The Questions of the Nāga King Sāgara (1)
Introduction

Set at Vulture Peak Mountain and in the ocean realm of the Nāga King Sāgara, The Questions of the Nāga King Sāgara covers many topics of interest to bodhisattvas, including karma and rebirth and the ultimate view of emptiness. The primary interlocutor is the eponymous Nāga King Sāgara, whose arrival at Vulture Peak Mountain is presaged by the appearance of a magical jeweled parasol covering the entire world. With the Buddha’s consent, Sāgara asks a series of questions, which are answered in sequence. Replying to a question about seeing with unobscured wisdom, the Buddha introduces a distinction between ordinary seeing and wisdom seeing, indicating that seeing with unobscured wisdom allows the bodhisattva greater perception that includes both relative and ultimate reality. At this point the Buddha’s discourse is explicitly identified by the gods, who have been listening in the sky above, as belonging to the second turning of the wheel of Dharma.

In a story recalling one of the Nāga King Sāgara’s past lives, the Buddha introduces the jeweled casket dhāraṇī, also known as the inexhaustible casket dhāraṇī. This dhāraṇī turns out to have had an impact on all Nāga King Sāgara’s previous lives on the path to awakening. The Buddha explains that this dhāraṇī can be used by bodhisattvas to recognize nonduality, allowing them to continue working for the benefit of beings in saṃsāra without ever becoming contaminated. Asked about it by the king, the Buddha mentions the growing population of nāgas present during the king’s reign, explaining that they were disciples of the previous buddha Krakucchanda who let their vows of discipline lapse. Later, the Buddha performs a miracle allowing the entire assembly to visit Nāga King Sāgara’s realm on the seabed deep in the ocean. There the Buddha delivers a discourse on how the body is formed by one’s previous actions, and he proceeds to explain the benefits that accrue from abandoning nonvirtues.

At two points in the sūtra, the Buddha is asked to intervene in the conflicts between the gods and asuras and between the nāgas and garuḍas. In the first case, at Śakra’s request the Buddha teaches the asuras about the power of love to inspire them to get along with the gods. Later, he blesses his shawl and gives it to the nāgas to protect them from the garuḍas. This distresses the garuḍas, but they are consoled by the Buddha and inspired to abandon nonvirtue after he gives them a teaching about cause and effect.

Like many Great Vehicle sūtras, this work contains prophecies about how various beings who are present during this teaching will attain perfect awakening in a future lifetime. When the Nāga King Sāgara receives the prophecy of his own awakening, he takes that opportunity to question the existence of any phenomena that might provide a basis for that prophecy as well as the existence of any being who might function as that prophecy's subject. He points out that it is only by giving up such notions that one can receive the buddhas’ prophecy. This theme runs throughout the text: advancement on the path of the Great Vehicle is made through the ultimate insight that all phenomena are without intrinsic essence and thus beyond subject and object, yet this realization of emptiness in no way runs counter to engagement with dependently arisen relative phenomena.

In this vein, two instances in which the issue of gender and spiritual awakening is addressed may be of particular interest to the modern reader. In chapter seven, after the Buddha delivers a special teaching addressed to a throng of ten thousand wide-eyed nāga women, which includes Nāga King Sāgara’s daughter, the Buddha’s attendant Mahākāśyapa interjects that it is impossible for anyone with a female body to attain awakening. Sāgara’s daughter immediately rejects Mahākāśyapa’s view on the grounds that anyone with pure motivation can attain awakening and that it contradicts the doctrine of universal emptiness or nonessentiality. She explains that male and female properties are essences wrongly attributed to otherwise empty mental and physical phenomena, and that “awakening has neither female nor male attributes.” With this logic of nonessentiality, she successfully undermines essentialized notions of gender and defends the ability of women to cultivate the mind set on awakening. In the end, the Buddha prophesies her awakening as the male buddha Samantavipaśyin.1

As this discourse draws to a close, a myriad of bodhisattvas, gods, and women commit to uphold the Buddha’s awakening. They at first seem doubtful that one may preserve the Buddha’s awakening by emphasizing the ultimate view, but the Buddha reassures them that this can be done. Śakra then expresses his amazement at the way in which the women in the gathering have been able to express themselves in accord with the ultimate Dharma. The Buddha once again confirms the women’s abilities as Dharma teachers, and subsequently entrusts Śakra with upholding the sūtra. Both of these events indicate that while the Saṅgha may generally have been reluctant to recognize women as fully qualified practitioners and teachers of the Dharma, the discourse on ultimate reality provided a context for declaring the equality of male and female, both in terms of the nonessentiality of gender constructs and the equal ability of both men and women to cultivate the pure motivation of the mind set on awakening.

There are three consecutive sūtras of greater, middling, and shorter length in the Degé Kangyur entitled The Questions of the Nāga King Sāgara (Toh 153, Toh 154, Toh 155, respectively).2 These three texts deal with separate topics and contain teachings that were delivered to the Nāga King Sāgara and the members of his court deep in the ocean. The material in Toh 154 is also found in Toh 153, and the fact that Toh 154 is included here as a separate work suggests that it had gained some degree of importance as an independent text prior to the Tibetan imperial period, when all three texts were translated into Tibetan. The final work in this series, Toh 155, appears to be an independent work with little relationship to the other two.

To our knowledge, there is currently no extant Sanskrit version of this sūtra, although a few lines in Sanskrit (corresponding to folio 120.a.4–7 in the Degé block print) are preserved in Śāntideva’s Śikṣāsamuccaya (see n.­16). The sūtra was translated into Chinese (Taishō 5983) in 285 ᴄᴇ by the Central Asian monk Dharmarakṣa. Translation from Sanskrit into Tibetan came several centuries later; the colophon of the version translated here states that it was the work of the Indian scholars Jinamitra and Prajñāvarman and the Tibetan translator Yeshé Dé, making the translation datable to the early ninth century. The text is also recorded in the Denkarma4 and Phangthangma5 inventories of Tibetan imperial translations, so we can establish that the Tibetan translation was produced no later than the early ninth century, as the Denkarma is dated to 812 ᴄᴇ. Versions of the sūtra are also found among the Dunhuang manuscripts.6

We find several references to The Questions of the Nāga King Sāgara in the Tengyur, such as in a Madhyamaka treatise by the Indian master Atiśa (982–1054),7 as well as in the works of prominent later Tibetan masters, such as Karmapa III Rangjung Dorjé (1284–1339) and Gorampa Sönam Sengé (1429–1489), who both refer to the sūtra in support of the doctrine that any being who desires awakening (even nonhuman beings like nāgas) may take the vows of the mind set on awakening.8 Apart from Diana Paul’s aforementioned excerpt,9 the sūtra has, to our knowledge, received no detailed scholarly treatment in modern publications.

This translation was prepared from the Degé (sde dge) block print in consultation with the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma) and the Stok Palace manuscript.