The Thirteen Late-Translated Sūtras

Overview

Toh 31–43 comprises a group of works translated into Tibetan in the early fourteenth century. The likeliest source language for these translations is Pali,¹ and in fact nearly all of them have close counterparts in the extant literature of the Theravāda tradition in South and Southeast Asia. Among them are some of the best known and most influential texts of the Theravāda tradition, such as The Turning of the Wheel of Dhamma (Toh 31), The Setting for the Jātaka Tales (Toh 32), and The Discourse on Great Auspiciousness (Toh 43). In addition to whatever place they may have in the Pali Canon, a number of these works are also part of a collection of protective texts, known as the Pirit Potha or Catubhāṇavāra, that is widespread throughout the Theravāda Buddhist world and commonly used for bringing good fortune and keeping away the bad. As far as their content is concerned, the works of this section explore many different themes, including basic teachings such as the four noble truths and the middle way, meditation practices such as the mindfulness of breathing and the meditation on love, basic moral virtues such as gratitude and caring for one's family, ascetic and monastic values such as dispassion and renunciation, the protective and healing power of reciting the Buddha's words, and the story of the long path taken by the Buddha over many lifetimes to attain complete awakening.

Classification, Sources, and Circumstances of Translation

To begin, here is what Situ Paṇchen Chökyi Jungné (si tu paṇ chen chos kyi 'byung gnas, 1700–1774), the author of the Degé Karchak (the catalog of the Degé Kangyur), has to say about these thirteen texts:

Then, regarding the recently translated sūtras, which are not to be classified as perfection of wisdom [sūtras], while being translated at a later time, they are placed subsequent to the preceding [perfection of wisdom sūtras] in this volume. Whether they are of the Great Vehicle or the Small Vehicle, whether they are duplicates of ancient translations or not, and so on—these questions appear to remain undetermined. And they are called the following: The Sūtra on the Turning of the Wheel of Dharma, The Sūtra of the Setting for the Jātaka Tales, The Āṭānāṭiya Sūtra, The Sūtra of the Great Assembly, The Sūtra on Maitreya, The Sūtra on the Cultivation of Love, The Sūtra on the Benefits of the Five Precepts, The Sūtra on Girimānanda, The Sūtra on the Taming of the Nāga King Nandopananda, The Sūtra on Kāśyapa the Great, The Sūtra on the Sun, The Sūtra on the Moon, and The Sūtra on Great Auspiciousness. They were translated, edited, and finalized at the center for translators at the great monastery of Pal Tharpaling by the learned translator, the Śākya monk Nyima Gyaltsen Palsangpo, in the presence of the great scholar Ānandaśrī.²

Situ Paṇchen makes a point of distinguishing these thirteen texts from the Perfection of Wisdom sūtras, given that they are placed directly after the latter in the same volume of the Degé Kangyur. He also raises certain questions about how these thirteen texts are to be classified, such as whether they should be understood as Mahāyāna sūtras or not, and how they or their source texts should be connected to parallel texts translated in earlier times and located in other parts of the Kangyur. Providing no answers to these questions, he simply lists the names of these thirteen texts and gives basic information about where the translations were made and by whom, information that can be found in the Tibetan colophons to the translations as well.

Although we refer to them as "late-translated" sūtras, Situ Paṇchen also describes them as "recently translated" (gsar du 'gyur ba). In the fourteenth century, Butön Rinchen Drup (bu ston rin chen drup, 1290–1364) also spoke of them in the same terms, as did Terdak Lingpa (gter bdag gling pa, 1646–1714) and the editors of the Lithang Kangyur in the seventeenth century. Thus, being late translations, they were the last group of works to enter the sūtra section of the Kangyur,³ and this is probably the reason they are not present in some of the peripheral Kangyurs that may represent earlier compilations, such as the Phukdrak and Newark Batang Kangyurs. The Lhasa Kangyur catalog calls them simply "the group of thirteen sūtras" (mdo tshan bcu sum po).

