The principal collection of 266 sūtras, varied in length, subject, interlocutors and origins (Toh 94-359).
| Texts: 266 | Translated: 26 | In Progress: 140 | Not Begun: 100 |
The Play in Full tells the story of how the Buddha manifested in this world and attained awakening as perceived from the perspective of the Great Vehicle. The sūtra, which is structured in twenty-seven chapters, first presents the events surrounding the Buddha’s birth, childhood, and adolescence in the royal palace of his father, king of the Śākya nation. It then recounts his escape from the palace and the years of hardship he faced in his quest for spiritual awakening. Finally the sūtra reveals his complete victory over the demon Māra, his attainment of awakening under the Bodhi tree, his first turning of the wheel of Dharma, and the formation of the very early Saṅgha.
The Buddha’s renowned disciple, the monk Pūrṇa Maitrāyaṇīputra, oversees the construction of a mansion dedicated to the Buddha. When the project’s sponsor suggests that the building may be used by the Saṅgha in the event of the Buddha’s absence, Pūrṇa argues that no-one but an omniscient buddha may rightly take up residence there. Enumerating qualities that are unique to a buddha’s perfect awakening, Pūrṇa then delivers a lengthy exposition that relates each of these qualities to the knowledge of the four truths. Following Pūrṇa’s teaching, the sponsor invites the Buddha and his followers to the inauguration of the newly built structure. They arrive, flying through the sky. On their return from the inauguration, the Buddha pauses with his monks on the shores of the ocean where he receives the worship of the nāga kings. This serves as prelude to the sūtra’s most voluminous section, spanning more than half of the scripture. Here the buddha explains how specific events in his past lives contributed to his knowledge of the four truths, and how those events ultimately served to accomplish the unfolding of his wisdom.
The main topic of this sūtra is an explanation of how the Buddha and all things share the very same empty nature. Through a set of similes, the sūtra shows how an illusion-like Buddha may dispense appropriate teachings to sentient beings in accordance with their propensities. His activities are effortless since his realization is free from concepts. Thus, the Tathāgata’s non-conceptual awareness results in great compassion beyond any reference point.
In the Jeta Grove of Śrāvastī, Buddha Śākyamuni, surrounded by a large audience, presents to his disciple Śāriputra a detailed description of the realm of Sukhāvatī, a delightful, enlightened abode, free of suffering. Its inhabitants are described as mature beings in an environment where everything enhances their spiritual inclinations. The principal buddha of Sukhāvatī is addressed as Amitāyus (Limitless Life) as well as Amitābha (Limitless Light). Buddha Śākyamuni further explains how virtuous people who focus single-mindedly on Buddha Amitābha will obtain a rebirth in Sukhāvatī in their next life, and he urges all to develop faith in this teaching. In support, he cites the similar way in which the various buddhas of the six directions exhort their followers to develop confidence in this teaching on Sukhāvatī. The sūtra ends with a short dialogue between Śāriputra and Buddha Śākyamuni that highlights the difficulty of enlightened activity in a degenerate age.
The Basket’s Display (Kāraṇḍavyūha) is the source of the most prevalent mantra of Tibetan Buddhism: oṃ maṇipadme hūṃ. It marks a significant stage in the growing importance of Avalokiteśvara within Indian Buddhism in the early centuries of the first millennium. In a series of narratives within narratives, the sūtra describes Avalokiteśvara’s activities in various realms and the realms contained within the pores of his skin. It culminates in a description of the extreme rarity of his mantra, which, on the Buddha’s instructions, Bodhisattva Sarvanīvaraṇaviṣkambhin obtains from someone in Vārāṇasī who has broken his monastic vows. This sūtra provided a basis and source of quotations for the teachings and practices of the eleventh-century Maṇi Kabum, which itself served as a foundation for the rich tradition of Tibetan Avalokiteśvara practice.
