Toh 350Hạnh Nguyện Đời Trước Của Kanakavarṇa

Summary

In The Past Endeavor of Kanakavarṇa the Buddha
Śākyamuni illustrates the power of generosity by narrating a distant past life as a
magnanimous king named Kanakavarṇa, who ruled over the entire continent of Jambudvīpa.
While faced with a devastating famine, this bodhisattva king decided to offer the last bit
of food left in Jambudvīpa—which had been kept especially for him—to a pratyekabuddha who
had come to his palace begging for alms. As a result of King Kanakavarṇa’s selfless gift,
the whole continent was miraculously showered with all possible foods and goods, and the
people of Jambudvīpa were saved. In addition to this immediate fruit of the king’s
meritorious deed, a further fruit of the king’s good deed is implied when the Buddha
discloses King Kanakavarṇa’s identity at the end of the story. The king’s generosity would
reach full karmic fruition in his perfect awakening in a future life as the Buddha
Śākyamuni.

Acknowledgements

This text was translated by the Bodhinidhi Translation Group. The Tibetan text
was translated into English and compared with the Sanskrit and Chinese versions by Thomas
Cruijsen. Khenpo Chowang checked the translation against the Tibetan. The translator would
like to thank the staff of the Namgyal Institute of Tibetology, Gangtok, for generously
providing access to their library facilities during the translation work.

The translation was completed under the patronage and supervision of 84000:
Translating the Words of the Buddha. George FitzHerbert edited the translation and the
introduction, and Dawn Collins copyedited the text. Martina Cotter was in charge of the
digital publication process.

Introduction

As a discourse in which the Buddha narrates one of his past lives, The Past Endeavor of Kanakavarṇa can be placed in the same class
of teachings as jātakas, “birth
stories,” and avadānas, “exemplary
tales.” In this type of teaching, the Buddha explains his present awakened state or the
present conditions of others, whether fortunate or unfortunate, by narrating the
past-life actions that led to these conditions, thus showing the workings of karma and
the inevitable results of meritorious or unmeritorious deeds. Usually, texts of this
kind begin with an extensive narrative section that is set in the present. This
describes the situation or the individual’s circumstance that the text will then explain
by means of a past-life story. However, this is not the case for The Past Endeavor of Kanakavarṇa, which, as will be seen, consists almost
entirely of a past-life story of the Buddha, narrated without preamble. Therefore, it
was classified as a pūrvayoga, an
account of a “past endeavor,” at least according to the title as given in the Tibetan
translation. There are no other
standalone texts designated as pūrvayoga in the Kangyur, but the genre is represented in individual
chapters of Mahāyāna sūtras such as the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka
Sūtra and the Samādhirāja Sūtra.

The setting of this particular discourse is Jetavana, the grove outside
Śrāvastī that had been gifted to the Buddha and the monastic saṅgha by a wealthy lay
devotee called Anāthapiṇḍada. There, in the presence of an assembly of 1,250 monks, the
Buddha begins his teaching by making a twofold statement on the virtue of generosity.
First, he states that if beings were to know what he knows of the karmic results of
generosity, they would always share whatever they have, even if, as it is tellingly put,
it is their last bit of food. However, as the Buddha then points out, beings are often
ignorant of the merit that comes from an act of generosity and tend to be guided by
selfishness. This twofold proclamation by the Buddha is also found as a separate
discourse, preserved in Pali as the Dānasaṃvibhāga
Sutta
and in
Sanskrit as the Dāna Sūtra. In the present text, the Buddha further illustrates
these statements with a story of one of his past lives, thus demonstrating his
first-hand knowledge of the immense power of generosity.

The story is that of a king named Kanakavarṇa, who, we are told, lived in a
remote past when people still had life spans of eighty-four thousand years. This king is
described as possessing all possible worldly attainments: he had a “golden-colored” (the
literal meaning of his name) bodily complexion, abundant riches, and a vast and thriving
empire stretching across the whole of Jambudvīpa. More impressive, however, was his
righteous and generous nature. The Buddha states that he governed his people
unselfishly, engaging in all possible forms of charity. The king’s generosity was such
that one day—and it was from this that the events narrated begin to unfold—he decided to
abolish all taxes and levies for the people of Jambudvīpa.

