Toh 28The Noble Mahāyāna Sūtra “The Samantabhadra Perfection of Wisdom”

Summary

In a retreat place in Magadha, the Buddha Śākyamuni and the bodhisattva
Samantabhadra, surrounded by many bodhisattvas, perform miracles in a meditative
absorption. The bodhisattva Samantabhadra asks the Buddha to distinguish between
two levels of the perfection of wisdom. In response, the Buddha gives
definitions of these two levels. This sūtra is one of the short prajñāpāramitā
sūtras, and it belongs especially to the category related to the five
bodhisattvas: Sūryagarbha, Candragarbha, Samantabhadra, Vajrapāṇi, and
Vajraketu. Despite its brevity, it echoes other sūtras that feature the figure
of Samantabhadra and the distinguishing of two types of wisdom.

Acknowledgements

Translated by the Nyimé Translation Committee. Paul Baffier produced the
translation and wrote the introduction. Grégoire Langouët helped with
preparatory research work, compared the draft translation with the Tibetan, and
reviewed the final draft. Philippe Cornu reviewed the fundamental points of the
text and provided materials, references, and support.

This translation has been completed under the patronage and supervision
of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha.

Introduction

The Samantabhadra
Perfection of Wisdom is a brief Mahāyāna sūtra
that is included among the twenty-three prajñāpāramitā sūtras. It is one of
five prajñāpāramitā sūtras associated with five bodhisattva figures:
Sūryagarbha, Candragarbha, Samantabhadra, Vajrapāṇi, and Vajraketu. The five
sūtras are found in all Kangyurs, whether of Tshalpa, Themphangma, or mixed
lineage. They are all short, “unpretentious treatises” (Conze) whose
originals are variously dated from the sixth century ce to the seventh or eighth.

There are no extant Sanskrit versions or translations in the Chinese
canon for any of the works in this group of five sūtras; they are preserved
only in Tibetan. There are no colophons and so the Tibetan translators are
unknown. None of these texts are listed in the two extant ninth-century
inventories, the Denkarma and Pangthangma, and they do not appear in a list
of translations by Yeshé Dé.
The Candragarbha Perfection of Wisdom (Toh
27) is the only one mentioned in the
thirteenth-century inventory of Chomden Rigpai Raltri. Some decades later, all
five were included in the fourteenth-century list of canonical translations
in Butön’s History. Butön notes that the five
are not included in the traditional list of six “mother” and eleven “child”
prajñāpāramitā sūtras.

The two main features of this particular sūtra are the key point it
makes about wisdom and its link to the bodhisattva Samantabhadra. The first
key point concerns the distinction between two levels of wisdom
(prajñā). It elucidates
what resembles wisdom and what actually is wisdom. What actually is wisdom
arises only on the first bodhisattva ground as a direct experience, and the
unstated implication behind the term “what resembles wisdom” is that until
that point it can only be a conceptual image of true wisdom. A very similar
distinction between “contaminated and uncontaminated” types of the
perfection of wisdom is made in The Candragarbha
Perfection of Wisdom. The Buddha explains contaminated wisdom as
dualistic and pertaining to the stage of devoted conduct, and uncontaminated
wisdom as arising on the path of seeing (the equivalent of the first ground,
as mentioned in the present text). Here,
however, “contamination” as such is not mentioned.

The second main feature of the sūtra is its link to the bodhisattva
Samantabhadra. Samantabhadra is an interlocutor in many Mahāyāna sūtras and
is included in the group of important bodhisattvas known as the “eight great
sons.” He does not appear at all in the long prajñāpāramitā sūtras. However,
he does play a major role in the sūtras of the Buddhāvataṃsaka family. The present text echoes two passages in
the final chapter of The Stem Array (Gaṇḍavyūhasūtra, Toh 44-45), which is focused
particularly on the figure of Samantabhadra. First, where our text says “all
of them remained in the conduct of having mastered Samantabhadra’s
aspiration,” this is a reference to the aspiration that Samantabhadra
describes in that final chapter and then sets out in his celebrated “Prayer
for Good Conduct” (Bhadracarīpraṇidhāna,
bzang spyod smon lam). Second, the mention of
Samantabhadra’s meditative stability causing world systems and buddhafields
to shake echoes this passage in that final chapter: “Some, through thinking
of me, become ripened in one day… Some become ripened through seeing my
light, some through seeing the light rays I radiate, some through the realm
shaking, some through the manifestation of my form body, and some through
rejoicing in it.”

We have based our work on the Degé xylograph and consulted the
Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma) of
the Kangyur, the Hemis Monastery manuscript, and the Shey Palace manuscript.
The differences between the manuscripts slightly impact their
interpretation, as is reflected in the two previous translations of this
sūtra into Western languages. For his English translation, Edward Conze
(1973) based his work on the Narthang Kangyur, while George Driessens refers
in his French translation (1996) to the Degé Kangyur. A recent translation
into Chinese has been published online by the Kumarajiva Project.

The Translation

The Noble Mahāyāna Sūtra

The Samantabhadra Perfection of Wisdom

Homage to all buddhas and bodhisattvas!

Thus did I hear at one time. The Blessed One was dwelling in the
country of Magadha in a solitary place, the essence of
Dharma,
accompanied
by bodhisattvas who had gathered there from limitless, countless
buddhafields in the ten directions and were as numerous as the minute
particles of those buddhafields. All of them maintained the conduct of having
mastered Samantabhadra’s aspiration.

Then the bodhisattva Samantabhadra entered the
meditative stability called the display of the nonconceptuality of
all phenomena.
Through the power of that meditative stability, world systems as numerous as
the minute particles of buddhafields were all shaken. The Blessed One then
touched the bodhisattva Samantabhadra’s head with his hand, and through that
touch all the buddhafields, too, were shaken. The gods praised him with a
harmonious verse:

“Light of the world, beyond compare among gods and humans,

Your qualities perfect like an ocean,

You liberate beings from the ocean of becoming.

Guide, we pray that you protect us!”

Then the bodhisattva Samantabhadra asked the Blessed One, “Blessed
One, how should we train in the goal of training that resembles wisdom, and
that which is wisdom?”

The Blessed One replied, “Samantabhadra, that which resembles wisdom
is the wisdom of those traveling the worldly path of accumulation. That
which is wisdom is the wisdom of the first ground onward.”

When the Blessed One had spoken these words, the bodhisattva
Samantabhadra and the whole world with its gods and humans rejoiced and
praised what the Blessed One had said.

This completes “The Noble Samantabhadra
Mahāyāna Sūtra.”

Notes

Abbreviations

Y
Peking Yongle (g.yung lo) Kangyur

Bibliography

Source Texts—Tibetan

Secondary References—Tibetan

Secondary References——Chinese

Translations and References—Western Languages