While the Buddha is residing in the Akaniṣṭha realm, the bodhisattva mahāsattva Ākāśagarbha asks him how to consider the mind of a bodhisattva who is about to die. The Buddha replies that when death comes a bodhisattva should develop the wisdom of the hour of death. He explains that a bodhisattva should cultivate a clear understanding of the non-existence of entities, great compassion, non-apprehension, non-attachment, and a clear understanding that, since wisdom is the realization of one’s own mind, the Buddha should not be sought elsewhere. After these points have been repeated in verse form, the assembly praises the Buddha’s words, concluding the sūtra.
In this sūtra Buddha Śākyamuni recounts how the Thus-Gone Sarvārthasiddha purified the buddha realms in his domain. In his explanation, Buddha Śākyamuni emphasizes the view of the Great Vehicle, which is the necessary framework for all bodhisattvas who aspire to attain “liberation devoid of obscuration.” The attendant practices taught by the Buddha are the six perfections of generosity, discipline, patience, diligence, concentration, and wisdom. The Buddha explains each of these six perfections in three distinct ways as he recounts the past lives of Buddha Sarvārthasiddha. First, he describes how Sarvārthasiddha learned the practices that purify buddha realms, namely the six perfections. Next, he explains how to seal these six virtuous practices with the correct view so that they become perfections. Finally, he recounts how Sarvārthasiddha as a bodhisattva received instructions for enhancing the potency of the perfections.
This sūtra, much quoted in later Buddhist writings for its profound statements especially on the nature of emptiness, relates a long teaching given by the Buddha mainly in response to questions put by a young layman, Candraprabha. The samādhi that is the subject of the sūtra, in spite of its name, primarily consists of various aspects of conduct, motivation, and the understanding of emptiness; it is also a way of referring to the sūtra itself. The teaching given in the sūtra is the instruction to be dedicated to the possession and promulgation of the samādhi, and to the necessary conduct of a bodhisattva, which is exemplified by a number of accounts from the Buddha’s previous lives. Most of the teaching takes place on Vulture Peak Mountain, with an interlude recounting the Buddha’s invitation and visit to Candraprabha’s home in Rājagṛha, where he continues to teach Candraprabha before returning to Vulture Peak Mountain. In one subsequent chapter the Buddha responds to a request by Ānanda, and the text concludes with a commitment by Ānanda to maintain this teaching in the future.
The Buddha Śākyamuni explains how to attain the absorption known as “the illusory absorption,” a meditative state so powerful that it enables awakening to be attained very quickly. He also teaches that this absorption has been mastered particularly well by two bodhisattvas, Avalokiteśvara and Mahāsthāmprāpta, who live in Sukhāvatī, the distant realm of the Buddha Amitābha. The Buddha Śākyamuni summons these two bodhisattvas to this world and, when they arrive, recounts the story of how they first engendered the mind of awakening. Finally the Buddha reveals the circumstances surrounding the future awakening of Avalokiteśvara and Mahāsthāmprāpta.
The sūtra tells the story of Vimalatejā, a strongman renowned for his physical prowess, who visits the Buddha in order to compare abilities and prove that he is the mightier of the two. He receives an unexpected, humbling riposte in the form of a teaching by the Buddha on the inconceivable magnitude of the powers of awakened beings, going well beyond mere physical strength. The discussions that then unfold—largely between the Buddha, Vimalatejā, and the bodhisattva Nārāyaṇa—touch on topics including the importance of creating merit, the centrality of learning and insight, and the question of whether renunciation entails monasticism. Above all, however, Vimalatejā is led to see that the entirety of the Great Vehicle path hinges on the practice that forms the name of the sūtra, which is nothing other than the mind of awakening (bodhicitta).
The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī is one of the core texts of the Mahāsannipāta collection of Mahāyāna sūtras that dates back to the formative period of the Mahāyāna canon, from the 1st to the 3rd century. It recounts the events from the life of Buddha Śākyamuni and some of his main followers and opponents, both human and non-human. It has a rich narrative and includes in its contents Dharma instructions, often woven into the stories from the past lives of the Buddha. It represents two distinctive sūtra genres, the vyākaraṇa and the dhāraṇī, as it includes, respectively, prophecies of the future attainment of buddhahood by some of the Buddha’s followers, and the magical formulae called dhāraṇī meant to ensure the survival of the Buddha’s teachings and the prosperity of practitioners.