However, King Kanakavarṇa did not foresee that, after many years of prosperity
and just governance for his people, the astrological conditions would become
unfavorable. When the brahmins at the court noticed this adverse shift in the
constellations and celestial bodies, they informed the king that there would be no rain
for the next twelve years. Aware of the impending disaster this portended for his
people, especially for the poor who were without the means to survive a drought of such
length, the king immediately went into action. He issued the order that all available
foodstuffs were to be collected and placed in a single storehouse, and from there they
were to be distributed equally among the people of Jambudvīpa. For eleven years, this
strategy was successful and famine was averted, but then in the twelfth year the food
started to run out and people began to die of starvation. The situation became ever more
dire in the course of the following eleven months, to the point that there was only a
single portion of food left in the storehouse, which had been reserved for King
Kanakavarṇa himself.

The narrative here shifts to the key protagonist in the momentous event that
is about to take place. The Buddha describes how in that particular period there was a
bodhisattva—left unnamed—who had been on the bodhisattva path for forty eons, but who,
after witnessing a particularly heinous act, had abandoned his aim of reaching perfect
buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings. Applying himself instead to his own
liberation from saṃsāra, this person, within a short span of time, had gained complete
insight into the impermanent nature of phenomena and thereby attained the awakening of a
pratyekabuddha, a “solitary awakened one.” In Buddhist traditions, a pratyekabuddha is
someone who has attained complete liberation from saṃsāra without the guidance of a
teacher. However, such liberation is distinguished from that of a perfectly awakened
buddha like the Buddha Śākyamuni, since they are not able to verbally teach the path to
liberation to others. This typology of buddhas who reach individual awakening arose
early on in Buddhist tradition and was particularly associated with an early text known
as the Rhinoceros Sūtra (Pali: Khaggavisāṇa Sutta) in which the practitioner is exhorted to “move alone like
a rhinoceros.” At some point during the
early period, the individual verses that make up the Rhinoceros
Sūtra came to be credited as the utterances of pratyekabuddhas of past
times. The
verse proclaimed by the pratyekabuddha upon his awakening in The
Past Endeavor of Kanakavarṇa (at folio 53.a) is an example of such a verse,
which has direct parallels with the second verse of both the Pali Rhinoceros Sūtra as well as the recently discovered Gāndhārī Sanskrit
version. In this extant Sanskrit of the story of King Kanakavarṇa, the verse reads as
follows:

saṃsevamānasya bhavanti
snehāḥ

snehānvayaṃ saṃbhavatīha duḥkham |

ādīnavaṃ snehagataṃ
viditvā

ekaś caret khaḍgaviṣāṇakalpaḥ ||

“Keeping close company, one comes to have attachment;

It is from attachment that suffering comes about here.

Realizing the danger coming from attachment,

One should move alone like a rhinoceros.”

In the Pali version of The Rhinoceros Sutta it
reads:

saṃsaggajātassa bhavanti snehā

snehanvayaṃ dukkham idaṃ pahoti |

ādīnavaṃ snehajaṃ
pekkhamāno

eko care khaggavisāṇakappo ||

“Having close contact, one comes to have attachment;

It is from attachment that this suffering comes about.

Seeing the danger that is born from attachment,

One should move alone like a rhinoceros.”

And in the Gāndhārī version of The Rhinoceros
Sūtra, it reads:

saṃsevamaṇas̱a siyati
s̄eho

s̄ehaṃvayaṃ dukham idaṃ prabhoti |

+ + + + + + + + + + +

eko care khargaviṣaṇagapo ||

“Keeping close company, one comes to have attachment;

It is from attachment that suffering comes about.

…

One should move alone like a rhinoceros.”

The background story to this verse, however, as transmitted in the later Pali
commentary to The Rhinoceros Sutta, is entirely different
and unrelated to the story of the pratyekabuddha in The Past
Endeavor of Kanakavarṇa. It appears,
therefore, that over the centuries these verses from The Rhinoceros
Sutta became associated with different background stories connected to
pratyekabuddhas.

