Toh 225The Noble Great Vehicle Sūtra “Taking Refuge in the Three Jewels”

Summary

In Taking Refuge in the Three Jewels, the
venerable Śāriputra wonders how much merit accrues to someone who takes refuge
in the Three Jewels: the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Saṅgha. He therefore seeks
out the Buddha Śākyamuni and requests a teaching on this topic. The Buddha
proceeds to describe how even vast offerings, performed in miraculous ways,
would not constitute a fraction of the merit gained by someone who takes refuge
in the Three Jewels.

Acknowledgements

This text was translated by the Dharmachakra Translation Committee under
the guidance of Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche. Benjamin Collet-Cassart translated the
text from Tibetan. Andreas Doctor compared the draft translation with the
original Tibetan, edited the text, and wrote the introduction.

The translation was completed under the patronage and supervision of
84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha.

Introduction

Taking Refuge in the Three Jewels
unfolds in the Jeta’s
Grove at Śrāvastī, where the Buddha Śākyamuni is residing with a large
gathering of monks. The sūtra begins as the venerable Śāriputra, who is
practicing meditation alone in the forest, wonders how much merit is
obtained by those who take refuge in the Three Jewels: the Buddha, the
Dharma, and the Saṅgha. After finishing his meditation practice,
Śāriputra goes before the Buddha Śākyamuni and requests the Buddha to teach
on that topic. In his answer, the Buddha presents an analogy that is meant
to describe the enormous merit that such devotees obtain. Even if someone
could magically erect a stūpa the size of the entire world and make vast,
miraculous offerings to it for eons on end, the merit gained thereby would
not constitute even a fraction of the merit gained by those who take refuge
in the Three Jewels. After the Buddha has delivered this teaching, the earth
quakes, lightning strikes, and the gods in the heavens play divine music to
celebrate the teaching. Finally, the Buddha instructs Ānanda to remember the
teaching so that he can pass it on to others.

Very little is known about the history of this text in India. The
Sanskrit version of this sūtra is no longer extant, and it seems to have
never been translated into Chinese. Hence, the only witness of this sūtra
available today is the Tibetan translation included in the Kangyur. The
colophon of the Tibetan translation states that it was produced by the
Indian paṇḍita Sarvajñādeva and the Tibetan translator-editor Paltsek, thus locating its translation in the late eighth or early ninth
century. This dating is also confirmed by the text’s inclusion in the
Denkarma (lhan/ldan dkar ma) catalog of
the early ninth century ce. The text has previously been translated
into English by Kenneth Liberman with the assistance of Jampa Losel in 1988, and most recently, there is another English translation by Peter Skilling, along with some helpful
notes, found in his 2021 anthology Questioning the Buddha: A Selection of Twenty-Five Sutras.
The translation presented here was made primarily based on the
Degé edition, in consultation with the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma) and the Stok Palace manuscript
edition.

The Translation

The Noble Great Vehicle Sūtra

Taking Refuge in the Three Jewels

Homage to the Three Jewels!

Thus did I hear at one time. The Blessed One was residing in Śrāvastī, in Jeta’s
Grove, Anāthapiṇḍada’s park, together with a great saṅgha of
1,250 monks.

At that time, while the venerable Śāradvatīputra was alone in the
forest, this thought arose in his mind: “I should go before the Teacher so
that I can ask the Well-Gone One, the Dharma Lord, this question: ‘How much
merit is accumulated by faithful noble sons or noble daughters who take
refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Saṅgha of monks?’ ”

At dusk the venerable Śāriputra emerged from his meditative
seclusion and went to see the Blessed One. When he arrived, he bowed his
head to the Blessed One’s feet and sat to one side. While seated to the
side, the venerable Śāriputra asked the Blessed One, “Honored One, while I
was staying alone in the forest in meditative seclusion, this thought arose
in my mind: ‘How much merit is accumulated by faithful noble sons or noble
daughters who take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Saṅgha of
monks?’ ”

The Blessed One replied to the venerable Śāriputra, “Śāriputra, you
have asked this question in order to benefit and bring happiness to many
beings. Out of love for the world, you seek to help a vast number of beings,
gods and humans alike, by
accomplishing their welfare and happiness. That is excellent, excellent!
Śāriputra, as you have thought to come and question the Thus-Gone One about
this matter, I will reply with an analogy to make you understand.

“Imagine that someone endowed with magical powers were to transfer
into another world all the beings that live in Jambudvīpa—the land of
Jambudvīpa and its subcontinents, which measure seven thousand leagues
across and lengthwise. Having made the ground even like the palm of a hand,
that person would then build a stūpa made of the seven precious gems—gold,
silver, beryl, crystal, red coral, emerald, and white coral. It would be the
size of Jambudvīpa, and its summit would reach the Brahmā realms. That
person would then worship that stūpa with offerings of divine incense,
divine flowers, divine garlands, and divine parasols, banners, and flags.
This person endowed with these magical powers would then pour all the water
of the four great oceans into another world system and replace it with four
oceans filled with maruka oil. He would then
place a wick the size of Mount Sumeru into the oceans so that for many eons
this oil lamp would continuously burn.

“Śāriputra, tell me, would that person accumulate a lot of merit on
that basis?”

“Blessed One, yes, a lot! Well-Gone One, yes, a lot! This is beyond all the hearers and solitary buddhas. Blessed One, this is the
domain of the thus-gone ones. Well-Gone One, this is the domain of the
thus-gone ones.”

“Śāriputra, that amount of merit would not match even a hundredth,
a thousandth, or even a hundred
thousandth of the merit created by a noble son or noble daughter who takes
refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Saṅgha. This difference could not
be illustrated by any numbers, examples, or calculations.”

When this Dharma teaching was given, the whole great trichiliocosm
began to quiver, tremble, quake, wobble, rock, sway, vibrate, shudder, and
reel. Great lightning flashes struck, and the gods caused the sound of drums
to be heard.

The venerable Ānanda asked the Blessed One, “Blessed One, what is
the name of this Dharma teaching? How should it be remembered?”

The Blessed One replied, “Ānanda, you should remember this Dharma
teaching as Accomplishing Limitless
Gateways. This is how you should see its
meaning, and this is how you should remember it.”

When the Blessed One had spoken, the venerable Śāriputra and the
other monks praised the Blessed One’s words.

This concludes the noble Great Vehicle sūtra “Taking Refuge in
the Three Jewels.”

Colophon

This was translated, edited, and finalized by the Indian upādhyāya
Sarvajñādeva and the translator-editor Bandé Paltsek.

Notes

Bibliography

Paltsek

dpal brtsegs
དཔལ་བརྩེགས།

Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍada’s Park
jetavanam anāthapiṇḍadasyārāmaḥ
rgyal bu rgyal byed kyi tshal mgon med zas sbyin gyi kun dga’ ra ba
རྒྱལ་བུ་རྒྱལ་བྱེད་ཀྱི་ཚལ་མགོན་མེད་ཟས་སྦྱིན་གྱི་ཀུན་དགའ་ར་བ།