While the Buddha is on Vulture Peak Mountain in Rājagṛha with a great assembly of monks and bodhisattvas, he is asked by the great bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara about the qualities that should be cultivated by a bodhisattva who has just generated the altruistic mind set on attaining awakening. The Buddha briefly expounds seven such qualities, emphasizing mental purity and cognitive detachment from conceptuality.
In The Questions of Nāga King Sāgara, a miracle portends the coming of Nāga King Sāgara to Vulture Peak Mountain, near Rājagṛha. The nāga king engages in a lengthy dialogue with the Buddha about many topics straddling the dichotomy of relative and ultimate, all of which emphasize the primacy of insight into emptiness. The Buddha then journeys to King Sāgara’s home in the ocean and reveals details of the king’s past lives in order to introduce the inexhaustible casket dhāraṇī. In the ocean, he teaches on many topics and acts as peacemaker, addressing the ongoing conflicts between the gods and demigods, and the nāgas and garuḍas. Upon returning to Vulture Peak, the Buddha dialogues with King Ajātaśatru and provides Nāga King Sāgara’s prophecy.
In this very short sūtra, the Buddha explains to a nāga king and an assembly of monks that reciting the four aphorisms of the Dharma is equivalent to recitation of all of the 84,000 articles of the Dharma. He urges them to make diligent efforts to engage in understanding the four aphorisms (also called the four seals), which are the defining philosophical tenets of the Buddhist doctrine: 1) all compounded phenomena are impermanent; 2) all contaminated phenomena are suffering; 3) all phenomena are without self; 4) nirvāṇa is peace.
Initiated by the questions of the bodhisattva Devamukuṭa, The Questions of the Kiṃnara King Druma consists of series of teachings given by the Kiṃnara King Druma within a rich narrative framework where music plays a central role in teaching the Dharma. This sūtra presents a variety of well-known Mahāyāna Buddhist themes, but special attention is given to the six bodhisattva perfections and the perfection of skillful means, as well as to the doctrine of emptiness that is discussed throughout the text.
In this sūtra, Buddha Śākyamuni and a number of bodhisattvas, elders and gods in the assembly have a lively exchange clarifying many key points of the Mahāyāna Dharma, including such topics as the four truths, the origin of cyclic existence, and the identity of the buddhas, while praising the qualities of the followers of the Mahāyāna, the bodhisattvas.
This sūtra contains teachings given by the Buddha to a 120-year-old woman in the city of Vaiśalī. Upon meeting the Buddha, she asks him questions concerning the four stages of life, the aggregates, the elements and the faculties. In response, the Buddha gives her a profound teaching on emptiness, using beautifully crafted examples to illustrate his point. After hearing these teachings, her doubts are dispelled and she is freed from clinging to the perception of a self. Ānanda asks the Buddha why he has given such profound teachings to this woman. The Buddha reveals that the woman has been his mother five hundred times in previous lifetimes and that he had generated the root of virtue for her to become enlightened. Because of her own strong aspirations, after her death she will be born in the buddhafield of Sukhāvatī; and after sixty-eight thousand eons, she will finally become the buddha Bodhyaṅgapuṣpakara.
In The Questions of Lokadhara the bodhisattva Lokadhara requests the Buddha to explain the proper way for bodhisattvas to discern the characteristics of phenomena and employ that knowledge to attain awakening. In reply, the Buddha teaches at length how to understand the fundamental nonexistence of phenomena. As part of the teaching, the Buddha lectures elaborately on the nonexistence of the aggregates, the elements, the sense sources, dependently originated phenomena, the four applications of mindfulness, the five faculties, the eight branches of the path of the noble ones, mundane and transcendent phenomena, as well as conditioned and unconditioned phenomena.
In this sūtra, Mañjuśrī is summoned by the Buddha from a faraway buddha realm to teach in a way that demolishes all dualistic experience. As Mañjuśrī begins to teach, the main message of the sūtra unfolds as an explanation of the two truths.