While the verses in The Rhinoceros Sutta urge a
solitary way of life in view of the dangers of being in close company with others, they
also emphasize the need to cultivate loving-kindness and compassion. This quality is also given expression in the freshly
awakened pratyekabuddha in The Past Endeavor of
Kanakavarṇa. The Buddha describes how, after attaining “individual awakening,” the
pratyekabuddha compassionately thought of benefitting other beings by receiving alms
from them, thereby giving them the opportunity to gather merit. Being the only awakened
being in the world at that time, albeit lower in rank to a perfectly awakened buddha,
the pratyekabuddha would have been the most “worthy of offerings” and the most fruitful
“field of merit,” as it is traditionally put, in terms of yielding karmic benefit. As
the pratyekabuddha scanned the whole world through his newly acquired supernormal
abilities, he discovered that there was only one portion of food left—the one reserved
for the king. Therefore, he decided to extend his compassion to King Kanakavarṇa by
seeking alms from him.

It is this alms round and its miraculous outcome that forms the centerpiece of
the story. This crucial moment—when the pratyekabuddha becomes the recipient of King
Kanakavarṇa’s ultimate act of generosity—brings to the fore the prime qualities of the
two central actors: the bodhisattva king who accompanies his act of self-sacrifice with
the deep wish that it bring an end to the destitution and suffering of his people, and
the solitary buddha who teaches the Dharma “bodily, not verbally,” as he silently leaves
in the same miraculous way as he had come, after having provided the king with the
opportunity to generate immense merit. The “root of virtue” that King Kanakavarṇa has
planted through this relinquishment of self-interest is such that, right after the
pratyekabuddha has received his meal and departed, it immediately ripens into the
fulfillment of the king’s wish, as narrated in the wondrous culmination of the story.
Moreover, and more importantly still, when the Buddha reveals at the end of the story
that he himself was King Kanakavarṇa at that time, it is implied that the merit of this
“past endeavor” occasioned by the compassionate pratyekabuddha would eventually come to
full ripening in the attainment of perfect and full awakening by the Buddha Śākyamuni in
his present lifetime. Having thus illustrated the karmic potency of such an act of
generosity, the Buddha concludes by repeating the twofold statement on the virtue of
generosity that he had pronounced at the beginning of the discourse, followed by a verse
on the imperishability of good karma.

This story about King Kanakavarṇa’s feat has been preserved in several
different versions and retellings. The earliest of these is found in a collection of the
Buddha’s past life stories that was translated into Chinese in the fourth or early fifth
century ce, entitled Pu sa ben xing
jing (菩薩本行經), “The Sūtra about the Past Conduct
of the Bodhisattva.” In this version,
the story does not have a prelude containing a twofold statement on generosity. Instead,
it is narrated by the Buddha upon the passing away of a miserly wealthy man from
Śrāvastī named Mahānāman. When King Prasenajit comes to the Buddha to ask him where
Mahānāman has been reborn, the Buddha tells him that the miserly Mahānāman has fallen
into hell. Here he will be subject to great suffering for thousands of years, after
which he will also have to endure rebirth as a hungry ghost for a long duration. In
response to King Prasenajit’s distress upon hearing this, the Buddha states that a wise
person should abandon miserliness and engage in generosity. It is by virtue of this that
one obtains good fortune in the present life and merit for future lives, and the Buddha
then narrates his past life as King Kanakavarṇa as an illustration. While in general the
story told is the same as that found in The Past Endeavor of
Kanakavarṇa, there are several differences, the most notable being that the
person who becomes the pratyekabuddha is not first described as being a bodhisattva, nor
is there the verse from The Rhinoceros Sūtra that he
exclaims upon his awakening.

The first version in which all the elements found in The
Past Endeavor of Kanakavarṇa appear is a Chinese translation made at least
over a century later, in the middle of the sixth century ce.
In this separately transmitted text, which bears the title Jin
se wang jing (金色王經), “The Sūtra about King
Kanakavarṇa,” we
find all the elements that are also present in the Tibetan and Sanskrit versions of
The Past Endeavor of Kanakavarṇa, with the exception of
some phrases and passages that seem to have been abridged or paraphrased during
translation by its Indian translator, Gautama Prajñāruci, a monk from Vārāṇasī who was
active in China at the time. According to the original colophon at the end of the
Chinese text, this translation was made by Gautama Prajñāruci in the year 542 ce.

