Introduction

i.1While the Buddha is residing in Śrāvastī, in Prince Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍada’s Park, with a great monastic assembly of 1,250 monks, elsewhere in Śrāvastī the eminent householder Vīradatta hosts a meeting with five hundred householders to discuss certain questions regarding the practice of the Great Vehicle. Hoping to resolve these questions, Vīradatta and the householders decide to approach the Buddha in Anāthapiṇḍada’s Park. There, the Buddha explains how bodhisattvas should engender the spirit of great compassion while not being attached to the body or to possessions, and he then instructs them on how bodhisattvas should examine the impermanence and impurity of the body. This prose teaching is followed by a set of verses that reiterate how the body is impure and impermanent and that elucidate the process of karma and its effects. With this teaching, Vīradatta and the five hundred householders all attain the acceptance that phenomena are unborn. They then proclaim, in a well-known series of verses, the merits of the resolve to attain spiritual awakening. The Buddha smiles and predicts that Vīradatta and the five hundred householders will awaken to buddhahood. The sūtra concludes with the Buddha telling Ānanda about the name of this Dharma discourse.

i.2The Questions of the Householder Vīradatta is preserved in Gāndhārī fragments and in Chinese, Tibetan, and Mongolian versions. There are three Chinese versions: the Pusa xiuxing jing 菩薩修行經 translated by Bo Fazuo circa 290–306 ᴄᴇ (Taishō 330), the Quan shou chang zhe hui 勸授長者會 translated by Bodhiruci in 713 ᴄᴇ (Taishō 310(28)), and the Wu wei shou suo wen da cheng jing 無畏授所問大乘經 translated by Dānapāla circa 980 ᴄᴇ. The Tibetan version is preserved in one Dunhuang manuscript (IOL Tib J 184) and approximately twenty-eight Kangyur editions. This English translation is based on a complete Dunhuang Tibetan manuscript (IOL Tib J 184), which was compared against another Dunhuang Tibetan manuscript (IOL Tib J 185) and seven Kangyur editions. The IOL Tib J 184 manuscript version is the oldest and most complete version of the extant Tibetan textual witnesses.

i.3The sūtra is listed differently in two early ninth-century Tibetan catalogs. In the Denkarma catalog the discourse is listed as khyim bdag dpas byin gyis zhus pa in three hundred ślokas and is included in the Ratnakūṭa (Heap of Jewels) section. The Phangthangma catalog records the sūtra as dpal byin gyis zhus pa in one fascicle but does not include the discourse in the Ratnakūṭa section. The late thirteenth-century catalog of the Tibetan Kadampa master Darma Gyaltsen (dar ma rgyal mtshan, 1227–1305), commonly known as Chomden Raldri (bcom ldan ral gri), lists the sūtra as dpal byin gyis zhus pa. A listing of texts appended to Butön Rinchen Drup’s (bu ston rin chen grub, 1290–1364) History of Buddhism (chos ’byung) also records the work as the khyim bdag dpal sbyin gyis zhus pa in one fascicle. As found in the translation, the colophon of IOL Tib J 184 lists the translators as the Indian preceptors Jinamitra and Dānaśīla along with the chief editor-translator Bandé Yeshé Dé (ban de ye shes sde). The colophon also mentions that the translators utilized the “revised terminology” (skad gsar bcad) of the new translation period and that the sūtra forms the thirty-second chapter of the Ratnakūṭa collection.

i.4The origins of The Questions of the Householder Vīradatta can be traced to the early centuries of the common era, based on the existence of fragments of the work as preserved in Gāndhārī. The scripture reflects the “Mahāyānization” of such practices as the mindfulness of the body (kāya­smṛtyupasthāna) and meditation on the impurity of the body (aśubhabhāvanā) that circulated among Yogācāra proponents in the second to fourth century. The title Vīradatta­paripṛcchā figures in a pre-sixth-century list of scriptures found in the Nandi­mitrāvadāna. Although the exact contents of the discourse at that stage in its history is unknown, the Vīradatta­paripṛcchā is listed in that work independently of any Ratnakūṭa collection, indicating that the Vīradatta­paripṛcchā circulated as an individual text for a period of time.

i.5The Questions of the Householder Vīradatta was cited as a scriptural authority by Indian Buddhist masters. The Sūtrasamuccaya , attributed to Nāgārjuna (ca. second–third centuries), cites the sūtra three times: once in its chapter on the rareness of great compassion and twice in its chapter on the rareness of really serious Dharma practice on the part of householders. Other Indian Buddhist commentators such as Bhāviveka (ca. 500–570), Kamalaśīla (ca. 740–95), and Atiśa (982–1054) cite the sūtra as a scriptural source for the immeasurable qualities of the resolve for awakening (bodhicitta). The fact that the verses from the sūtra on the resolve for awakening cited by these commentators are actually spoken by Vīradatta and his entourage of five hundred householders suggests that there was considerable latitude as to what qualifies as the “word of the Buddha” (buddhavacana) and that this could include the speech of followers of the Buddha whom he had influenced and endorsed. Śāntideva’s Śikṣāsamuccaya also cites the sūtra several times as a scriptural authority, particularly in its chapter on the applications of mindfulness. We can assume that The Questions of the Householder Vīradatta enjoyed some popularity in eighth- and ninth-century Tibet based on its inclusion among the 104 titles (no. 82) of Buddhist scriptures found in Mahāvyutpatti §65. The sūtra was also sporadically cited in later Tibetan commentaries and briefly analyzed by Pekar Sangpo (pad dkar bzang po, sixteenth century) in his overview of each sūtra preserved among the Tibetan Kangyurs.