In this sūtra, the Buddha displays supernatural powers three times. First, he magically transports his entire audience and retinue to Vārāṇasī. Secondly, having incited Avalokiteśvara and Vajrapāṇi to use their own miraculous powers to gather there all the beings who must be led to awakening, he makes the whole world appear as a pure realm like Sukhāvatī. He explains that a tathāgata’s various powers are like a doctor’s skills, and teaches, with Mañjuśrī’s help in a series of dialogues with other protagonists, on how the tathāgatas manifest to beings, displaying his supernatural powers a third time by making many other buddhas appear all around him. The meaning of the Tathāgata’s miracles are gradually disclosed to the audience, as well as some other essential points including the merit to be gained by honoring the teachings.
This sūtra recounts an event that took place in the buddha realm of Sukhāvatī. The discourse commences with Buddha Śākyamuni relating to Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara the benefits of reciting the various names of Śrī Mahādevī. The Buddha describes how Śrī Mahādevī acquired virtue and other spiritual accomplishments through the practice of venerating numerous tathāgatas and gives an account of the prophecy in which her future enlightenment was foretold by all the buddhas she venerated. The Buddha then lists the one hundred and eight blessed names of Śrī Mahādevī to be recited by the faithful. The sūtra ends with Buddha Śākyamuni giving a dhāraṇī and a brief explanation on the benefits of reciting the names of Śrī Mahādevī, namely the eradication of all negative circumstances and the accumulation of merit and happiness.
The sūtra is introduced with the Buddha residing in Anāthapiṇḍada’s grove in Jeta Wood in Śrāvastī together with a great assembly of monks and a great multitude of bodhisatvas. The Buddha then addresses the bodhisatva Jayamati, instructs him on nineteen moral prescriptions, and indicates the corresponding effects of practicing these prescriptions when they are cultivated.
In this sūtra, at the request of venerable Śāriputra, the bodhisattva mahāsattva Maitreya elucidates a very brief teaching on dependent arising that the Buddha had given earlier that day while gazing at a rice seedling. The text discusses outer and inner causation and its conditions, describes in detail the twelvefold cycle by which inner dependent arising gives rise to successive lives, and explains how understanding the very nature of that process can lead to freedom from it.
While the Buddha is residing in the Realm of the Thirty-Three Gods with a retinue of deities, great hearers, and bodhisattvas, Avalokiteśvara asks the Buddha how beings can gain merit from building a stūpa. The Buddha responds by stating the Buddhist creed on dependent arising: All phenomena that arise from causes, The Tathāgata has taught their cause, And that which is their cessation, Thus has proclaimed the Great Renunciant. The Buddha then explains that this dependent arising is the dharmakāya, and that whoever sees dependent arising sees the Buddha. He concludes the sūtra by saying that one should place these verses inside stūpas to attain the merit of Brahmā.
The Buddha is residing at Āmrapālī’s Grove, in Vaiśālī, when Mañjuśrī brings before him the monk Stainless Light, who had been seduced by a prostitute and feels strong remorse for having violated his vows. After the monk confesses his wrongdoing, the Buddha explains the lack of inherent nature of all phenomena and the luminous nature of mind, and the monk Stainless Light gives rise to the mind of enlightenment. At Mañjuśrī’s request, the Buddha then explains how bodhisattvas purify obscurations by generating an altruistic mind and realizing the empty nature of all phenomena. He asks Mañjuśrī about his own attainment of patient forbearance in seeing all phenomena as non-arising and recounts the tale of the monk Vīradatta, who, many eons in the past, had engaged in a sexual affair with a girl and even killed a jealous rival before feeling strong remorse. Despite these negative actions, once the empty, non-existent nature of all phenomena had been explained to him by the bodhisattva Liberator from Fear, he was able to generate bodhicitta and attain patient forbearance in seeing all phenomena as non-arising. The Buddha explains that even a person who had enjoyed pleasures and murdered someone would be able to attain patient forbearance in seeing all phenomena as non-arising through practicing this sūtra, which he calls “the Dharma mirror of all phenomena.”