The Tibetan translation that has been preserved in the Kangyur mostly agrees
with this Chinese version, to the extent that one can assume the underlying Sanskrit
text must have been very similar. We do not know when exactly the Tibetan translation
was made, since the Kangyur text lacks the usual colophon that records the names of the
translators and editors involved in the translation. However, the Tibetan title of the
text, gser mdog gi sngon gyi sbyor ba, is listed in
both the Denkarma and Phangthangma inventories of Tibetan imperial translations, which
means that the unattributed Tibetan translation of The Past
Endeavor of Kanakavarṇa must have been made at some point in the eighth or
early ninth century ce, during the early spread of the
Buddhadharma to Tibet.

The Sanskrit text that has come down to us is part of the Divyāvadāna, a collection of thirty-eight avadānas that has proved to be popular in the
Kathmandu Valley over the centuries. Under the title Kanakavarṇāvadāna, this Sanskrit version is practically the same as the
Tibetan and the sixth-century Chinese version, leaving aside a number of additions and
omissions that are the result of centuries of scribal transmission. There are a
few places, however, in which the Sanskrit and the Chinese are more closely aligned with
each other than with the Tibetan, as with the extra last verse included at the end. This
suggests that the extant Sanskrit version found in the Divyāvadāna represents a somewhat different line of textual transmission than
the Tibetan translation and its underlying Sanskrit text.

Apart from these three closely related versions preserved in Sanskrit,
Tibetan, and Chinese, King Kanakavarṇa’s story is also found in the Avadānakalpalatā, an anthology of avadānas composed in succinct and poetic Sanskrit verse by the
Kashmiri poet Kṣemendra in the middle of the eleventh century. In this concise form, the
story also gained popularity in Tibet when the Avadānakalpalatā was translated into Tibetan in the thirteenth century and
became the subject of a rich tradition of woodcut depictions and thangka paintings. Another later retelling of the story, also in versified Sanskrit, occurs in the
Ratnamālāvadāna (alternatively titled Ratnāvadānamālā), one of several collections of versified avadānas that were composed and compiled in
the Kathmandu Valley from the fourteenth century onwards, for which the Divyāvadāna served as one of the main sources.

The English translation of The Past Endeavor of
Kanakavarṇa offered here is based primarily on the Tibetan translation
contained in the Kangyur. In this, the text in the Degé Kangyur has been taken as the
base text, but we have also consulted the Stok Palace Kangyur and the Comparative
Edition (dpe bsdur ma) for variant readings. In several cases, this has
provided readings that are evidently in better alignment with the Sanskrit text, as
recorded in the endnotes. Despite these improved readings, there are several places in
the Tibetan text where the textual transmission has proved to be faulty due to omissions
or erroneous additions. In those instances, we have taken recourse to the extant
Sanskrit text, in consultation with the Chinese translation. However, we have been
careful not to uncritically adopt all readings found in the extant Sanskrit, since, as
stated above, it appears to belong to a different lineage of textual recension than the
Tibetan translation and its underlying Sanskrit text. There are, moreover, several
places where the extant Sanskrit has problematic readings that need to be emended in
light of the Tibetan translation. We have
recorded all such discrepancies between the Sanskrit and the Tibetan in the endnotes, in
which we have also included the most significant divergences found in the Chinese
translation.

In closing, we would like to refer the reader to two very similar past life
stories of the Buddha, both of which are likewise narrated to illustrate the twofold
statement on generosity as found in the Dāna Sūtra,
from which they also very graphically draw upon the words apaścimakaḥ kavaḍaḥ, “last mouthful.” First, there is the Kavaḍāvadāna in the Avadānaśataka (Toh 343), in which the Buddha recounts his past life as King
Brahmadatta in Vārāṇasī, a righteous and compassionate ruler whose generosity was such
that during a devastating famine he was able to give up his own daily ration of food,
his two “mouthfuls,” to a brahmin left out in the count and to Indra who, disguised as a
brahmin, requested the second portion. The other related story is found in the
Karmaśataka (Toh 340), in which the narration is about a bodhisattva king named
Candraprabha, who also reigned from the city of Vārāṇasī, and who, faced with a severe
drought and famine that would last for twelve years, is tested by Indra, again disguised
as a brahmin, in giving away both his “mouthfuls” of food—all of which the bodhisattva
happily does in his complete dedication to attaining perfect and full awakening for the
benefit of all.

