The Teaching on the Great Compassion of the Tathāgata
Introduction

The Teaching on the Great Compassion of the Tathāgata1 is an important early Great Vehicle sūtra, setting out some key features of the bodhisattva path in a doctrinally dense text that has been explored in later commentaries as an important source of clarification on the qualities that bodhisattvas develop as they progress to awakening, on the dhāraṇīs, and indirectly on the potential for buddhahood (buddhagotra) underlying their progress. The text survives in an incomplete Sanskrit manuscript, two Chinese translations, and the Tibetan translation.

A partial Sanskrit manuscript of the sūtra, consisting of only twelve folios, is presently held at the China Ethnic Library in Beijing. This manuscript can be tentatively dated to the eighth ninth centuries and may have once been part of the Sanskrit manuscript collection of Zhalu (Tib. zhwa lu) monastery in central Tibet. At present only the first two folios of the manuscript have been edited and published.2 In the Chinese Tripiṭaka, it appears as Taishō 398, an independent sūtra translated by Dharmarakṣa in 291 ᴄᴇ, and also as a subsection of Taishō 397, the Chinese translation by Dharmakṣema (385–433) of the large Mahā­vaipulya­mahā­saṃnipāta­sūtra, of which it occupies volumes 1–4.3

The sūtra was translated into Tibetan, according to the colophon of the Tibetan translation, by the Indian preceptor Śīlendrabodhi along with the Tibetan translator Yeshé Dé. The text is also recorded in the Denkarma4 and Phangthangma5 inventories of Tibetan imperial translations, so we can establish that it was first translated from Sanskrit into Tibetan no later than the early ninth century, as the Denkarma is dated to 812 ᴄᴇ.

The present translation into English is based on the Tibetan translation found in the Degé Kangyur and takes into account the versions in other Kangyurs through consultation of the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma). The Sanskrit witness was also consulted to clarify terms and passages that were obscure in the Tibetan translation.

In essence, the sūtra can be seen as comprising an introductory setting of the scene (the first chapter), followed by three main divisions according to topic. The first and longest of these divisions focuses on the elements of the bodhisattva path, and is taught by the Buddha at the request of the bodhisattva Dhāraṇīśvara­rāja (from 2.­22); the second focuses on the dhāraṇīs, and is taught by Dhāraṇīśvara­rāja at the request of the bodhisattva Siṃhaketu (starting at 2.­526); while the third (from 2.­607 to the end of the text) is the Buddha’s endorsement of Dhāraṇīśvara­rāja’s teaching, his narration of past events involving Dhāraṇīśvara­rāja in previous lifetimes, and his proclamation that it is Dhāraṇīśvara­rāja who should transmit the entire text.6

The sūtra opens on Vulture Peak, in Rājagṛha, where the Buddha is presiding over an assembly of monks and bodhisattvas. He enters a state of meditative absorption in which he manifests an extravagant pavilion in the atmosphere between the desire realm and the form realm. He proceeds to ascend to the pavilion, along with his retinue, by way of an enormous staircase, one of four thousand that have appeared. As he passes the six heavens of the sensuous realm, their inhabitants praise him and join the ever-increasing throng, until the vast congregation finally arrives in the lofty pavilion. From the pavilion, the Buddha sends invitations in the form of light rays to the bodhisattvas who reside in the buddhafields of the ten directions, announcing the teaching he is about to give. In an instant, those bodhisattvas reach the pavilion together with their entourages. By simply clearing his throat, the Buddha enjoins all the faithful beings remaining in the human and nonhuman realms to ascend the staircases and join the vast congregation. He then emits a light that leads a bodhisattva named Puṣpaśrī­garbha­sarva­dharma­vaśavartin to enter a state of absorption in which a teaching throne magically appears. The bodhisattva requests a teaching from the Buddha, who ascends the throne and delivers an introduction to the forthcoming teaching. Nine different bodhisattvas each enter a different state of meditative absorption, and those absorptions together bless the assembly with their corresponding qualities. When a tenth bodhisattva called Māra­pramardaka enters absorption, a host of māras enters the assembly. After a brief exchange with the Blessed One, they also settle down to listen to the discourse.

At this juncture, a bodhisattva named Dharmeśvara­rāja expresses his confidence that the Buddha will consent to give a discourse, and he proceeds to delineate the qualities of the attendant bodhisattvas that make them suitable recipients of such teachings. The bodhisattva articulates how wonderful it is when a buddha engages in benefiting beings, and he concludes by highlighting the contrast between the bodhisattva intention and the intentions represented by the Śrāvaka and Pratyekabuddha Vehicles. As a result of his exclamations, an immense number of beings generate the thought of awakening. The Buddha then sends forth a light that inspires a bodhisattva named Dhāraṇīśvara­rāja to request a discourse.

