Toh 183Dānānuśaṃsānirdeśa — Bài Kinh Cao Quý "Giảng Về Lợi Ích Của Sự Bố Thí" (Toh 183)

Summary

This short discourse was taught to an audience of monks in Śrāvastī, in the Jetavana. The Buddha details thirty-seven
ways in which the wise give gifts, how those gifts are properly given, and the positive results that ripen from giving
such gifts. The Buddha makes clear that the result that ripens is similar to the gift that was given or the manner in
which the gift was given.

Acknowledgements

This sūtra was translated from Tibetan into English by Khenpo Kalsang Gyaltsen and Chodrungma Kunga Chodron.
Venerable Bhiksuni Heng-Ching Shih kindly assisted with comparison to the Chinese version. The sūtra was then edited and
introduced by the 84000 editorial team.

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

Introduction

The setting for this discourse is the Jetavana, Anāthapiṇḍada’s Park, where the Buddha spent many
rainy-season retreats and where many of the Buddha’s discourses are said to have been delivered. In this
particular discourse, the Buddha succinctly describes thirty-seven ways in which the wise give gifts, as well as
the results that ripen from their gift giving. More specifically, the first five ways in which the wise give
gifts that the Buddha enumerates are relatively general and pertain primarily to the manner in which gifts are
given and the purpose for which gifts are given. The wise are said, for example, to give gifts with faith in
order to dispel stinginess, or respectfully in order to dispel mental agitation. For each of the remaining
thirty-two ways in which gifts are given, the Buddha describes the result that ripens from the particular act,
and in each case the result that ripens is similar to the gift that was its cause. For example, giving a gift of
food ripens as the elimination of hunger in all one’s future lives. The discourse concludes with the Buddha
proclaiming the thirty-seventh and final way in which the wise give gifts, namely, without any expectation of
reward, the full ripening of which is the unsurpassed and perfect awakening of a buddha.

No Sanskrit text that completely matches the content of this sūtra is known to be extant, but a version
in Sanskrit known as the Dānādhikaraṇa is preserved in the
Nepalese manuscripts of the Divyāvadāna, a collection of avadāna narratives
drawn mostly from the Mūlasarvāstivāda vinaya that may have been compiled from earlier sources in late medieval times
(although no manuscripts exist from earlier than the seventeenth century). The text, like the version of the sūtra
translated here, contains thirty-seven ways of giving gifts, although some differ to a varying degree in their detail.
A much earlier Sanskrit text that probably resembled the present version more closely is represented by a fragment
identified among the manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection by Matsuda in 2003. It is written on a piece of leather,
in a Gupta Brāhmī script that allows it to be dated to the fifth or sixth centuries, but the fragment includes only the last seven
ways of giving.

The Tibetan translation of this sūtra, the colophon tells us, was made by the Indian preceptor
Surendrabodhi and the Tibetan
translator-editor Yeshé Dé. It is also listed in the Denkarma
(ldan dkar ma) and Phangthangma (’phang thang ma) imperial catalogs, so we can infer that this sūtra was translated
from Sanskrit sometime during the late eighth- to early ninth-century. In the Degé Kangyur, this sūtra is placed
after The Perfection of Generosity, a longer, explicitly Mahāyāna sūtra, also translated by Yeshé Dé during the imperial
period, that also treats the topic of generosity. Not only is the present sūtra significantly shorter than
The Perfection of Generosity, but its content, apart from a small number of
references to the result of buddhahood, is not in the same way explicitly or exclusively concerned with the
bodhisattva path.

A version of the sūtra is also included in the Chinese Buddhist canon (Taishō 705,
佛說布施經), translated in the tenth century by Faxian. The opening section,
which describes the circumstances under which the discourse was delivered, is the same in
the Tibetan and Chinese versions, as is the closing section. However, the enumerated
gifts, the descriptions of how these gifts should be given, and the ripened results are a close match only
in just over half of the stanzas.

The Divyāvadāna version of the sūtra
was translated from the Sanskrit into English by James Ware in 1929
(along with passages from the Tibetan version), and more recently by Andy Rotman in the second
volume of his translations from that collection. An abbreviated translation of the sūtra made by Kalpana Upreti appeared
in 1989, and the most recent version in English is Peter Skilling’s translation, with helpful
notes, in his 2021 anthology Questioning the Buddha: A Selection of Twenty-Five
Sutras.

The present translation is based on the version in the Degé Kangyur, with reference to the Comparative
Edition (dpe bsdur ma).