The Translation

The Past Endeavor of Kanakavarṇa

Homage to all buddhas and bodhisattvas.

Thus did I hear at one time. The Blessed One was dwelling at Jetavana,
Anāthapiṇḍada’s Park, together with a large monastic community of 1,250 monks.

The Blessed One was respected, honored, revered, and venerated by monks, nuns,
devoted laymen, devoted laywomen, kings, ministers, the various tīrthikas, ascetics,
brahmins, practitioners, and wanderers, as well as by gods, nāgas, yakṣas,
gandharvas, asuras, garuḍas, kinnaras, and mahoragas. The Blessed One received abundant
and exquisite requisites—robes, alms, bedding and seating, and medicine in case of
illness—both divine and human. Yet, the Blessed One remained untainted by them, like a
lotus untainted by water. The Blessed One’s renown, fame, and acclaim, was vast, excellent, and exalted. In this way, the Blessed One, the
tathāgata, arhat, perfectly awakened one, accomplished in knowledge and conduct, the
well gone one, the knower of the world, the unsurpassed guide for people to be tamed, the
teacher of gods and humans, the Buddha, the Blessed One, having directly understood and
clearly perceived this world with its gods, māras, brahmās, ascetics, brahmins, gods, and
humans, was teaching the Dharma that is
excellent in the beginning, excellent in the middle, and excellent in the end, fine in
meaning and fine in expression, and was expounding the entire and complete spiritual
life that is completely pure and completely clean.

Then the Blessed One addressed the monks, “Monks, if beings were to know the
fruit of giving and the karmic fruition of sharing gifts as I know
the fruit of giving and the karmic fruition of sharing gifts, they would not eat even
their last mouthful, their last morsel, themselves without giving, without sharing
it with others, and the arisen
defilement of selfishness would not remain in possession of their minds. But, monks, because beings do not know
the fruit of giving and the karmic fruition of sharing gifts as I know the fruit of
giving and the karmic fruition of sharing gifts, they eat even their last mouthful,
their last morsel, themselves without
giving, without sharing it with others, and the arisen defilement of selfishness remains
in possession of their minds. Why is this?

“Previously, monks, in a past time, there was a king named Kanakavarṇa, who
was handsome, beautiful, and pleasing to behold, being endowed with a sublime golden
complexion. That king Kanakavarṇa was rich, wealthy, and prosperous, having abundant
possessions;
abundant wealth and means; abundant riches, grains, gems, pearls, crystal, coral, gold, and silver; abundant elephants,
horses, cows, and stud horses; and treasuries and storehouses
that were completely filled.

“King Kanakavarṇa had a royal capital called Kanakāvatī that was twelve
yojanas in length from east to west and seven yojanas wide from south to north. It was
prosperous, thriving, happy, well provisioned, pleasant, and bustling with many people.
King Kanakavarṇa had eighty thousand such cities that were prosperous, thriving, happy, well provisioned, pleasant,
and bustling with many people; five hundred and seventy million villages that were prosperous, thriving, happy, well provisioned, pleasant,
and bustling with many people; and sixty thousand market towns that were prosperous,
thriving, happy, well provisioned, pleasant, and bustling with many people. And, King
Kanakavarṇa had eighteen thousand courtiers and a retinue of twenty thousand attendant
women.

“Monks, King Kanakavarṇa was righteous and he ruled his kingdom according to
the Dharma as a Dharma king. He engaged in all acts of generosity
and there was nothing that he had not given away, including the flesh of his own body.
During those times people would attain a lifespan of eighty-four thousand years.

“Now, at one time, when King Kanakavarṇa was alone, having withdrawn in
private, a deliberation arose in his mind: ‘Let me free all merchants from customs
duties and transit fees. Let me free all the people of Jambudvīpa from taxes and fees.’

