra perceives Surata to be of impeccable moral character and so decides to determine the limits of his resolve. Śakra magically creates several scenarios to tempt Surata to succumb to a desire for power, wealth, and sexual gratification. But being inveterately moral and without desire, Surata resists each temptation, and responds to them in eloquent verses that highlight the dangers of succumbing to each of them. At this point, Śakra becomes deeply impressed with Surata.

i.3In the second movement, Surata chances upon a precious gem. As a good bodhisattva, he resolves to give the jewel to the poorest person in the city of Śrāvastī, the capital of Kośala. Announcing this publicly, the townsfolk predictably make their case for why they are the poorest and therefore the most deserving of the gem. They are also predictably irritated when Surata declares he has decided to give the gem to the king of Kośala, the famed King Prasenajit. Having gained the crowd’s attention through his audacity, Surata gives a soliloquy on how true wealth lies not in possessions, but in virtue. Surata therefore displays characteristic Mahāyāna skillful means, leveraging the townsfolk’s infatuation with the gem to impart a moral lesson.

i.4With the crowd in tow, Surata delivers the gem to King Prasenajit. It is a backhanded gesture since Surata offers it with the explanation that the king is the poorest person in Śrāvastī. Insulted, the king asks Surata to explain how he could possibly be the poorest. Surata proceeds to describe how the king’s political maneuverings and plundering have made him bereft of moral virtue. His possessions mean nothing without the merit of good deeds, for without this, one is karmically doomed to a miserable future. The king is both moved and angered by Surata’s exposition, and so remains unconvinced, asking if there is anyone who can bear witness to Surata’s testament. This ushers in the fourth movement of the story. Surata says that the Buddha will bear such witness. King Prasenajit therefore requests Surata to invite the Buddha, but Surata counters that there is no need, for, being omniscient, the Buddha will arrive simply through Surata’s mental aspiration. The Buddha suddenly bursts forth from the ground, accompanied by a dizzying number of holy beings. The Buddha attests to Surata’s summation of the king’s wealth, and so Prasenajit is convinced. Surata suggests that the Buddha give a sermon, since it would be a shame for him to come without doing so. After delivering his sermon, the Buddha and his retinue continue their upward trajectory by flying into the sky.

i.5In the fifth movement, Surata delivers a sermon of his own, describing the various meanings of retinue. At the conclusion, the king again feels moved to contrition, offering bolts of cloth to the rag-clad Surata. When Surata rejects the offer, the king requests Surata to at least walk upon the cloth. This is a great show of respect because the feet are considered the most impure part of a person’s body. Thus to request someone to touch an object with their feet suggests that even the lowest part of that person’s body confers immense blessing. Surata then requests that the king give this cloth to the poor townsfolk, demonstrating that Surata did not trade their welfare solely to create an opportunity to teach the Dharma; in lieu of the gem, he was still able to offer them something of value in the end.

i.6The sixth and final movement of the story reads somewhat like an epilogue. Sometime later, King Prasenajit, his family, and his royal attendants accompany Surata to visit the Buddha. Śakra emanates a grand throne for the Buddha and his retinue with the requisite fanfare. Some of the other gods question why Surata, out of place in his ragged garments, is in attendance. Śakra’s earlier respect for Surata resurfaces when he comes to Surata’s defense by admonishing the other gods for their failure to realize how special Surata is. As Śakra foreshadows, the Buddha concludes the sūtra by predicting Surata’s awakening, to the grand jubilation of all.

i.7Surata is a common personal name in Buddhist literature, but no other text appears to mention a renunciate bodhisattva who might be identifiable as the Surata of this text. In contrast, the prominent role in this narrative of Prasenajit, king of Kośala, a well-known figure in Buddhist literature, is noteworthy. It is believed that Prasenajit was born in the same year as Siddhārtha, the future Buddha, and it is possible, given the close geographical and political ties between Kośala and the Śākya kingdom, that Prasenajit and the Śākya prince Siddhārtha moved in the same royal circles and knew each other from an early age. Prasenajit is generally depicted as a dedicated, lifelong patron of the Buddha with an exemplary degree of devotion to him. This devotion is clearly demonstrated in Prasenajit’s most famous deed: his fashioning of a sandalwood image of Śākyamuni‍—perhaps the earliest record of any image of the Buddha‍—to soothe his longing and devotion when the Buddha was away from Śrāvastī. Prasenajit is also a frequent interlocuter in Buddhist sūtras, presenting the questions to Śākyamuni that elicit his sermons. For his role in Buddhist sūtras and his acts of patronage and devotion, Prasenajit is often held up as the model of Buddhist kingship.

