co.

Table of Contents

s.

Summary

s.­1

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.

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Acknowledgments

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This text was translated by the Dharmachakra Translation Committee under the supervision of Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche.

Cortland Dahl, Catherine Dalton, Hilary Herdman, Heidi Koppl, James Gentry, and Andreas Doctor translated the text from Tibetan into English. Andreas Doctor and Wiesiek Mical then compared the translations against the original Tibetan and Sanskrit, respectively. Finally, Andreas Doctor edited the translation and wrote the introduction.

The Dharmachakra Translation Committee would like to thank Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche for blessing this project, and Khenpo Sherap Sangpo for his generous assistance with the resolution of several difficult passages.

This translation has been completed under the patronage and supervision of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha.


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The generous sponsorship of 簡源震及家人江秀敏，簡暐如，簡暐丞 Chien YuanChen (Dharma Das) and his wife, daughter, and son for work on this sūtra is gratefully acknowledged.

The Translation
The Noble Great Vehicle Sūtra
The Play in Full
10.
Chapter 10

The Demonstration at the Writing School

10.­1

Monks, when the young child had grown a little older, he was taken to school. He went there amid hundreds of thousands of auspicious signs, and he was surrounded and attended by tens of thousands of boys, along with ten thousand carts filled with hard food, soft food, and condiments, and ten thousand carts filled with gold coins and gems. These were distributed in the streets and road junctions, and the entrances to the markets of the city of Kapilavastu. At the same time a symphony of eight hundred thousand cymbals was sounded, and a heavy rain of flowers fell.

Hundreds of thousands of girls, adorned with all kinds of jewelry, perched themselves on the balconies, turrets, arches, windows, [124] upper stories, and roofs of the homes. Gazing at the Bodhisattva, they tossed flowers. There were also eight thousand goddesses, who were adorned with loose hanging jewelry and carried bhadraṃkara gems. They went ahead of the Bodhisattva, cleansing his way. Gods, nāgas, yakṣas, gandharvas, demigods, garuḍas, kinnaras, and mahoragas revealed the upper halves of their bodies, and festooned wreaths of flowers and woven silk from the sky. All the Śākya factions, with King Śuddhodana leading the way, went ahead of the Bodhisattva. With such an array as this, the Bodhisattva was taken to school.

10.­2

As soon as the Bodhisattva arrived in school, the schoolmaster, who was called Viśvāmitra, was unable to withstand the Bodhisattva’s splendor and radiance, and prostrated to him face-down on the ground. [F.66.a] A god from the Heaven of Joy called Śubhāṅga saw the schoolmaster collapsed on the ground and, grabbing him with his right hand, raised him up. Suspended in the sky, Śubhāṅga then spoke the following verses to King Śuddhodana and the crowd:

10.­3
“Whatever topics of knowledge are circulating in this world of humans‍—
Numbers, scripts, mathematics, the permutations of the elements,
And all the immeasurable mundane techniques of craftsmanship‍—
This child already learned these things many tens of millions of eons ago.
10.­4
“Nonetheless he acts solely in harmony with people.
The Well-Instructed One thus came to school for the sake of instruction,
In order to mature many children for the Highest Vehicle
And to bring a myriad other beings to immortality. [125]
10.­5
“He knows the way of the path of the transcendent four truths.
He is adept in how things arise based on causes,
And how the cessation and termination of conditioned existence leads to the calm state.
When he knows all that, how could he not know the subject of scripts?
10.­6
“There is no master superior to him throughout the three worlds;
Among all gods and humans, he alone is foremost.
All of you do not know even the names of the scripts
That he has learned before, many tens of millions of eons ago.
10.­7
“This pure being knows in a single instant
The manifold, diverse thoughts of beings.
When he knows such invisible and formless things,
Why mention the visible forms of scripts?”

When he had spoken these verses, the god honored the Bodhisattva with celestial flowers and immediately thereafter disappeared.

10.­8

The nannies and the entourage of maids were asked to stay at the school, while the remaining Śākyas, headed by Śuddhodana, departed. The Bodhisattva took up a writing board made of sandalwood. It was decorated with flecks of divine gold of prime quality and studded with precious gems on all sides. He then addressed the master Viśvāmitra:

10.­9

“Which script, O master, will you be teaching me? [F.66.b] Will it be the Brāhmī script, the Kharoṣṭī script, or the Puṣkarasāri script? Will it be the Aṅga script, the Vaṅga script, the Magadha script, the Maṅgalya script, the Aṅgulīya script, the Śakāri script, the Brahmavali script, the Pāruṣya script, the Drāviḍa script, the Kirāta script, the Dākṣiṇya script, the Ugra script, the Saṃkhyā script, the Anuloma script, the Avamūrdha script, [126] the Darada script, the Khāṣya script, the Cīna script, the Lūna script, the Hūṇa script, the Madhyākṣara­vistara script, the Puṣpa script, the Deva script, the Nāga script, the Yakṣa script, the Gandharva script, the Kinnara script, the Mahoraga script, the Asura script, the Garuḍa script, the Mṛgacakra script, the Vāyasaruta script, the Bhaumadeva script, the Antarīkṣa­deva script, the Uttara­kuru­dvīpa script, the Aparagoḍānī script, the Pūrvavideha script, the Utkṣepa script, the Nikṣepa script, the Vikṣepa script, the Prakṣepa script, the Sāgara script, the Vajra script, the Lekhapratilekha script, the Anudruta script, the Śāstrāvarta script, the Gaṇanāvarta script, the Utkṣepāvarta script, the Nikṣepāvarta script, the Pādalikhita script, the Dviruttara­pada­saṃdhi script, the Yāvaddaśottara­pada­saṃdhi script, the Madhyāhāriṇī script, the Sarva­ruta­saṃgrahaṇī script, the Vidyānulomā­vimiśrita script, the Ṛṣi­tapastapta script, the Rocamāna script, the Dharaṇī­prekṣiṇī script, [F.67.a] the Gagana­prekṣiṇī script, the Sarvauṣadhi­niṣyanda script, the Sarva­sāra­saṃgrahaṇī script, or the Sarva­bhūta­ruta­grahaṇī script? Master, which of those sixty-four scripts will you teach me?”

10.­10

The schoolmaster Viśvāmitra was amazed, and he smiled. Setting aside pride, conceit, and arrogance, he replied with the following verses:

“How wonderful! Even though the Pure Being
Is learned in all the treatises, in the world
He follows the conventions of the world.
Thus he has come to school.
10.­11
“He has learned scripts
Even the names of which
I have not heard,
Yet he has come to school.
10.­12
“Although I indeed see his face,
The crown of his head is out of sight.
If his knowledge of scripts is already perfect,
How can I school him in that knowledge?
10.­13
“This god, great god of gods,
Supreme divine scholar among all gods,
Is superior and without equal.
No person in the world is comparable to him. [127]
10.­14
“Only because of his unparalleled expertise
In applying knowledge and means,
Will I teach this learned being‍—
The final refuge of all beings.”
10.­15

Monks, then the schoolmaster taught writing to the Bodhisattva, along with ten thousand other children. However, through the power of the Bodhisattva, as the schoolmaster was saying the alphabet to the children, he did it in the following manner:

10.­16
“When he said the letter a, out came the statement: ‘Every composite phenomenon is impermanent (anityaḥ sarva­saṃ­skāraḥ).’
When he said the letter ā, out came the statement: ‘Beneficial to self and others (ātmaparahita).’
When he said the letter i, out came the statement: ‘The vast development of the senses (indriyavaipulya).’
When he said the letter ī, out came the statement: ‘The world is riddled with plague (ītibahulaṃ jagat).’
When he said the letter u, out came the statement: ‘The world is rife with misfortune (upa­drava­bahulaṃ jagat).’
When he said the letter ū, out came the statement: ‘The world is of little substance (ūnasattvaṃ jagat).’
When he said the letter e, out came the statement: ‘Faults come from desire (eṣaṇā­samutthāna­doṣa).’
When he said the letter ai, out came the statement: ‘The noble path is virtuous (airyāpathaḥ śreyāniti).’
When he said the letter o, out came the statement: ‘The stream has been forded (oghottara).’ [F.67.b]
When he said the letter au, out came the statement: ‘Spontaneously generated (aupapāduka).’
When he said the letter aṃ, out came the statement: ‘The emergence of what is efficacious (amoghotpatti).’7
When he said the letter aḥ, out came the statement: ‘Reaching an end (astaṃgamana).’
10.­17
“When he said the letter ka, out came the statement: ‘Immersion in the full ripening of actions (karma­vipākāvatāra).’
When he said the letter kha, out came the statement: ‘All phenomena are like space (kha­sama­sarva­dharma).’
When he said the letter ga, out came the statement: ‘Immersion in the profound Dharma of dependent origination (gambhīra­dharma­pratītya­samutpādāvatāra).’
When he said the letter gha, out came the statement: ‘Eradicating the darkness of delusion and the thick veils of ignorance (ghana­paṭalāvidyā­mohāndhakāra­vidhamana).’
When he said the letter ṅ, out came the statement: ‘The complete purification of factors (aṅgaviśuddhi).’
10.­18
“When he said the letter ca, out came the statement: ‘The path of the four noble truths (caturārya­satya­patha).’
When he said the letter cha, out came the statement: ‘Abandoning the passion of lust (chanda­rāga­prahāṇa).’
When he said the letter ja, out came the statement: ‘Transcending old age and death (jarā­maraṇa­samatikramaṇa).’
When he said the letter jha, out came the statement: ‘Vanquishing the forces of the god of love (jhaṣa­dhvaja­bala­nigrahaṇa).’
When he said the letter ña, out came the statement: ‘Making known (jñāpana).’
10.­19
“When he said the letter ṭa, out came the statement: ‘Severing the round of rebirths (vaṭṭopacchedana).’
When he said the letter ṭha, out came the statement: ‘A question rejected out of hand (ṭhapanīyapraśna).’
When he said the letter ḍa, out came the statement: ‘Vanquishing the evil one and those who cause discord (ḍamara­māra­nigrahaṇa).’
When he said the letter ḍha, out came the statement: ‘The impure regions (mīḍhaviṣayāḥ).’
When he said the letter ṇa, out came the statement: ‘Afflictions are subtle (reṇukleśāḥ).’
10.­20
“When he said the letter ta, out came the statement: ‘Suchness is undifferentiated (tathatāsaṃbheda).’
When he said the letter tha, out came the statement: ‘Strength, power, force, and self-confidence (thāma­bala­vegavaiśāradya).’
When he said the letter da, out came the statement: ‘Generosity, discipline, restraint, and gentleness (dāna­dama­saṃyama­saurabhya).’
When he said the letter dha, out came the statement: ‘The wealth of the noble ones is sevenfold (dhanamāryāṇāṃ saptavidham).’
When he said the letter na, out came the statement: ‘Full knowledge of name and form (nāmarūpaparijñā).’
10.­21
“When he said the letter pa, out came the statement: ‘The absolute (paramārtha).’
When he said the letter pha, out came the statement: ‘The actualization of the attainment of the fruition (phala­prāpti­sākṣātkriyā).’
When he said the letter ba, out came the statement: ‘Liberation from bondage (bandhanamokṣa).’
[128] When he said the letter bha, out came the statement: ‘The destruction of existence (bhavavibhava).’
When he said the letter ma, out came the statement: ‘The cessation of arrogance and pride (mada­mānopaśamana).’
10.­22
“When he said the letter ya, [F.68.a] out came the statement: ‘Understanding phenomena exactly as they are (yathāvaddharma­prativedha).’
When he said the letter ra, out came the statement: ‘Dissatisfaction with pleasure is delighting in the absolute (ratyarati­paramārtha­rati).’
When he said the letter la, out came the statement: ‘Severing the vine (latāchedana).’
When he said the letter va, out came the statement: ‘The best vehicle (varayāna).’
10.­23
“When he said the letter śa, out came the statement: ‘Calm abiding and insight (śamatha­vipaśyanā).’
When he said the letter ṣa, out came the statement: ‘Destroying the six sense bases and obtaining the superknowledges and wisdoms (ṣaḍāyatana­nigrahaṇābhijña­jñānāvāpti).’
When he said the letter sa, out came the statement: ‘Attaining the perfect awakening to omniscient wisdom (sarva­jña­jñānābhisaṃ­bodhana).’
When he said the letter ha, out came the statement: ‘Destroying the afflictions and parting from desire (hatakleśavirāga).’
When he said the letter kṣa, out came the statement: ‘Reaching the end of letters, all phenomena are ineffable (kṣara­paryantābhilāpya sarvadharma).’ ”
10.­24

Thus, while the schoolmaster taught the children the alphabet, there emerged innumerable hundreds of thousands of excellent Dharma teachings due to the Bodhisattva’s power. Moreover, while the Bodhisattva was attending school, 32,000 children gave rise to thoughts aimed at unexcelled, perfect, and complete awakening. This is the circumstance and the reason why the Bodhisattva attended school, even though he was already so learned.

10.­25

This concludes the tenth chapter, on the demonstration at the writing school.

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Colophon

Colophon to the Sanskrit Edition

c.­1
The Thus-Gone One explained the causes
Of those dharmas that have a cause
And also their cessation.
This is the teaching of the Great Ascetic.
May there be good goodness! May there be goodness in every way!

Colophon to the Tibetan Translation

c.­2

This was taught and translated by the Indian preceptors Jinamitra, Dānaśīla, and Munivarman, and the translator-editor Bandé Yeshé Dé, who proofed and finalized the translation.

b.

Bibliography

Source Texts

’phags pa rgya cher rol pa zhes bya ba theg pa chen po’i mdo (Ārya­lalita­vistara­nāma­mahā­yān­asūtra). Toh 95, Degé Kangyur vol. 46 (mdo sde, kha), folios 1b–216b.