“King Kanakavarṇa thereupon summoned his accountants, ministers, courtiers,
gatekeepers, and councilors, and announced to them, ‘As of today, sirs, all
merchants should be freed from customs duties and transit fees. All the people of
Jambudvīpa should be freed from taxes and fees.’

“While ruling his kingdom by these means for many years, at a certain time,
the constellations became adverse such that it would not rain for twelve years. The
brahmins who could understand the indications read the signs and did
divinations. Having observed this in the
movements of the constellations and the planet Venus, they went to King Kanakavarṇa and
said, ‘Your Majesty, please know that the constellations have become adverse such that
it will not rain for twelve years.’

“Upon hearing this news, King Kanakavarṇa broke down in tears, ‘Oh, my people
of Jambudvīpa! Oh, my people of Jambudvīpa!
Oh, my Jambudvīpa that is prosperous, thriving, happy, well provisioned,
pleasant, and bustling with many people—before long you will be empty and bereft of
people!’

“After weeping sorrowfully for a moment, King Kanakavarṇa thought, ‘Those who
are rich, wealthy, and prosperous will be able to support themselves, but those who are
poor, with little wealth, and with little to eat and drink—how will they survive? Let me
collect all the foodstuffs in Jambudvīpa, build a storehouse for all the villages,
cities, and market towns, as well as for the royal capital, and distribute an equal share to all the people of
Jambudvīpa.’

“King Kanakavarṇa then summoned his accountants, ministers, courtiers,
gatekeepers, and councilors, and ordered, ‘Sirs, go and collect all the foodstuffs in
Jambudvīpa, count them and measure them out, and place them in a storehouse for all the
villages, cities, and market towns, as well as for the royal capital.’

“The accountants, ministers, courtiers, gatekeepers, and councilors did as
King Kanakavarṇa had ordered, and when they had stored the foodstuffs in the storehouse,
they went to King Kanakavarṇa and said, ‘Your Majesty, please know that the foodstuffs
from all the villages, cities, and market towns, as well as from the royal
capital, have all been collected, counted, measured out, and stored in a storehouse for
all the villages, cities, and market towns, as well as for the royal capital. What does
Your Majesty deem fit now?’

“King Kanakavarṇa then summoned his counters, accountants, and scribes and
ordered, ‘Sirs, go and count all the people of Jambudvīpa. Having properly counted
everyone starting with myself, properly
distribute an equal share of food to all the people of Jambudvīpa.’

“The counters, accountants, and scribes obeyed and they properly counted all the people of Jambudvīpa. When they
had properly counted everyone, starting with King Kanakavarṇa, they assigned an equal
share of food to all the people of Jambudvīpa.

“For eleven years everyone survived, but during the first month of the twelfth
year, many men, women, and children began to die from hunger and thirst. As the second,
third, fourth, and fifth months passed, many more men, women, and children died. This went on until the
eleventh month, when all the food in Jambudvīpa had been exhausted,
apart from a single measure of food left for King Kanakavarṇa.

“Now, at that time, there was a bodhisattva who had been embarked upon the
path for forty eons and who had reached this Sahā world. That bodhisattva saw, somewhere
in a forest, a son having sexual intercourse with his mother. Seeing this, he thought,
‘Oh, how defiled, how defiled these beings are! It was in her womb that he stayed
for nine months and it was from her breasts that he drank—and now he does this
here! I’ve had enough of
such beings who are driven by craven desires not in
keeping with the Dharma, who have wrong views, who are overcome by unbearable lust, who
do not honor their fathers, their mothers, monks, or brahmins, and
who do not respect the elders of their family. Who would bother to practice the conduct
of a bodhisattva for the sake of such beings? Surely I should practice for my own sake
alone.’

“Then the bodhisattva went to a tree and sat down at its base. Having crossed
his legs and made his body upright, he established mindfulness to the fore. He then dwelled on
observing the arising and passing away of the five aggregates that are subject to
clinging: ‘This is form, this is the arising of form, this is the vanishing of form;
this is feeling; this is perception; these are conditionings; this is consciousness,
this is the arising of consciousness, this is the vanishing of consciousness.’ As he
remained like this, observing the arising and passing away of the five aggregates that
are subject to clinging, before long, he realized that whatever is of the nature to
arise is all of the nature to cease, and right there he reached individual awakening.