i.8This general depiction of Prasenajit in Buddhist literature makes his role in Surata’s Questions a curious one. Here he is described as a rapacious and maniacal tyrant who steals the wealth of his people and inflicts needless suffering upon them. It is only through Surata’s challenge and the Buddha’s subsequent chastisement that Prasenajit realizes his faults as a king and awakens his devotion to the Buddha and his community. That this narrative stands somewhat at odds with Prasenajit’s general status in Buddhist literature may simply demonstrate the malleability of common Buddhist narratives for the sake of expediency in articulating the ethical or doctrinal message of a given scriptural discourse. Possibly, too, in describing what seems to be his first meeting with the Buddha following the latter’s awakening, the text could be read as indicating that Prasenajit’s views on how best to wield royal power had, prior to that first encounter with Surata’s challenge as a prelude, been fiercer and more autocratic than is suggested in other accounts of his subsequent doings. If this is an account of Prasenajit’s first meeting with the Buddha, however, it should be noted that it is a quite different one from the classic account related in the Saṅghabhedavastu (Toh 1 chapter 17), in its standalone derivative the Abhiniṣkramanasūtra (Toh 301), and in the Pali Dahara-sutta (SN 3.1). This unique perspective on the figure of Prasenajit thus counts among the numerous ways Surata’s Questions makes a significant contribution to our understanding of Buddhist literature.

i.9In addition to the Tibetan translation found in various Kangyurs, three Chinese translations of the Surataparipṛcchā are presently available. Of the two earlier versions, the first, translated by Bai Yan in the mid-third century, is titled 佛說須賴經 (Fo shuo xulai jing, Taishō 328), and the second, translated by Zhi Shilun in 373 ᴄᴇ, has the title 須賴經 (Xu lai jing, Taishō 329). The attributions and dates of these two early translations, given here from the standard catalogs, remain disputed by scholars. A later version was translated in the sixth century by Bodhiruci under the title 善順菩薩會 (Shanshun pusa hui), which is one title (number 27) among the 49 texts included under Taishō 310, the Ratnakūṭa. The latter translation by Bodhiruci served as the basis for the English translation of the Surataparipṛcchā published by Garma C. C. Chang and his team in 1983. There are marked differences between Bodhiruci’s translation and the Tibetan versions used in the translation of this sūtra that follows here, which are closer to the two earlier versions. These differences are reflected in Chang’s English translation. The final, sixth movement is not found in the Chinese version, and the order of events varies. In the sequence from the Tibetan translation reported above, the narrative continues after the Buddha has given his sermon on the meanings of retinue; the Chinese version of the sūtra, however, concludes at this point. The contents of the Buddha’s sermon in the fourth movement also vary widely between the two versions: in the Chinese, the Buddha discusses the thirty-two practices that good Mahāyāna adherents must follow, while in the Tibetan, the Buddha expounds six different sets of four, each tetrad communicating seemingly disconnected aspects of Buddhist practice. Other differences are minor but noteworthy: in the Tibetan version, for instance, Surata chances upon a precious gem, and in the Chinese, he finds a golden bell.

i.10Surata’s Questions is only mentioned by name in one work of the Tengyur, an anthology titled Compendium of Sūtras on the Steps of Meditation (Bhāvanā­krama­sūtra­samuccaya, bsgom pa’i rim pa mdo kun las btus pa). The work cites two interesting parts of the sūtra, both of which are in verse. The first reads:

i.13This verse is given in the midst of several other citations describing the importance of keeping one’s ethics in order to escape the suffering of saṃsāra. The second selection is cited as an example of how to go to refuge to the Three Jewels‍—the Buddha, Dharma, and Saṅgha:

i.15The context of these passages becomes clear in the sūtra translated below. However, the decision to isolate these passages and place them in a mélange of other such passages from other sūtras suggests they may have been recognized as standalone aphorisms that were well-known in the compiler’s contemporary Buddhist community and worthy of record.

i.16There is no surviving Sanskrit witness to Surata’s Questions. It was translated into Tibetan by a group of translators, including the famous translator Bandé Yeshé Dé, no later than the early ninth century ᴄᴇ. The text is recorded in both the Denkarma and the Phangthangma‍—both early catalogs of Tibetan translations. The translation below relies primarily on the Degé (sde dge) edition of the text, but other editions included in the Comparative Edition of the Kangyur (bka’ ’gyur dpe bsdur ma) as well as the Stok Palace (stog pho brang) edition of the Kangyur were consulted, particularly when the Degé seemed to contain errors or nonintuitive readings. Chang’s English translation of the Chinese version of this text‍—which, as described above, is markedly different from the Tibetan‍—was also consulted for comparison.