Advice to a King (1)
Toh 214
Degé Kangyur, vol. 62 (mdo sde, tsha), folios 207.a–210.a
- Dānaśīla
- Bandé Yeshé Dé
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Table of Contents
Summary
Discerning that the time is right to train King Bimbisāra, the Buddha Śākyamuni goes to Magadha, along with his entourage. The king is hostile at first but when his attack on the Buddha is thwarted and a verse on impermanence is heard, he becomes respectful. In the discourse that ensues, the Buddha tells the king that it is good to be disillusioned with the world because saṃsāra is impermanence and suffering. He then elaborates with a teaching on impermanence followed by a teaching on suffering. When the king asks where, if saṃsāra is so full of suffering, well-being is to be found, the Buddha responds with a short exposition on nirvāṇa as the cessation of all suffering and the cause for supreme happiness. Moved by his words, the king decides that he will renounce worldly concerns and seek nirvāṇa. The Buddha praises the king and concludes the teaching with the potent refrain, “When one is attached, that is saṃsāra. When one is not attached, that is nirvāṇa.”
Acknowledgements
Translated and introduced by George FitzHerbert, in consultation with a draft translation by Khenpo Kalsang Gyaltsen and Chodrungma Kunga Chodron of the Sakya Pandita Translation Group.
The translation was completed under the patronage and supervision of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha. David Fiordalis edited the translation and the introduction, and Dawn Collins copyedited the text. Martina Cotter was in charge of the digital publication process.
Introduction
Advice to a King (1), which carries the alternative colophon title “Advice to King Bimbisāra,” is a poetic discourse on the value of understanding impermanence and the nature of suffering as the key to unlocking the prison of saṃsāra. In concise and direct language, it evokes the fragility and impermanence of human life, points out the futility of worldly accomplishments, and describes in detail the inevitable sufferings of saṃsāra in the six realms of rebirth. The teaching concludes with refrains on nirvāṇa as the cessation of suffering and the supreme happiness.
The text is one of three sūtras (Toh 214, 215, and 221) included in Kangyurs of the Tshalpa line under the identical title The Mahāyāna Sūtra “Advice to a King.” The present sūtra (Toh 214) consists of advice given to Bimbisāra, the king of Magadha. The sūtra that immediately follows it in the Degé Kangyur (Toh 215)1 consists of advice to Udayana, the king of Vatsa. Finally, a longer sūtra in the next volume of the Degé Kangyur (Toh 221) presents advice to Prasenajit, the king of Kośala.
Only the third of these three (Toh 221) is attested in either Sanskrit or Chinese, while both the present text, Advice to King Bimbisāra (Toh 214), and Advice to Udayana, King of Vatsa (Toh 215) have no known Sanskrit or Chinese witnesses and exist only in Tibetan. In their colophons, both of these sūtras are attributed to the translators Dānaśīla and Bandé Yeshé Dé, who were active during the height of Tibetan imperial patronage of Buddhism in the late eighth and early ninth centuries ᴄᴇ. However, neither of the two texts is mentioned in the Phangthangma or Denkarma imperial-period catalogs,2 nor are they mentioned in Chomden Raldri’s late thirteenth-century survey of translated texts. Adding further to the uncertainty of their provenance, neither text is found in any Kangyurs of the Thempangma recensional line.3
King Bimbisāra of Magadha, whose capital was at Rājagṛha, was a contemporary of the Buddha Śākyamuni (according to some sources he was born on the same day) and he was among the most important royal patrons of the Buddha and his early community. As such, he features frequently in Buddhist literature. As Skilling notes, however, the framing narrative of Advice to King Bimbisāra “is strikingly out of step with the received tradition” concerning this king’s relationship with the Buddha.4 Other sources, such as the Vinaya literature and the biography of the Buddha titled The Play in Full (Lalitavistara, Toh 95),5 suggest that the king first met the Buddha while the latter was still a wandering mendicant and was impressed by him even then. In contrast, this text has the Buddha going to meet King Bimbisāra, apparently for the first time, only after the Buddha’s community was already established at Prince Jeta’s Grove (under the patronage of King Prasenajit of Kośala), and it portrays King Bimbisāra rudely rebuffing him at first. This unusual framing story raises further questions about the textual history of this sūtra. Such questions notwithstanding, at the heart of the sūtra is an eloquent, concise, and forceful teaching on impermanence, suffering, karma, and the promise of peace.