While the Buddha is dwelling on Khalatika Mountain with his retinue, an amazing display of light appears, brought about by the bodhisattva Ākāśagarbha’s liberating activities. As he joins the gathering, Ākāśagarbha manifests another extraordinary display, and the Buddha, praising his inconceivable accomplishments and activities, explains how to invoke his blessings. He sets out the fundamental transgressions of rulers, ministers, śrāvakas, and beginner bodhisattvas, and, after explaining in detail how to conduct the rituals of purification, encourages those who have committed such transgressions to turn to Ākāśagarbha. When people pray to Ākāśagarbha, he adapts his manifestations to suit their needs, appearing to them while they are awake, in their dreams, or at the time of their death. In this way, Ākāśagarbha gradually leads them all along the path, helping them to purify their negative deeds, relieve their sufferings, fulfill their wishes, and eventually attain perfect enlightenment.
Calling Witness with a Hundred Prostrations is widely known as the first sūtra to arrive in Tibet, long before Tibet became a Buddhist nation, during the reign of the Tibetan King Lha Thothori Nyentsen (lha tho tho ri gnyan btsan). Written to be recited for personal practice, it opens with a hundred and eight prostrations and praises to the many buddhas of the ten directions and three times, to the twelve categories of scripture contained in the Tripiṭaka, to the bodhisattvas of the ten directions, and to the arhat disciples of the Buddha. After the making of offerings to them, the confession and purification of nonvirtue, and aspiration to perform virtuous actions in every life, the text includes recitations of the vows of refuge in the Three Jewels, and of generating the thought of enlightenment. The text concludes with rejoicing in the virtues of the holy ones, a request for the buddhas to bestow a prophecy to achieve enlightenment, and the aspiration to pass from this life in a state of pure Dharma.
In this very short sūtra, the Buddha Śākyamuni briefly introduces the three elements or stages of the path, widely known as “the three trainings,” one by one in a specific order: discipline, meditative concentration, and wisdom. He teaches that training progressively in them constitutes the gradual path to awakening.
As the title suggests, this sūtra describes the three bodies of the Buddha. While the Buddha is dwelling on Vulture Peak in Rājgṛha, the Bodhisattva Kṣitigarbha asks whether the Tathāgata has a body, to which the Buddha replies that the Tathāgata has three bodies: a dharmakāya, a saṃbhogakāya, and a nirmāṇakāya. The Buddha goes on to describe what constitutes these three bodies and their associated meaning. The Buddha explains that the dharmakāya is like space, the saṃbhogakāya is like clouds, and the nirmāṇakāya is like rain. At the end of the Buddha’s elucidation, Kṣitigarbha expresses jubilation, and the Buddha declares that whoever upholds this Dharma teaching will obtain immeasurable merit.
Just prior to his passing away, Buddha Śākyamuni reminds his disciples of the importance of living with a qualified spiritual teacher. Ānanda, the Blessed One’s attendant, attempts to confirm his teacher’s statement, saying that a virtuous spiritual friend is indeed half of one’s spiritual life. Correcting his disciple’s understanding, the Buddha explains that a qualified guide is the whole of, rather than half of the holy life, and that by relying upon a spiritual friend, beings will be released from birth and attain liberation from all types of suffering.
In this brief sūtra, the Buddha reminds his followers of one of the principal characteristics of saṃsāric existence: the reality of impermanence. The four things cherished most in this world, the Buddha says—namely good health, youth, prosperity, and life—are all impermanent. He closes his teaching with a verse, asking how beings, afflicted as they are by impermanence, can take delight in anything desirable, indirectly urging his disciples to practice the path of liberation.
The Sūtra of the Wheel of Dharma contains the Buddha’s teaching to his five former spiritual companions on the four truths that he had discovered as part of his awakening: (1) suffering, (2) the origin of suffering, (3) the cessation of suffering, and (4) the path leading to the cessation of suffering. According to all the Buddhist traditions, this is the first teaching the Buddha gave to explain his awakened insight to others.
This large section of the Kangyur is also sometimes called mdo mang (“the many sūtras”) or mdo sna tshogs (“miscellaneous sūtras”). In the Degé Kangyur it contains 266 works, while in other Kangyurs the contents and their order vary somewhat. The texts range in length from a few lines to more than 2,000 pages.