This introductory setting of the scene gives way to the first main topic division when, in response to Dhāraṇīśvara­rāja’s request, the Blessed One begins his teaching with a description of the four bodhisattva ornaments, in prose and verse. Then follows a description of the eight illuminations of bodhisattvas, first in prose and then in verse, and then descriptions of sixteen kinds of great bodhisattva compassion and thirty-two bodhisattva activities.

Dhāraṇīśvara­rāja asks the Buddha to expound on the aspects, signs, attributes, and foundation of the great compassion and activity of tathāgatas. In reply the Buddha lists sixteen types of compassion that epitomize the nature of awakening. To further illustrate the compassionate activity of tathāgatas, the Blessed One goes on to relate how Brahmā originally requested the turning of the wheel of the Dharma and how that turning was a manifestation of the tathāgata’s compassion. This is followed by a comparison of the compassion of śrāvakas, bodhisattvas, and buddhas. Next, the Blessed One tells the story of a tathāgata named Sandalwood Dwelling, which illustrates how a tathāgata’s compassion also manifests in the form of prophecies.

The Buddha goes on to describe thirty-two forms of tathāgata activity, which consist of the ten strengths, the four types of fearlessness, and the eighteen unique buddha qualities. Finally, he gives the analogy of the cleansing of a gem in three stages, corresponding to the three turnings of the wheel of Dharma, followed by a brief description of tathāgata activity.

There follows a passage vividly describing the impact of the discourse on the audience in the form of the display of various offerings, the generation of the thought of awakening, and so forth. A dialogue ensues between a being named Magical Display of Māra and a bodhisattva known as Sovereign of the Magical Display of All Phenomena, which results in the conversion of the former to the Great Vehicle.

At this point, the second of the sūtra’s three main topics begins when a bodhisattva known as Siṃhaketu asks Dhāraṇīśvara­rāja for information about bodhisattva dhāraṇīs, and Dhāraṇīśvara­rāja introduces eight dhāraṇīs one by one. This is followed by a general conclusion of the eight dhāraṇīs and a verse section detailing them individually and generally.

The Buddha, in the third main division of the sūtra, announces his approval of Dhāraṇīśvara­rāja’s discourse and goes on to tell him about a world in the past known as Stainless. It was there that a tathāgata known as Stainless Illumination gave a teaching on a dhāraṇī called jewel lamp to a bodhisattva named Glorious Light, upon the latter’s request. The Blessed One proclaims that Dhāraṇīśvara­rāja himself was the bodhisattva Glorious Light in a past life and further declares that Dhāraṇīśvara­rāja is supreme among bodhisattvas.

Next, the bodhisattva Prajñākūṭa asks the Buddha how one attains this dhāraṇī. In response the Buddha describes the sources and functions of insight in a series of verses. A bodhisattva named Prati­bhāna­pratisaṃvid then asks how Prajñākūṭa received his name, and in response the Buddha describes a world called Virtuous Occurrence in which a tathāgata named Glorious Secret posed a great number of questions to an assembly of bodhisattvas. The questions were answered expertly by a bodhisattva known as Smṛtibuddhi, resulting in the prophecy that he would become known as Prajñākūṭa. The Buddha reprises the sources and functions of insight in a series of verses, and Dhāraṇīśvara­rāja praises this teaching on awakening. The Buddha again expresses his approval of Dhāraṇīśvara­rāja’s discourse and explains the merit of being engaged with the sūtra. The Buddha then asks who is prepared to uphold it in the future. Various figures commit themselves to preserving and protecting the Dharma by pronouncing sets of two verses each. Finally, the Buddha entrusts the sūtra to Dhāraṇīśvara­rāja.

The sūtra is considered important in Indo-Tibetan commentarial traditions for its clarification of the sense and significance of several key features of the bodhisattva path, including the dhāraṇīs and the whole range of the qualities of bodhisattvas and buddhas.7 However, it is in connection with the potential for buddhahood (buddhagotra) and its place in the doctrine and theories of buddha nature that this sūtra is particularly well known in the scholastic tradition of Tibetan Buddhism.

One notable characteristic of the text of the sūtra is its highly structured presentation of topics, which are set out, despite the format of dialog and discourse, in a systematic fashion almost like that of the later Indian treatises. In particular, the teaching that the Buddha delivers to Dhāraṇīśvara­rāja follows a sequential order based on the evolution of awakening from the state of ordinary being, through the gradual development of the features of a bodhisattva’s realization on the path, to the qualities and activities of buddhahood.