There have been two previous English translations of Advice to King Bimbisāra: an early, loose translation published in 1973 by Thubten Kalzang Rinpoche et al., and a richly annotated and fine translation by Peter Skilling published in 2021. This English translation was made from the Tibetan as found in the Degé Kangyur, in consultation with variants recorded in the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma).
Text Body
Advice to a King (1)
Advice to King Bimbisāra
The Translation
Homage to all buddhas and bodhisattvas.
Thus did I hear at one time. The Blessed One was staying at Prince Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍada’s Park, with a large community of monks and a community of many bodhisattvas. At that time, the Blessed One declared to his audience, “Since the time has now come for King Bimbisāra to be trained, we must go to Magadha.” He then departed, gliding through the sky like a king of swans along with his entourage.
When the minister Sucandra6 saw this, he said to his king, “Lord, the Buddha and his entourage are approaching our land. We should adorn the city to pay our respects.”
“There is no one in Jambudvīpa greater than I,” replied the king, inflated with his own arrogance, “so to whom should I pay my respects?”
Then the Buddha and his entourage sat down on seats laid out at the gates of King Bimbisāra’s palace. When the king came to know that the Blessed One and his entourage were thus seated, he called on a wrestler known as a heavy lifter to throw a huge rock at the Blessed One.7 From the sound of that rock flying through the air came a voice that proclaimed:8
On hearing this, King Bimbisāra became respectful and went before the Buddha with his palms joined. When he had taken a seat, the Blessed One said, “Great King, take interest in the Dharma, take it in, request for it to be taught, and be disillusioned.”
The king inquired, [F.207.b] “Blessed One, with what should I be dissatisfied and disillusioned?”
“Be dissatisfied and disillusioned with saṃsāra,” replied the Blessed One.
“Why should I be dissatisfied and disillusioned with saṃsāra?” asked the king.
“Because saṃsāra is impermanence and suffering,” he replied.
“How is saṃsāra impermanence, Blessed One?” inquired the king.
“This container, the world, is impermanent, and its contents, sentient beings, are also impermanent,”10 replied the Blessed One.
“How is this container, the world, impermanent?” asked the king.
The Blessed One replied:11
“How are the contents, sentient beings, impermanent?” asked the king.
The Blessed One replied:
King Bimisāra asked, “Blessed One, what are the sufferings of beings in saṃsāra?”
The Blessed One replied,
Then the king asked, “Blessed One, if saṃsāra is so much suffering, then where is well-being to be found?”
The Blessed One replied, “Nirvāṇa is perfect well-being.”21
“How is it perfect well-being?” asked the king.
The Blessed One answered,
When the Blessed One had spoken, King Bimbisāra became disillusioned with saṃsāra, discarded his royal power like spittle in the dust, and set his mind on accomplishing nirvāṇa.
Then the Blessed One said:
After the Blessed One had spoken, everyone, King Bimbisāra and the rest, rejoiced and praised what the Blessed One had said.
This concludes the Mahāyāna sūtra “Advice to King Bimbisāra.”
Colophon
Translated, edited, and finalized by the Indian preceptor Dānaśīla and Bandé Yeshé Dé.
Notes
Bibliography
Source Texts
rgyal po la gdam pa zhes bya ba theg pa chen po’i mdo (Rājadeśanāmamahāyānasūtra). Toh 214, Degé Kangyur vol. 62 (mdo sde, tsha), folios 207.a–210.a.
rgyal po la gdam pa zhes bya ba theg pa chen po’i mdo. bka’ ’gyur (dpe bsdur ma) [Comparative Edition of the Kangyur], krung go’i bod rig pa zhib ’jug ste gnas kyi bka’ bstan dpe sdur khang (The Tibetan Tripitaka Collation Bureau of the China Tibetology Research Center). 108 volumes. Beijing: krung go’i bod rig pa dpe skrun khang (China Tibetology Publishing House), 2006–9, vol. 62, pp. 550–59.
