Introduction

i.1The Questions of Guṇaratnasaṅkusumita is primarily concerned with the benefits that arise from remembering the names of various buddhas in different realms. Like many sūtras, this scripture begins with an interlocutor raising a question to the Buddha Śākyamuni. In this case it is the bodhisattva Guṇaratnasaṅkusumita, who asks whether there are buddhas whose very names carry such transformative power as to elevate the beings who hear these names to buddhahood. Śākyamuni replies that there are ten buddhas whose names hold such power. The sūtra continues with the Buddha naming and describing these buddhas and their realms, as well as declaring the specific effects that knowledge of their names ensures. The buddhas are described as residing in each of the ten directions and, while some of their names appear in other sūtras, most of them appear to be unique to this scripture, as are the names of their realms.

i.2The notion that a disciple can become destined for awakening merely by recalling the names of buddhas who live in other realms appears in a number of Great Vehicle sūtras. In the Tibetan Kangyur these sūtras are found scattered throughout the sūtra collections. While a number of organizing principles were employed when the editors of the Kangyur structured this collection, the texts concerned with the liberating effects of the names of various buddhas were, however, not grouped based on this subject matter but instead were dispersed throughout the sūtra collections following other editorial priorities.

i.3While The Questions of Guṇaratnasaṅkusumita is a member of the Ratnakūṭa collection, a slightly different version of this sūtra also appears in the general sūtra section under the title The Ten Buddhas. These two texts are identical in most respects, but in several instances the names of the various world systems, eons, and buddhas differ, sometimes in part, sometimes entirely. The summary verses, which appear after each presentation of the individual buddhas, are also, for the most part, different in the two texts. Interestingly, although both texts attest to having been translated into Tibetan by the same group of people, it appears that the inclusion of The Ten Buddhas into the canon may have occurred at a later time, since The Questions of Guṇaratnasaṅkusumita is listed in the earliest catalog of Tibetan translations, the Denkarma (ldan dkar ma), while The Ten Buddhas is not. Regardless of these historical uncertainties, both of these sūtras are good representatives of the genre of Great Vehicle literature in which the virtues embodied in the names of the buddhas are extolled and declared to guarantee a future awakening for all who remember them.

i.4The Questions of Guṇaratnasaṅkusumita is no longer extant in Sanskrit but is included in the Chinese canon. It was translated into Chinese sometime between 706 and 713 ᴄᴇ by Bodhiruci (d. 727), a renowned translator from South India (who is not to be confused with another famous Indian translator of the same name who was active in China two centuries earlier). This Bodhiruci is responsible for translating much of the Ratnakūṭa collection, among other texts. In Tibet The Questions of Guṇaratnasaṅkusumita was among the many Great Vehicle sūtras that were brought into the country in the late eighth and early ninth centuries, during the imperial period in which the majority of the sūtras in the Tibetan canon were translated. The translation is attributed to the well-known Indian scholars Prajñāvarman and Jinamitra, along with the prolific Tibetan chief editor-translator Yeshé Dé. The English translation presented here was based primarily on the Tibetan Degé edition, in consultation with the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma) and the Stok Palace manuscript edition.