Also, although the Degé Kangyur catalog calls them all sūtras (Tib mdo, Pali sutta, generally translated below as "discourse") and so, too, do most of the Tibetan colophons to the translations themselves, they are not all sūtras, strictly speaking, in the sense that they do not all possess the characteristic opening formula or other formal aspects of the genre. The most significant case is The Setting for the Jātaka Tales (Toh 32), which is even called an "exposition" or "explanation" (bshad pa), a term sometimes used for a type of commentary, in the individual Tibetan colophon at the end of the translation as well as in the collective colophon found at the end of the group of thirteen works. In the Theravāda tradition, this work is indeed more accurately described as a commentarial work than a canonical one. It is, in fact, a composite text, the layers of which are discussed in more detail in the introduction to our translation of Toh 32. In the Pali, the main narrator is an unnamed monk, but the Tibetan translation begins instead by giving a narrative setting that differs from that of the Pali source text and that places the scene of the dialogue at the time of the Buddha while suggesting that the Buddha is the main narrator of the story. Thus, at least from the perspective of its Tibetan translation, there is some basis for describing Toh 32 as a sūtra despite its colophon and some of its formal features.

The Taming of the Nāga King Nandopananda (Toh 39) is another of these thirteen texts whose status as a sūtra is in question. It is framed as a sūtra in Tibetan translation through the inclusion of the standard opening and closing formulas, and it is also described as a sūtra in an early Chinese parallel.⁴ However, the closest Pali parallels for the text are not found among the canonical suttas in the Pali Canon, and neither is described as a sutta. The extant Pali versions of the text are found in the chapter on superhuman powers in Buddhaghosa's Visuddhimagga and the Pali commentary on the Theragāthā attributed to Dhammapāla. The opening and closing passages, as they are found in the Tibetan translation, also seem to disrupt the continuity of the narrator's voice to some degree, especially at the end of the text, which gives the impression that the sūtra framework was grafted onto an already extant narrative.

Most of the remaining works of these thirteen late-translated texts do have counterparts among the canonical suttas of the Pali Canon, but there are two more exceptions that should be mentioned first. The Discourse on Metteyya (Toh 35) corresponds most closely to a non-canonical Pali work called The Discourse on Metteyya (Metteyya Sutta), and it incorporates parts of another non-canonical work known as The Lineage of the Future (Anāgatavaṃsa). The latter tells about the bodhisattva Maitreya (Pali Metteyya), some of his past lives, and his present circumstances, as well as the future conditions that will lead to his appearance in the world as the next buddha. Also, while the first part of The Benefits of the Five Precepts (Toh 37) has a close correspondence with the Pali Discourse on Living Together (Samajīvī Sutta) found in the Aṅguttara Nikāya (AN 4.55), its second part has no direct parallel that has yet been identified in Pali or in any other Buddhist canonical language. Perhaps the second part is based on a lost noncanonical work, or perhaps it represents a commentarial or oral teaching for which a manuscript version, if extant, has not yet been identified.

Otherwise, the remaining nine works (Toh 31, 33, 34, 36, 38, and 40–43) all have counterparts among the canonical suttas of the Pali Canon. Of these nine, The Cultivation of Love (Toh 36) is actually a combination of what is at present Aṅguttara Nikāya 11.15 and a series of verses found in the Mūgapakkha or Temiya Jātaka (Jātaka tale 538). However, the fact that these works, and the first part of Toh 37, have corresponding texts in the Pali Canon does not mean that the canonical versions of these works were used as the basis for these Tibetan translations. It is noteworthy that these same nine texts are also found in widespread Theravāda collections of "protective texts" (paritta) such as the Pirit Pota or Catubhāṇavāra.⁵