It seems to be that sequentially structured nature of this text that singled it out as the explicit source text for the similar structure on which the Ratnagotra­vibhāga, the most important and influential Indian treatise on buddha nature, is based.8 The Ratnagotra­vibhāga explains how the influence of (1) the Buddha, (2) the Dharma, and (3) the Saṅgha act on (4) the buddha nature or “element” (Skt. dhātu, Tib. khams) ever present within all sentient beings to purify it of the adventitious stains that obscure it, revealing (5) the awakened state (bodhi) and (6) its buddha qualities (guṇa), which then manifest (7) the buddha activity (samudācāra) that continues the sequence anew. In explaining its own sequential structure in these terms, the treatise calls them the “seven vajra topics” (vajrapāda), and explicitly cites this sūtra9 as the scriptural source of these topics as a complete, interlinked set (while other scriptures are cited as sources for each individual topic).

Despite this attribution, the seven vajra topics are not specifically presented as such in The Teaching on the Great Compassion of the Tathāgata. Rather, the Ratnagotra­vibhāgavyākhyā discerns them as implicit in this sūtra as follows. First, (1-3) the Buddha, Dharma, and Saṅgha are evoked in the setting of the scene that introduces the sūtra, in particular in all of 1.­3 and the first sentence of 1.­5. Next, (4) the buddha nature “element” is covered by the long teaching on the sixty ways in which it is purified, from 2.­22 down to 2.­200. The Buddha’s teaching on (5) the awakened state is to be found in his teaching on the sixteen kinds of compassion of tathāgatas, from 2.­203 down to 2.­256. Finally, his explanations of both (6) buddha qualities and (7) buddha activity are set out in parallel, since each of the thirty-two qualities he explains is the basis of a different aspect of activity; they are taught from 2.­257 down to 2.­507. Despite the treatise borrowing this thematic structure from the sūtra, it is important to note that the ways in which the actual content for each topic is presented in the treatise and the sūtra are very different. This is a complex subject that has received some scholarly attention but merits further research.10

The sūtra is therefore closely associated with the Ratnagotra­vibhāga, but that does not mean that it contains any direct discussion of buddha nature itself; indeed it does not contain even the standard terms for buddha nature at all.11 Nevertheless, the sūtra is listed as one of ten sūtras on buddha nature by Tibetan authors such as Dölpopa Sherap Gyaltsen (dol po pa shes rab rgyal mtshan, 1292–1361)12 and Jamgön Kongtrül Lodrö Thayé (’jam mgon kong sprul blo gros mtha’ yas, 1813–99),13 and the Tibetan commentarial tradition offers reasons for linking it to the buddha nature tradition. One is the fact that the sūtra contains the analogy of the threefold purification of a beryl stone, which serves as a metaphor for the successive teachings of the three turnings of the wheel of Dharma as delineated in Tibetan Buddhist hermeneutics.14 Another is the fact that the text explicitly identifies itself as belonging to the “irreversible turning,” a term that the Tibetan commentarial tradition associates with the third turning. Both considerations are suggestive of the sūtra’s close connection with the hermeneutical framework of the third turning of the wheel of Dharma, a rubric comprising, among other things, classic texts on buddha nature. According to the Saṃdhinirmocana­sūtra,15 this category contains sūtras of definitive meaning.16 To what extent The Teaching on the Great Compassion of the Tathāgata is directly quoted in the Tibetan commentarial tradition is a subject for future research. However, among the large number of Tibetan commentaries written on the Ratnagotra­vibhāga,17 recent research shows that Marpa Lotsawa (mar pa lo tsā ba, 1012–97)18 and Gö Lotsawa (’gos lo tsā ba, 1392–1481)19 both quote the sūtra at length in their commentaries on this text.

This sūtra has received little attention in modern scholarship, the notable exception being its treatment in Ulrich Pagel’s in-depth research on historical and doctrinal interrelationships among a group of early Great Vehicle sūtras dedicated to the bodhisattva ideal, in which he has compared the text with the Bodhisattva­piṭaka (Toh 56), the Akṣayamati­nirdeśa (Toh 175),20 and the Jñānālokālaṃkāra (Toh 100).21 In his study of the sources for the dhāraṇīs listed in the Mahāvyutpatti (entry no. 748), Pagel was able to confirm that the set of eight dhāraṇīs in this sūtra appear as the first eight of the twelve dhāraṇīs mentioned in the Mahāvyutpatti, and concluded that their presentation in this sūtra is one of the earliest and most detailed discussions of dhāraṇī practice in the Great Vehicle sūtras as a whole.22