Keeping close company, one comes to have attachments;

It is from attachment that this suffering comes about.

Realizing the danger coming from attachment,

One should move alone like a rhinoceros.

“Then the blessed pratyekabuddha thought, ‘I have performed many difficult
deeds for the sake of sentient beings, but no one has yet been benefitted. To
whom should I now extend my compassion? Whose alms should I now receive and eat?’

“The blessed pratyekabuddha surveyed the whole of Jambudvīpa with his
superhuman divine vision, and he saw that all the food in
Jambudvīpa had been exhausted apart from a single measure of food left for King
Kanakavarṇa. He then thought, ‘Let me extend my compassion to King Kanakavarṇa. Let me
receive and eat the single measure of food that is left for King Kanakavarṇa.’

“Then the blessed pratyekabuddha, by such miraculous ability of his, rose up into the sky, and, like a bird in bodily appearance, through
his miraculous ability, proceeded to the royal capital Kanakāvatī.

“At that time King Kanakavarṇa was on the palace terrace, accompanied by five
thousand courtiers. One minister saw the blessed pratyekabuddha coming from a distance.
Seeing this, he called the other ministers, ‘Look, sirs, look! From the distance, a
red-winged bird is coming toward us here!’

“Another minister said, ‘Sirs, this is not a red-winged bird—it’s a
life-robbing demon that is coming here! It is now going to devour us!’

“Then King Kanakavarṇa rubbed his face with both hands and said to the
ministers, ‘Sirs, this is not a red-winged bird, nor is it a life-robbing demon—it’s a
sage who is coming out of compassion for us!’

“Thereupon that blessed pratyekabuddha alighted on top of King Kanakavarṇa’s
palace. Rising from his seat, King Kanakavarṇa welcomed the blessed
pratyekabuddha, bowed his head at the feet of the blessed pratyekabuddha, and invited
him to sit on a seat that had been prepared. King Kanakavarṇa then asked the blessed
pratyekabuddha, ‘Sage, for what purpose have you come here?’

“‘For the purpose of food, great king,’ the sage replied.

“Upon this, King Kanakavarṇa was very distraught, and weeping, he cried, ‘Oh,
how poor I am! Even though I have dominion over Jambudvīpa, I am not able to provide
alms to even a single sage!’

“Then the deity of the royal capital Kanakāvatī uttered this verse to King
Kanakavarṇa:

What is suffering? It is to be poor.

What is greater suffering? It is poverty itself.

To be in poverty is the same as death.

I would not choose poverty over death!

“King Kanakavarṇa then summoned the person in charge of the storehouse and
asked, ‘Sir, is there any food in the house that I could offer to this sage?’

“‘Your Majesty,’ he replied, ‘Please know that all the food in Jambudvīpa has
been exhausted apart from a single measure of food that remains for Your Majesty.’

“King Kanakavarṇa thought, ‘If I eat it, I will live. If I do not eat it, I
will die.’ But then he thought, ‘Even if I eat it, I will certainly come to die—enough of this life of mine! How could
such a virtuous and excellent sage leave my house today with an alms bowl as pristine as
before he entered?’

“King Kanakavarṇa then gathered his accountants, ministers, courtiers,
gatekeepers, and councilors, and said, ‘Please rejoice, sirs! This is King Kanakavarṇa’s
final act of charity. By this root of virtue, may there be a
complete end to poverty for all the people of Jambudvīpa.’

“Thereupon King Kanakavarṇa put all there was of the measure of food into the
bowl of that blessed pratyekabuddha and gave the bowl into the blessed pratyekabuddha’s
right hand.

“Now, it is in the nature of things that blessed pratyekabuddhas teach the
Dharma bodily, not verbally. So the blessed pratyekabuddha
received the alms from King Kanakavarṇa and, in this way by miraculous ability, departed into the sky. With folded hands, King
Kanakavarṇa stood looking on, without blinking, until he had passed from sight.

“Then King Kanakavarṇa summoned his accountants, ministers, courtiers,
gatekeepers, and councilors, and said, ‘Sirs, go to your respective homes. Please do not
end your time by dying from hunger and thirst here at the palace.’