The Pirit Pota collection remains extremely popular throughout the Theravāda Buddhist world up to modern times. According to G. P. Malalasekera, writing in 1928, "[It] forms part of the meagre library of every Sinhalese household."⁶ Speaking of the texts that make up the collection, Malalasekera continues, "Most Sinhalese know some part these suttas by heart, and every child is taught to recite at least a portion of them every morning and before retiring to bed."⁷ In addition, in 1909 Mabel Bode writes of Burma, "to this day, [the paritta is] more widely known by the Burmese laity of all classes than any other Pali book."⁸ So it is clear that we are dealing here with a collection of texts many of which are widely known and popular throughout the Theravāda Buddhist world. Charles Hallisey refers to it as a "functional canon within the canon" of Theravāda Buddhist literature.⁹

The four of the thirteen not found among known collections of paritta texts are the aforementioned The Setting for the Jātaka Tales (Jātakanidāna, Toh 32), The Discourse on Metteyya (Toh 35), The Benefits of the Five Precepts (Toh 37), and The Taming of the Nāga King Nandopananda (Toh 39). Given its popularity within the Theravāda tradition, it is small wonder that The Setting for the Jātaka Tales would have been chosen for translation. And it stands to reason that alternative stories about the next buddha, Maitreya, such as we find in Toh 35, would also have been of interest in the kind of cross-cultural, inter-traditional exchange of ideas among Buddhists that these translations represent. Toh 37 and Toh 39 both contain compelling, provocative, challenging, and even (at times) somewhat entertaining content. It could be that one or both of them were also regarded as having protective qualities. Nevertheless, we do not know all the circumstances that led to these and only these particular works being selected for translation and incorporated into the Kangyur in the fourteenth century. It could simply be that these texts were readily available at the time and place in which the translations were made.

There is textual evidence within the translations themselves to suggest that the Catubhāṇavāra or a closely related collection of paritta texts likely served as the source text, or is at least the closest textual basis we have, for some of these thirteen translations. One important piece of evidence is the presence of a verse in Toh 43 that is one of the two introductory verses found only in the Catubhāṇavāra version and not in the canonical Pali. Second, the opening prose nidāna or narrative setting for Toh 36 is found in the Catubhāṇavāra version of the corresponding Mettānisamsā Sutta but not in the canonical Pali version of the text (AN 11.15). A similar conclusion that the likeliest source for many of these translations is the Catubhāṇavāra is also reached by Sukanya Charoenwerakul in her 2021 dissertation (in Thai), which compares nine of the Tibetan translations with their Pali counterparts. While these are strong pieces of evidence that paritta versions of these texts served as a basis for some of the translations, it is worth adding that the versions of these texts found in the Catubhāṇavāra are virtually identical to the Pali canonical versions, apart from a few notable differences found here and there, such as the above.

The colophons to the late-translated works, along with additional Tibetan sources, provide us with a number of tantalizing details about the translators, the sponsor, and the location at which these translations were made. Peter Skilling (1993) has studied the variations among the colophons to these texts found in the different Kangyurs in more detail, but in brief we can say that the colophons to Toh 31 and Toh 43 in the Degé Kangyur are among the most elaborate. In fact, the colophon to Toh 43 in the Degé Kangyur, a colophon also found in several Kangyurs of the Tshalpa line, is actually a collective colophon for all thirteen of the late-translated works. In addition, there does not seem to be any significant information found in the other colophons to individual works that is not also found in this collective colophon. Here is how the collective colophon from Toh 43 reads, in part:¹⁰