’phags pa rgya cher rol 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), 2006–2009, vol 46, pp. 3–434.

Foucaux, Phillipe Édouard. Rgya Tch’er Rol Pa ou Développement des Jeux, Contenant l’Histoire du Bouddha Çakya-mouni. Première Partie‍—Texte Tibétain. Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1847.

Hokazono, Kōichi (1994). Raritavisutara no Kenkyu. Volume 1 [study of Lalitavistara, chs. 1–14]. Tokyo: Daitō Shuppansha, 1994.

‍—‍—‍—‍— (2019a). Raritavisutara no Kenkyu. Volume 2 [study of Lalitavistara, chs. 15–21]. Tokyo: Daitō Shuppansha, 2019.

‍—‍—‍—‍— (2019b). Raritavisutara no Kenkyu. Volume 3 [study of Lalitavistara, chs. 22–27]. Tokyo: Daitō Shuppansha, 2019.

Lefmann, Salomon. Lalita Vistara. Halle: Verlag der Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses, 1882.

Mitra, R. L. (1853–1877). The Lalita Vistara or Memoirs of the Early Life of S’a’kya Siñha. Bibliotheca Indica: A Collection of Oriental Works, Old Series, nos. 51, 73, 143, 144, 145, 237. Calcutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1853–1877.

Secondary Sources

Bays, Gwendolyn. The Voice of the Buddha, The Beauty of Compassion: The Lalitavistara Sutra. Tibetan Translation Series, vol. 2. Berkeley, CA: Dharma Publishing, 1983.

Foucaux, Phillipe Édouard (1848). Rgya Tch’er Rol Pa ou Développement des Jeux, Contenant l’Histoire du Bouddha Çakya-mouni: Traduit sur la version Tibétaine du Bkahhgyour, et revu sur l’original Sanscrit (Lalitavistara). Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1848.

‍—‍—‍—‍— (1870). Étude sur le Lalita Vistara pour une édition critique du texte sanskrit, précédée d’ un coup d’oeil sur la publication des livres bouddhiques en Europe et dans l’Inde. Paris: Maisonneuve, 1870.

‍—‍—‍—‍— (1884). Le Lalitavistara, Développement des Jeux: l’histoire traditionnelle de la vie du Bouddha Çakyamuni. Première partie. Annales du Musée Guimet, vol. 6 Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1884.

‍—‍—‍—‍— (1892). Le Lalitavistara, Développement des Jeux: l’histoire traditionnelle de la vie du Bouddha Çakyamuni. Seconde partie: notes, variantes, et index. Annales du Musée Guimet, vol. 19. Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1892.

Lefmann, Salomon (1874). Lalitavistara: Erzählung von dem Leben und der Lehre des Çâkya Simha. Berlin: Dümmler, 1874.

Lenz, Robert. “Analyse du Lalita-Vistara-Pourana, l’un des principaux ouvrages sacrés des Bouddhistes de l’Asie centrale, contenant la vie de leur prophète, et écrit en Sanscrit.” In Bulletin Scientifique publié par l’Académie impériale des Sciences de Saint-Pétersbourg, I.7:49–51; I.8:57–63; I.9:71–72; I.10:75–78; I.11:87–88; I.12:92–96; I.13:97–99. St. Petersburg: Académie impériale des sciences, 1836.

Miller, Robert. The Chapter on a Schism in the Saṅgha (Saṅgha­bheda­vastu, Toh 1-1). 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, forthcoming.

Mitra, R. L. (1881–1886). The Lalita Vistara or Memoirs of the Early Life of S’a’kya Siñha, Translated from the Original Sanskrit. Bibliotheca Indica: A Collection of Oriental Works, New Series, nos. 455, 473, 575. Calcutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1881–1886. Republished, Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications, 1998.

Silk, Jonathan A. “Serious Play: Recent Scholarship on the Lalitavistara.” In Indo-Iranian Journal 65, pp. 267–301. Leiden: Brill, 2022.

Vaidya, P. L. Lalitavistara. Buddhist Sanskrit Texts, vol. 1. Darbhanga: The Mithila Institute, 1958.

Winternitz, Maurice (1927). A History of Indian Literature. 3rd ed. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1991, 2:249–56.

Further Resources

Goswami, Bijoya. Lalitavistara. Bibliotheca Indica Series, vol. 320. Calcutta: The Asiatic Society, 2001.

Khosla, Sarla. Lalitavistara and the Evolution of Buddha Legend. New Delhi: Galaxy Publications, 1991.

Thomas, E. J. “The Lalitavistara and Sarvastivada.” Indian Historical Quarterly 16:2 (1940): 239–45.