Denkarma (pho brang stod thang ldan dkar gyi chos kyi ’gyur ro cog gi dkar chag). Toh 4364, Degé Tengyur vol. 206 (sna tshogs, jo), folios 294.b–310.a.
Western Languages
84000. The Exemplary Tales of Śrīsena (Śrīsenāvadāna, dpal gyi sde’i rtogs pa brjod pa, Toh 349). Translated by Lokākṣi Translator Group. Online publication, 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, 2021.
84000. Advice to a King (2) (Rājadeśa, rgyal po la gdams pa, Toh 215). Translated by the Sakya Pandita Translation Group. Online publication, 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, 2024.
84000. The Play in Full (Lalitavistara, rgya cher rol pa, Toh 95). Translated by Dharmachakra Translation Committee. Online publication, 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, 2013.
Herrmann-Pfandt, Adelheid. Die lHan kar ma: ein früher Katalog der ins Tibetische übersetzten buddhistischen Texte. Vienna: Verlag der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2008.
Skilling, Peter. Questioning the Buddha: A Selection of Twenty-Five Sutras. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2021.
Thubten Kalsang Rinpoche, Bhikkhu Nagasena, and Bhikkhu Khantipale. “Rajadesananama—Mahayana Sutra I (The Discourse on the Great Way named Instructions to a King).” In Three Discourses of the Buddha, 1–11. Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1973.
Glossary
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Attested in other text
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Attested in dictionary
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Approximate attestation
The attestation of this name is approximate. It is based on other names where the relationship between the Tibetan and source language is attested in dictionaries or other manuscripts.
Reconstruction from Tibetan phonetic rendering
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asura
- lha min
- ལྷ་མིན།
- asura
Bandé Yeshé Dé
- ye shes sde
- ཡེ་ཤེས་སྡེ།
- —
Bimbisāra
- gzugs can snying po
- གཟུགས་ཅན་སྙིང་པོ།
- bimbisāra
Blessed One
- bcom ldan ’das
- བཅོམ་ལྡན་འདས།
- bhagavan
bodhisattva
- byang chub sems dpa’
- བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ།
- bodhisattva
community
- dge ’dun
- དགེ་འདུན།
- saṅgha
Dānaśīla
- dA na shI la
- དཱ་ན་ཤཱི་ལ།
- —
disillusionment
- yid ’byung ba
- ཡིད་འབྱུང་བ།
- nirvid
dissatisfaction
- skyo ba
- སྐྱོ་བ།
- udvega
four great elements
- ’byung chen bzhi
- འབྱུང་ཆེན་བཞི།
- caturmahābhūta
god
- lha
- ལྷ།
- deva
karma
- las
- ལས།
- karman
liminal state
- bar do
- བར་དོ།
- antarābhava
Lord of Death
- ’chi bdag
- འཆི་བདག
- yamarāja
Magadha
- ma ga dhA
- མ་ག་དྷཱ།
- magadha
Māra
- Bdud
- བདུད།
- māra
monk
- dge slong
- དགེ་སློང་།
- bhikṣu
Mount Meru
- ri rab
- རི་རབ།
- meru
nirvāṇa
- mya ngan las ’das pa
- མྱ་ངན་ལས་འདས་པ།
- nirvāṇa
preta
- yi dags
- ཡི་དགས།
- preta
Prince Jeta’s Grove
- rgyal bu rgyal byed kyi tshal
- རྒྱལ་བུ་རྒྱལ་བྱེད་ཀྱི་ཚལ།
- jetavana
Prince Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍada’s Park
- 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།
- jetavanam anāthapiṇḍadasyārāmaḥ AO
saṃsāra
- ’khor ba
- འཁོར་བ།
- saṃsāra
Sucandra
- zla ba bzang po
- ཟླ་བ་བཟང་པོ།
- sucandra
three lower realms
- ngan song gsum
- ངན་སོང་གསུམ།
- tryapāya
- tridurgati
Yama
- gshin rje
- གཤིན་རྗེ།
- yama