…At the request of the Kuzhang of Zhalu, Drakpa Gyaltsen, the Du dben Sha—who possessed a strong interest in the teaching of the blessed Buddha,¹¹ had achieved the rank of supreme lord over diverse kingdoms and resources, and was the master of the Noble Monastery of the Self-Arisen Lord of the World located in the area of Gurmo, the merchant bazaar of Nyang-ro in Tsang in the land of Tibet among the snowy mountains, a place approximately one hundred yojanas to the northeast of the vajra seat of awakening in the noble land in the middle country of Jambudvīpa—these thirteen discourses, namely The Discourse on the Turning of the Noble Dharma…,¹² were translated, edited, and finalized at the center for translators at the great monastery of Pal Tharpaling by the learned translator, the Śākya monk Nyima Gyaltsen Palsangpo, in the presence of the great scholar Ānandaśrī, a fully ordained monk who had properly left the household life, an expert in the three baskets, who descended from the lineage of brahmins from the island of Sri Lanka, a place approximately six hundred yojanas to the south of the vajra seat of awakening.

The colophons to the translations all credit them to Nyima Gyaltsen Palsangpo (nyi ma rgyal mtshan dpal bzang po), known as "the Translator of Tharpa" (thar pa lo tsā ba), a prominent Tibetan translator and scholar of Indian languages who lived in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.¹³ He is elsewhere said to have lived for fourteen years in Nepal and to have later become one of Butön's teachers.¹⁴ According to the colophons, Nyima Gyaltsen made these translations "in the presence" (literally "from the mouth," zhal snga nas, perhaps carrying a sense of oral instruction) of a "scholar" (paṇḍita) named Ānandaśrī, who the colophons describe as a learned, fully-ordained monk from Sri Lanka descended from a brahmin family. The colophons also state that the translation work was undertaken at "the center for translators" (skad gnyis smra ba rnams kyi gdan sa) at the "great monastery" (gtsug lag khang chen po) of Tharpaling (thar pa gling),¹⁵ and that the translations were made at the behest and with the support of Drakpa Gyaltsen, the ruler of Zhalu and "a man of considerable power," as Skilling describes him.¹⁶

Little is known about Ānandaśrī, the Sri Lankan monk, apart from what is said about him in the colophon. However, it is known that he did collaborate with another Tibetan translator on another translation found in some editions of the Kangyur, which is described by Skilling as "a different translation of a similar but not identical text" to the one translated as The Discourse on Metteyya (byams pa'i mdo, Toh 35).¹⁷ While this alternative translation is not found in the Degé Kangyur, Skilling has determined that it is found in four other editions of the Kangyur: Berlin, Lhasa, Narthang, and Peking.¹⁸ Its colophon states that it was translated by Ānandaśrī and Künga Gyaltsen Thupten Sangpo (kun dga' rgyal mtshan thub bstan dpal bzang po) in 1307 ce at Sakya (sa skya).

Apart from these fourteen texts, there is one other known Theravāda text included in the Kangyur. It is a translation of the third chapter of the Vimuttimagga, which is included for unknown reasons in the miscellaneous sūtra section of the Kangyur (Toh 306), attributed to a different set of translators, and likely translated several centuries earlier than the time of Ānandaśrī and Nyima Gyaltsen.¹⁹

So, while we know relatively more about the translation of these thirteen late-translated texts than we do about many of the translations found in the Kangyur and Tengyur, there are still a number of unanswered questions about the sources, circumstances, and process behind these translations. We do not know, for instance, how Ānandaśrī came to be associated with Nyima Gyaltsen in the first place, or why he found himself at Tharpaling monastery in Central Tibet. Could the two have met while Nyima Gyaltsen was living in Nepal? It seems possible, but it is entirely speculative on our part.

Does the colophon's statement that the translations were made by Nyima Gyaltsen "in the presence of" Ānandaśrī mean that the texts were taught orally by Ānandaśrī to Nyima Gyaltsen? Or did Nyima Gyaltsen also have access to written manuscripts brought to Tibet by Ānandaśrī or someone else? The popular paritta texts found in the collection are works that Ānandaśrī ostensibly would have known well. Perhaps he taught them to Nyima Gyaltsen from memory. At the same time, given their prevalence today, it also seems possible that a collection in manuscript form was available to the two translators. Could Ānandaśrī also have taught The Setting for the Jātaka Tales (Toh 32) to Nyima Gyaltsen by memory? It seems more likely to us that he had a manuscript of it in his possession, from which he could teach.

