The Quintessence of the Sun
Introduction

The Quintessence of the Sun, which belongs to the General Sūtra section of the Kangyur, is a long and heterogeneous sūtra containing eleven chapters. At the Veṇuvana in the Kalandakanivāpa on the outskirts of Rājagṛha, the Buddha Śākyamuni first explains to a great assembly the severe consequences of stealing what has been offered to monks and the importance of protecting those who abide by the Dharma. The next section tells of bodhisattvas sent from buddha realms in the four directions to bring various dhāraṇīs as a way of protecting and benefitting this world. While explaining those dhāraṇīs, the Buddha Śākyamuni presents various meditations on repulsiveness and instructions on the empty nature of phenomena. On the basis of another long narrative involving Māra and groups of nāgas, detailed teachings on astrology are also introduced, as are a number of additional dhāraṇīs and a list of sacred locations blessed by the presence of holy beings.

With the exception of a short Sanskrit manuscript fragment found in Central Asia,1 no Sanskrit manuscript of the text appears to be extant. We do, however, have translations of the sūtra into both Chinese and Tibetan. The Chinese translation (Rizang fen 日藏分, Taishō 397-14) was translated in 585 ᴄᴇ by Narendrayaśas (517–89), an Indian translator from Oḍḍiyāna who traveled the Silk Road in order to propagate Buddhism. He arrived in China during the Northern Qi dynasty in 556. At the request of Emperor Wenxuan, he resided at Tianpingsi and later at Daxingshansi, where he translated fourteen Indian sūtras into Chinese, including the Karuṇāpuṇḍarīka­sūtra,2 the Samādhi­rāja­sūtra,3 and the Mahāmeghasūtra.4 The Tibetan translation was completed in the early translation period and is listed in the early ninth-century Denkarma (ldan dkar ma) catalog.5 According to the colophon of the Tibetan translation, the sūtra was translated into Tibetan by the Indian scholars Sarvajñādeva, Vidyākaraprabha, and Dharmākara and by the Tibetan translator Zangkyong. It was then edited and finalized by Kawa Paltsek, the prolific translator who participated in numerous translation projects in Tibet during the early translation period, when the majority of Indian sūtras were translated into Tibetan. In producing this English rendering, we have based our work on the Tibetan Degé block print with reference to the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma) and the Stok Palace manuscript.

The sūtra is quoted in Nāgārjuna’s Sūtrasamuccaya6 and in Tsongkhapa’s major work on the stages of spiritual progress, the lam rim chen mo.7 In terms of modern scholarship, the French scholar Sylvain Lévi includes translations from the Chinese of three long passages of the sūtra in an influential essay that investigates connections between Indian Buddhism and Central Asia.8 Bill Mak and Jeffrey Kotyk discuss some of the astrological elements contained in the sūtra in publications that focus on Buddhist astral science in China and its relationships with India.9 A passage of the text has also been translated by Jonathan Silk in his study of administrative roles in Indian Buddhist monasticism.10

In the Chinese canon, The Quintessence of the Sun is included in the Mahāsannipāta (Tib. ’dus pa chen po), also called the Mahāvaipulya (Tib. shin tu rgyas pa chen po’i sde), a massive collection of seventeen Mahāyāna sūtras. According to Jens Braarvig, who presents a detailed textual history of this collection in his doctoral thesis on the Akṣayamati­nirdeśa­sūtra,11 the term mahāsannipāta can be understood to refer to both this great collection of sūtras and the great assembly of monks and bodhisattvas present around the Buddha when those teachings were given.12 The Mahāsannipāta, preserved in its entirety in the Chinese canon, is a group of rather loosely related texts. Although these texts vary in terms of doctrine and form, they do show greater homogeneity than other scriptural collections such as the Ratnakūṭa. Braarvig argues that the first twelve sūtras in this collection must have been part of an Indic version of the collection,13 and that this collection probably predates the versions of texts from the collection that circulated as independent Sanskrit manuscripts or were translated into Tibetan and added to the Tibetan canon as independent texts. A few sūtras of the Mahāsannipāta are indeed available in Sanskrit (mostly in fragmentary forms) and in Tibetan, but only as independent texts. It appears that this collection did not receive the same level of attention in India as other large collections like the Ratnakūṭa and the Buddhāvataṃsaka. On the other hand, it is obvious that the Mahāsannipāta played an important role in some of the Chinese and Central Asian kingdoms along the Silk Road. It is, for example, praised in The Book of Zambasta, an important Khotanese Buddhist poem from the eighth century, along with the Prajñāpāramitā and the Buddhāvataṃsaka. According to Braarvig, the Chinese translation of the Mahāsannipāta was initially compiled during the second or third century, at the earliest during the first. The collection that is extant today (Taishō 397) was compiled in 586 ᴄᴇ by the Khotanese monk Sengjiu. This collection is based on the manuscript of the translation of the first sūtras by Dharmarakṣema (414–21 ᴄᴇ) and was enlarged by new texts translated by Narendrayaśas, including The Quintessence of the Sun.14

There is some evidence suggesting that this sūtra, or at least parts of it, may have been composed in Central Asia.15 Its last chapter contains a list of twenty sacred sites blessed by the presence of holy beings. Less than half of the sites mentioned in this chapter are located in India, and many are Central Asian. This geographical list clearly reflects the propagation of Buddhism from India to China along the route of the pilgrims. The sacred location given the most attention in this text is situated in the land of Khaṣa, another name for the site of what would become the city-state of Khotan, which existed during the first millennium ᴄᴇ. According to Lévi, The Quintessence of the Sun is one of the sūtras most intimately connected with that region, and he holds the view that Khotan was one of the most active centers for the compilation of Mahāyāna literature, especially of sūtras destined for China.16 This passage of the text, which begins at 12.26, relates the story of a specific site in Khaṣa called Gomasālagandha, and is a condensed version of the narrative of the sūtra The Prophecy on Mount Gośṛṅga17 containing some of the same people and names. Other passages mentioning the same story are found in another work belonging to the Mahāsannipāta, the Candragarbhaparipṛcchā.18 This latter work is represented in the Kangyur only by an excerpt (Toh 356) which does not seem to include such passages.

The connection between The Quintessence of the Sun and Central Asia is further confirmed by one of the astronomical measurements contained in the text, which places the user of that measurement in the northern or northwestern frontier of India.19 Also, the only extant Sanskrit manuscript fragment of the sūtra was found in Central Asia. It is a fragment of the astrological section of the text that, according to Rudolf Hoernle, was composed in a mixed dialect that is very corrupt and whose meaning is sometimes obscure.20 Due to the complex and obscure nature of this astrological section, we have not attempted a rendering of it into English. Instead, we are hoping that future scholars may be able to produce a reliable study and translation of this section that can be added to this translation. We have indicated in the notes the relevant section, where thirty-two folios have been left untranslated.