“They replied, ‘When Your Majesty possessed wealth and good fortune, we amused
and enjoyed ourselves together with Your Majesty. How could we now abandon Your Majesty
at the end, at this final hour?’

“Then, King Kanakavarṇa broke down in tears and wept. Wiping away his tears,
he again said to his accountants, ministers, courtiers, gatekeepers, and councilors,
‘Sirs, go to your respective homes. All of you, please do not end your time by dying
from hunger and thirst here at the palace.’

“At this, the accountants, ministers, courtiers, gatekeepers, and councilors
also broke down in tears and wept. Wiping away their tears, they approached King
Kanakavarṇa, bowed their heads at his feet, and with folded hands said to King
Kanakavarṇa, ‘Today is our last sight of Your Majesty. Please forgive us for
anything we have done contrary to Your Majesty’s instruction.’

“But just as that blessed pratyekabuddha finished eating the alms, at that
very moment, four masses of clouds emerged from all four directions, and cool winds
began to blow that swept Jambudvīpa clean. And then, during the second half of that day, it rained
various kinds of foods and edible things. There were foods such as boiled rice, sattu,
khichri, meat, and fish. There were edible things such as edible roots, stalks, leaves, flowers,
fruits, sesame, sesame oil, jaggery, and cane sugar. And
there were many other kinds of foods, edible things, and delicacies that rained
down.

“King Kanakavarṇa was thrilled, exalted, and elated, and as he rejoiced, full
of rapture and gladness, he said to his accountants, ministers, courtiers, gatekeepers,
and councilors, ‘Look, sirs! Right now the sprout of giving that single portion of alms
has appeared! Fruits, leaves, and flowers will come later!’

“On the second day, a week-long rain of goods and grains began. For seven
days it rained sesame, rice, mung beans, black gram, barley, wheat, lentils, white rice,
and all types of grains. For seven days it rained ghee. For seven days it rained sesame oil.
For seven days it rained cotton cloth. For seven days it rained various kinds of
materials. And for
seven days it rained the seven precious substances, namely, gold, silver, crystal,
beryl, ruby, emerald, and sapphire.

“So, by the power of King Kanakavarṇa, there was a complete end to poverty
for all the people of Jambudvīpa.

“Monks, you might be uncertain or in doubt, thinking that it was someone else
who was King Kanakavarṇa at that time, at that moment. But, monks, it should not be seen in
this way. I was that king named Kanakavarṇa at that time, at that moment.

“Monks, through this teaching, this should be understood: One
should know the fruit of giving and the karmic fruition of sharing gifts as I know the
fruit of giving and the karmic fruition of sharing gifts. One should not eat the last mouthful, the last
morsel, oneself—without giving it or sharing it with others—and the arisen defilement of
selfishness will not remain in possession of one’s mind. But because beings do not know
the fruit of giving and the karmic fruition of sharing gifts as I know the fruit of
giving and the karmic fruition of sharing gifts, they eat even their last mouthful,
their last morsel, themselves—without giving, without sharing it with others—and the
arisen defilement of selfishness remains in possession of their minds.

Past deeds, virtuous or unvirtuous, do not perish,

To have attended upon the wise does not perish,

What is well said by the noble does not perish,

What is done for the grateful does not perish.”

This is what the Blessed One said. Elated, the bodhisattvas, monks, and the
world with its gods, humans, asuras, and gandharvas rejoiced at what the Blessed One had
said.

This concludes “The Past Endeavor of
Kanakavarṇa.”

Notes

Abbreviations

C
Choné Kangyur

Cn

Cullaniddesa.
The Pali Text Society edition.

D
Degé Kangyur

H
Lhasa Kangyur

It

Itivuttaka.
The Pali Text Society edition.

J
Lithang Kangyur

Mil

Milindapañha. The Pali Text Society edition.

Mvu

Mahāvastu.
Edited by Émile Senart, 1882–1897.

N
Narthang Kangyur

S
Stok Palace Kangyur

Sn

Suttanipāta.
The Pali Text Society edition.

ŚBh I

Shomonji Kenkyukai 1998

U
Urga Kangyur

Y
Yongle Kangyur

Bibliography

Tibetan

Chinese

Sanskrit

84000 Translations

Other Sources

avadāna