The Translation

The Noble

Teaching the Benefits of Generosity

Homage to all buddhas and bodhisattvas!

Thus did I hear at one time. The Blessed One was dwelling in Śrāvastī, in the Jetavana, Anāthapiṇḍada’s Park. Then the Blessed One said to the monks, “Monks, the wise give gifts in thirty-seven ways. What
are those thirty-seven? They are as follows:

“They give gifts with faith in order to rid themselves of stinginess.

“They give gifts at the right time.

“They give gifts, in a pure manner, of the three things suitable to be given by the Thus-Gone One.

“They give gifts respectfully in order to rid themselves of all the faults of mental agitation.

“They give gifts with their own hands in order to take hold of the essence from the essenceless body.

“When they have given a gift that does not harm others, the ripening is that they will acquire great
generosity.

“When they have given a gift with exquisite colors, the ripening is that they will acquire a beautiful
complexion.

“When they have given a gift with an exquisite scent, the ripening is that they will acquire the scent of
fame.

“When they have given a gift with an exquisite taste, the ripening is that they will acquire the excellent
marks of supreme taste.

“When they have given a gift that is abundant, the ripening is that they will acquire abundant wealth.

“When they have given a gift that is vast, the ripening is that they will acquire vast wealth.

“When they have given a gift of food, the ripening is that they will acquire the elimination of hunger in
all future lives.

“When they have given a gift of drink, the ripening is that they will acquire the elimination of
thirst in all future lives.

“When they have given a gift of clothing, the ripening is that they will acquire a manifold wealth of
clothing.

“When they have given the gift of a dwelling, the ripening is that they will acquire houses with parapets
and multiple stories, and they will acquire courtyards, mansions, palaces, gardens, parks, and land.

“When they have given a gift of bedding, the ripening is that they will acquire a higher caste-status.

“When they have given the gift of a conveyance, the ripening is that they will acquire the four bases of miraculous power.

“When they have given a gift of medicine, the ripening is that they will acquire the nirvāṇa that is free
from aging and death and is the cessation of sorrow and defilement.

“When they have given a gift of Dharma, the ripening is that they will acquire the recollection of former
lives.

“When they have given a gift of flowers, the ripening is that they will acquire the flowers that are the
branches of awakening.

“When they have given a gift of garlands, the ripening is that they will acquire the purification of the
stains of attachment, aversion, and ignorance.

“When they have given a gift of incense, the ripening is that they will acquire total freedom from the
stench of the defilements.

“When they have given a gift of a parasol, the ripening is that they will acquire sovereign mastery of the
Dharma.

“When they have given a gift of a bell, the ripening is that they will acquire a pleasing voice.

“When they have given a gift of cymbals, the ripening is that they will acquire a voice like Brahmā’s.

“When they have given a gift of a lamp, the ripening is that they will acquire the divine eye, unobscured
and pure.

“When they have given a gift of silk, the ripening is that they will acquire the silken bond of liberation
among gods and humans.

“When they have made an offering of fragrant oil or perfumed bathing water to a stūpa of the Thus-Gone One
or an image of the Thus-Gone One, the ripening is that they will acquire the thirty-two marks and
eighty excellent signs of a great being.

“When they have given a gift of bathing necessities, the ripening is that in all their future lives they
will acquire few illnesses, birth in the highest caste, and great beauty.

“When they have given a gift of the five essential substances, the ripening is that in all
future lives they will acquire great power and irrepressible great joy.

“When they have given a gift while abiding in loving kindness, the ripening is that they will acquire
freedom from ill will.

“When they have given a gift while abiding in compassion, the ripening is that they will acquire
harmlessness.

“When they have given a gift while abiding in joy, the ripening is that they will acquire the ability to
bestow fearlessness.

“When they have given a gift while abiding in equanimity, the ripening is that they will rid themselves of
sadness.

“When they have given gifts of various kinds, the ripening is that they will acquire various riches.

“When they have given a gift while abiding with no expectation of reward, the ripening is that they will
acquire unsurpassed and perfect awakening.

“Monks, the wise give gifts in these thirty-seven ways.”

The Blessed One having spoken thus, the monks rejoiced and praised what the Blessed One said.

This completes the noble “Teaching the Benefits of Generosity.”

Colophon

This was translated, edited, and finalized by the Indian preceptor Surendrabodhi and the translator-editor Bandé
Yeshé Dé.

Notes

Bibliography

Jetavana, 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།