It is thought that many of these works circulated in Tibet, during the centuries preceding the evolution and establishment of the different Kangyurs, in the form of varying compilations of sūtra works called mdo mang, some of which have survived.
According to the Degé Kangyur catalogue, the works in this section are arranged with Mahāyāna sūtras (Toh 94-286) first, followed by Śrāvakayāna works (Toh 287-359)—although not all Kangyurs and commentators agree on which texts should be assigned to these two broad groups. As Situ Paṇchen Chökyi Jungné, the 18th century editor of the Degé Kangyur, observes, sūtras of the Buddha’s third turning of the wheel of Dharma tend to predominate at first, but such categorizing is not always applicable and he himself, as he laid out the Degé Kangyur, simply respected the precedent set by past scholars who arranged the texts of the Tshalpa Kangyur. Their schema differs significantly from the way the texts are grouped in the early 9th century inventory, the Denkarma (ldan kar ma), and the slightly later Pangthangma (’phang thang ma), both of which order the texts first by vehicle and source language, and then place them in order of physical size, starting with the longest. Nevertheless, in the Degé as in many other Kangyurs, the longer files still tend to be grouped in the earlier volumes.
The sūtras in this General Sūtra section take many different forms. A large number of them relate dialogues between the Buddha and individual disciples, whether bodhisattvas, kings, ordinary men and women, gods, or nāgas. Some are teachings given by the Buddha at a particular occasion on particular topics. Sometimes they relate miraculous manifestations, describe elevated states of samādhi, teachings given by buddhas in other realms, detailed lists of ethical or philosophical points for reflection, summaries of important doctrine, explanations of individuals' past lives or predictions of their future awakening, and so forth—often including several such elements in a single work.
Among the best known large sūtras are the Bhadrakalpika (Toh 94), which lists the names, vows, and other details of the thousand buddhas of the present eon; the Lalitavistara (Toh 95), the story of the Buddha's birth, youth, awakening, and first teachings; two versions of the Laṅkāvatāra (Toh 107 and 108, from the Sanskrit and Chinese respectively); the two sūtras known as The White Lotus, the Karuṇāpuṇḍarīka (Toh 112) and the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka (Toh 113), often known as the “Lotus Sūtra” and highly influential in China and Japan; and the Samādhirāja (Toh 127).
The section contains two versions of the important Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra (Toh 119 and 120), translated in the early period from Chinese and Sanskrit respectively. The latter is only one quarter of the length of the former but represents those parts of the sūtra of which fragments in Sanskrit have been found—perhaps an earlier, core version. There is also a fragment (Toh 121) of a later translation by Kamalagupta and Rinchen Zangpo. The Narthang, Lhasa, Stog Palace and Shelkar Kangyurs place the Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra in its own, separate division.
The Saddharmasmṛtyupasthāna (Toh 287) and Karmaśataka (Toh 340) are the longest works in the Śrāvakayāna category of the section, the latter among a group of avadāna narrative works illustrating the effects of karma from one life to another.
Sūtras known to have been translated from Chinese include Toh 108, 119, 122, 123, 128, 135, 199, 216, 237, 239, 242, 248, 256, 264, 341, 351, and 353.
The sūtras considered part of the Mahāsannipāta, a distinct group recognised in the Chinese tradition, are Toh 138, 147, 148, 152, 169, 175, 230, and 257.
The Mahāsūtras, Toh 288-294, (together with Toh 653 and 656, which are found in the Tantra Collection and duplicated as Toh 1061 and 1062 in the Incantations) form a special group with a particular function. They are thought to have been brought to Tibet as part of the Vinaya transmission, and are listed in the Denkarma separately from the other Śrāvakayāna works. They are probably extracted from the Āgamas of the Mūlasarvāstivāda, and their regular recitation by ordained monks is recommended in the monks’ Vinayavibhaṅga (Toh 3). For details, see Skilling, Peter, The Mahāsūtras: Great Discourses of the Buddha, 2 vols., Bristol: Pali Text Society (1997).