In any case, even if one assumes that Nyima Gyaltsen had access to manuscripts from Sri Lanka furnished by Ānandaśrī or someone else, these manuscripts would presumably have been written in a script largely unfamiliar to him. This would have required Nyima Gyaltsen either to learn the script or receive oral explanations about the contents of the text. Skilling imagines a somewhat similar scenario and surmises that "[He and Ānandaśrī] may well have communicated in a mixture of Sanskrit and the North Indian lingua franca of the day."²⁰ Some of the interpretations, even mistranslations in some cases, that one finds in the texts—the translation of the classic passage on the mindfulness of breathing in The Discourse About Girimānanda (Toh 38) is one example—may well point to a complex process of translation in which a textual source was read aloud and its meaning explained, perhaps through the medium of a third language, such as Sanskrit, that both the translators knew well enough to communicate with each other.

Contents of This Section

The Turning of the Wheel of Dhamma (Toh 31): The principal Pali version of what is known throughout many Buddhist traditions as the Buddha's first sermon, in which he sets out the four truths of the noble ones and describes the middle way.

The Setting for the Jātaka Tales (Toh 32): The principal Pali version of the story of the Buddha Gotama's journey to awakening, which forms the introduction to the Pali commentary on the Jātaka tales. It begins at the time the Buddha, in a past life as a brahmin named Sumedha, first made the bodhisattva vow in front of the past buddha Dīpaṅkara, and it concludes with the Buddha's acceptance of Anāthapiṇḍika's donation of the monastery at Jeta's Grove during his last lifetime as the Buddha. This is by far the longest of the thirteen texts contained in this section.

The Āṭānāṭiya Discourse (Toh 33): A set of protective verses taught by King Vessavaṇa, lord of the yakkhas, to the Buddha Gotama, so that they can be taught to the Buddha's community of disciples and recited by them for their protection.

The Discourse of the Great Assembly (Toh 34): A great host of devas comes to visit the Buddha, which prompts him to describe in verse the many devas and their realms to an audience of monks who are also present.

The Discourse on Metteyya (Toh 35): A description of the period of decline and disappearance of the Dharma leading to the appearance of the next buddha, Maitreya.

The Cultivation of Love (Toh 36): A short description of the various benefits of cultivating love or friendliness (Pali mettā, Skt maitrī, Tib byams pa).

The Benefits of the Five Precepts (Toh 37): A faithful husband and wife ask the Buddha how they can continue to be together in future lives; the Buddha not only answers their question but gives a second teaching on the terrible consequences of violating the five precepts, as well as the benefits of upholding them.

The Discourse About Girimānanda (Toh 38): The monk Girimānanda recovers from a serious illness after the Buddha directs Ānanda to recite a teaching to him about the ten conceptions (Pali saññā, Skt saṃjñā, Tib 'du shes). The ten conceptions include a number of basic Buddhist concepts, such as impermanence, nonself, and dispassion, as well as a description of the mindfulness of breathing.

The Taming of the Nāga King Nandopananda (Toh 39): A short story about the taming of a nāga king by Maudgalyāyana (Pali Moggallāna), one of the Buddha's great disciples, through the use of his superhuman powers.

The Discourse on Kassapa the Great (Toh 40): The great disciple Kaśyapa (Pali Kassapa) recovers from a serious illness after the Buddha teaches him about the seven constitutive factors of awakening (Pali bojjhaṅga, Skt bodhyaṅga, Tib byang chub kyi yan lag).

The Sūtra of the Sun (Toh 41): The sun is released by the asura Rāhu, who is responsible for solar eclipses, after Sūrya, the solar deity, takes refuge in the Buddha.

