The Questions of Sāgaramati
Introduction

The Questions of Sāgaramati begins in a courtyard in the city of Rājagṛha, where the Buddha Śākyamuni, a celestial bodhisattva named Sāgaramati, and many other gods and bodhisattvas converse on a wide variety of subjects relevant to the Great Vehicle. Sāgaramati’s arrival in our world is preceded by a great miracle in which the world is flooded like a vast ocean, a miracle prompted by Sāgaramati’s departure from a distant realm for our world, where he can receive the Buddha’s teachings in person. The conversation between the Buddha Śākyamuni and Sāgaramati in Rājagṛha touches on many issues of the bodhisattva path. They converse about the adversities that bodhisattvas must face, the preeminence of wisdom, how māras are to be defeated, the necessity of understanding the afflictive emotions of sentient beings, the importance of diligence, the commonalities between all phenomena and buddhahood, the nature of the Dharma, and the importance of dedication. Much of the dialogue presupposes a duality between agents and objects, but at times Mañjuśrī and other exalted beings challenge this and articulate the teachings in the light of the wisdom of nonduality.

The sūtra enjoyed considerable popularity in India, as we find it quoted in such prominent scriptures as the Sūtrasamuccaya attributed to Nāgārjuna (ca. second century ᴄᴇ) and Asaṅga’s (ca. fourth century ᴄᴇ) commentary (vyākya) on the Ratna­gotra­vibhāga, and extensively in Śāntideva’s (ca. eighth century) Śikṣāsamuccaya.1 Given these testimonies to a wide circulation of The Questions of Sāgaramati in India, it seems fair to conclude that the sūtra occupied a significant position within the otherwise extensive corpus of the Great Vehicle tradition in India. Unfortunately, apart from the above-mentioned shorter quotations, the sūtra is no longer extant in Sanskrit.

This sūtra is one of four listed contiguously in the Degé Kangyur (Toh. 152-155) that contain some form of the name Sāgara in their title. In this sūtra, the interlocutor is Sāgaramati, a celestial bodhisattva, whereas in the three that follow, it is a nāga king named Sāgara. Despite their similarity in name and their proximity within the Degé Kangyur, the only connection between these four texts is that two of the three texts called The Questions of the Nāga King Sāgara, Toh 153 and 154, appear to have the same provenance.2

Outside India, this sūtra was first translated into Chinese sometime between 414 and 426 by the Indian monk Dharmakṣema (385–433) as the fifth text in the Mahāsaṃnipāta (Daji, 大集) collection, Taishō 397; another Chinese translation made centuries later, Taishō 400 produced between 1024–1027, testifies to the longevity of the sūtra’s popularity in East Asia.3 The sūtra is also quoted in inscriptions found as far as the Kedah province in Malaysia dated to the fifth to seventh centuries ᴄᴇ.4

In Tibet, the sūtra was translated by the Indian preceptors Jinamitra, Dānaśīla, and Buddhaprabha, together with the Tibetan translator Yeshé Dé. It is included in the Denkarma (ldan dkar ma), confirming that it was translated into Tibetan by the early ninth century.5 Over the following centuries Tibetan commentators sustained the interest shown in this scripture by their Indian predecessors, frequently citing the sūtra in support of their various positions.6

Because the sūtra is quoted (as mentioned above) in the Ratna­gotra­vibhāga­vyākhyā (RGVV), it is sometimes included in lists of scriptures that are sources for‍—or otherwise connected with‍—the Ratna­gotra­vibhāga and the buddha-nature literature in general. The passages quoted (10.­5–10.­9) are used in the RGVV to explain how the afflictions that obscured the buddha-nature during the impure phase of ordinary sentient beings have, in the intermediate phase of bodhisattvas, been understood for what they really are and thus instead of causing involuntary rebirth in saṃsāra as before, now assume a more positive form as the compassionate motivation for taking voluntary rebirth in order to help beings. Although the sūtra makes no mention of the buddha-nature as such, the analogy included in this quoted passage of the jewel that has been in the mud for a thousand years (10.­6) is strikingly similar to the famous analogies in the Tathāgata­garbha­sūtra and the Ratna­gotra­vibhāga.

The sūtra is also occasionally included in lists or anthologies of “sūtras of definitive meaning” (nītārtha, nges don) compiled by Tibetan authors, although with far less frequency than the texts most often found in such lists.

As for translations into English, in 1955 Edward Conze was the first to translate a brief excerpt of the sūtra,7 and numerous short sections of The Questions of Sāgaramati have appeared in translations of the works of Asaṅga and various Tibetan commentators.8 However, apart from such brief translated excerpts, the sūtra has not, to our knowledge, received sustained attention in modern publications. This translation was prepared from the Degé (sde dge) block print in consultation with the Comparative Kangyur (dpe bsdur ma) and the Stok Palace manuscript.