The Noble Mahāyāna Sūtra on the Four Factors

The Noble Mahāyāna Sūtra on the Four Factors (Ārya­catur­dharmaka­nāma­mahā­yāna sūtra) is the third of three short sūtras with similar titles (all referring to sets of four dharmas or factors of the path). In many Kangyurs (predominantly those of Tshalpa origin, including the Degé Kangyur) these sūtras are found grouped together.

Of the other sūtras in this set, The Sūtra Teaching the Four Factors (Toh 249)1 is concerned with the four factors necessary for the practice of confession, while The Four Factors (Toh 250)2 identifies four beliefs that a wise son of a good family should not accept as true. Two further works, The Accomplishment of the Sets of Four Qualities: The Bodhisattvas’ Prātimokṣa (Toh 248)3 and The Fourfold Accomplishment (Toh 252)4 also concern themselves with “sets of four” (catuṣka, bzhi pa), thereby forming a larger group of five sūtras in the Degé Kangyur that lay out key elements of the practice of the path in discrete sets of four factors.

In the present sūtra, dharma is a flexible term used to refer to a specific set or category of four important components or factors of the path that a bodhisattva, someone who aspires to achieve the perfect awakening of a buddha, should not abandon under any circumstances. These four factors are (1) the thought of awakening, (2) the spiritual friend or companion and guide in virtue, (3) tolerance and lenience, considered here as a pair, and (4) dwelling in the wilderness, that is, in a place suitably removed from the social world of the town so as to enable spiritual practice.

The Buddha presents these four factors using this formula: “For as long as they live, bodhisattvas, great beings, should not abandon x even at the cost of their lives.” This is repeated in six successive lines, first to introduce all four factors together, then for each one in turn, and finally to refer to all four by way of recapitulation. The sūtra thus employs the rhetorical device of repetition‍—combining anaphora and epistrophe, repetition of the beginning and end phrases of a line‍—that is such a common feature of Buddhist canonical literature.

The text concludes with two stanzas, also spoken by the Buddha, that summarize the sūtra’s message and explain the benefit of maintaining the four factors. These verses present the factors in a slightly different sequence, with tolerance and lenience preceding the factor of the spiritual friend. They also exhort the wise bodhisattva to be as fearless as a lion, “the king of beasts,” while dwelling in the wilderness.

The Chinese Tripiṭaka contains two translations of the sūtra (Taishō 7725 & Taishō 7736), both by Divākara and dated to 680 ᴄᴇ and 681 ᴄᴇ.7 The sūtra and commentaries also appear in several manuscripts of the Dunhuang collection. Among those manuscripts is an annotated translation of the sūtra (IOL Tib J 69) that identifies the translators as Surendrabodhi and Yeshe Dé. This manuscript is significant not only because of the annotations to the translation itself but also because the Kangyur versions lack a translator’s colophon (’gyur byang). The sūtra is listed in both the Denkarma8 and Phangthangma9 catalogs of translated works, indicating that the first Tibetan translation of the text was complete by the early ninth century.

There is a short commentary on this sūtra attributed to Vasubandhu and preserved in Tibetan in the Tengyur, (*Ārya­catur­dharmaka­vyākhyāna, ’phags pa chos bzhi pa’i rnam par bshad pa, Toh 3990), which we have also translated,10 as well as a slightly longer commentary on this commentary, attributed to Jñānadatta (: *Āryacatur­dharmaka­vyākhyāna­ṭīkā, ’phags pa chos bzhi pa’i rgya cher bshad pa’i rgya cher ’grel pa, Toh 3990a).

Several independent treatises found within the Tengyur also make reference to this sūtra. Śāntideva’s Compendium of Training (Śikṣā­samuccaya, Toh 3940), for instance, refers to the second of the four factors when discussing the importance of the teacher.11 Prajñākaramati also cites the same line in his Commentary on the Difficult Points of the Bodhicaryāvatāra (Bodhi­caryāvatāra­pañjikā; byang chub kyi spyod pa la ’jug pa’i dka’ ’grel, Toh 3872).12 Vimalamitra refers to the fourth factor on the importance of dwelling in the wilderness in The Meaning of the Gradual Cultivation (rim gyis ’jug pa’i sgom don, Toh 3938).13 The sūtra has also been cited in works by Tibetan authors. To give just one example, the celebrated Nyingma master Longchen Rabjam (1308–64) quotes the sūtra’s line about the importance of the spiritual friend in the eighth chapter of The White Lotus Autocommentary on the Wish-Fulfilling Treasury (yid bzhin mdzod kyi ’grel pa pad ma dkar po).14

A French translation of the sūtra by Léon Feer was first published in 1866 (and reprinted in 1883).15 Peter Skilling has included a fine English translation along with some helpful notes under the title “Four Dharmas Never to Be Abandoned” in his recent collection Questioning the Buddha: A Selection of Twenty-Five Sutras.16

The following translation was made primarily on the basis of the Degé block print with reference to the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma), the Stok Palace Kangyur, IOL Tib J 69, and the commentaries ascribed to Vasubandhu and Jñānadatta.