The Sūtra of the Moon (1) (Toh 42): The moon is released by the asura Rāhu, who is responsible for lunar eclipses, after Candramas, the lunar deity, takes refuge in the Buddha.

The Discourse on Great Auspiciousness (Toh 43): The Buddha explains to a group of gods the nature of highest auspiciousness, which comprises a list of fundamental moral principles.

Relationships to Other Texts in the Kangyur

Several of these thirteen late-translated texts are also connected to texts found elsewhere in the Kangyur that were likely translated from Sanskrit sources belonging to the canonical collections of other Buddhist monastic traditions, such as the Mūlasarvāstivāda. They include The Turning of the Wheel of Dhamma (Toh 31), which has as a parallel version The Sūtra of the Wheel of Dharma (Dharmacakrasūtra, chos kyi 'khor lo'i mdo, Toh 337), among other parallels in the Kangyur that are discussed in the introductions to the 84000 translations of those texts. The Āṭānāṭiya Discourse (Toh 33) and The Discourse of the Great Assembly (Toh 34) are translations of the Pali equivalents for what are identified as two of ten Mūlasarvāstivādin Mahāsūtras in the Kangyur, Toh 656/1061 and Toh 653/1062, respectively. Furthermore, The Sūtra of the Moon (1) (Toh 42) has a close parallel version, The Sūtra of the Moon (2) (Toh 331), which again was ostensibly translated from a Sanskrit source belonging to a different Buddhist tradition. The Discourse on Great Auspiciousness (Toh 43) also has a parallel in Verses on Auspiciousness Requested by a Deva (Devaparipṛcchāmaṅgalagāthā, lhas zhus pa'i bkra shis kyi tshigs su bcad pa, Toh 819/1100/4400), which again was likely translated from a Sanskrit version of that text. There are also parallels for portions of other texts, such as the aforementioned section on the mindfulness of breathing found in The Discourse About Girimānanda (Toh 38), which has a close parallel in Distinctly Ascertaining the Meanings (Arthaviniścaya, don rnam par nges pa, Toh 317, 1.63 and following).

Location in the Kangyur

The location of these works in the Kangyur varies based on the edition. In the editions of the Tshalpa line, they are found at the end of the final volume of works that make up the Perfection of Wisdom section, in spite of the fact that they are unrelated to the Prajñāpāramitā literature. In the editions of the Thempangma line, they are placed in the general sūtra section, at the end of that section in the Narthang and Lhasa Kangyurs and in the penultimate volume in most other Kangyurs of that line. Thus, in some Kangyurs, they come close to the end of the entire sūtra section. In the editions of the Tshalpa line, the texts are grouped together with a single combined colophon, while in the Kangyurs of the Thempangma they are separated into two groups, and individual colophons are given for many of the texts. The Degé Kangyur combines both styles of colophon while generally adhering to the organizational principles of the Tshalpa Kangyurs. It could be that the editors of the different Kangyurs found it useful for reasons of space to locate the texts where they do. It could also be that an awareness of the status of many of these texts as works recited for protection and good fortune may have played a role in the editors' decisions on where to locate them in the Kangyur.

Bibliography

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Bode, Mabel. The Pali Literature of Burma. London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1909.

Charoenwerakul, Sukanya. "9 Sutras in Bka' 'Gyur and Pali Parittas: A Comparative Study." PhD diss., Chulalongkorn University, 2021.

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Situ Paṇchen Chökyi Jungné (si tu paṇ chen chos kyi 'byung gnas). dkar chag [Degé Kangyur Catalog]. Toh 4568. Degé Kangyur, vol. 103 (dkar chag, lakṣmī), folios 1.a–172.a.

Skilling, Peter (1992). "The Rakṣā Literature of the Śrāvakayāna." Journal of the Pali Text Society 16 (1992): 109–82.

Skilling, Peter (1993). "Theravādin Literature in Tibetan Translation." Journal of the Pali Text Society 19 (1993): 69–201.