Teaching the Benefits of Generosity

Translation of འཕགས་པ་སྦྱན་པའ་ཕན་ཡན་བསྟན་པ (འཕགས་པ་སྦྱིན་པའི་ཕན་ཡོན་བསྟན་པ)

Language: English
Translator: Chodrungma Kunga Chodron
Extent: 20 passages, 1,806 words
Text: complete digital text
Source: 84000 · Translated by the Sakya Pandita Translation Group under the patronage and supervision of 84000: Translating… · CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha). Shown whole and unaltered, with its notes, on a…

intro 84000's introduction — 7 parts
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notes Notes — 10 parts

Text

84000's introduction

intro.1

This short discourse was taught to an audience of monks in Śrāvastī, in the Jetavana. The Buddha details thirty-seven ways in which the wise give gifts, how those gifts are properly given, and the positive results that ripen from giving such gifts. The Buddha makes clear that the result that ripens is similar to the gift that was given or the manner in which the gift was given.

intro.2

The setting for this discourse is the Jetavana, Anāthapiṇḍada’s Park, where the Buddha spent many rainy-season retreats and where many of the Buddha’s discourses are said to have been delivered. In this particular discourse, the Buddha succinctly describes thirty-seven ways in which the wise give gifts, as well as the results that ripen from their gift giving. More specifically, the first five ways in which the wise give gifts that the Buddha enumerates are relatively general and pertain primarily to the manner in which gifts are given and the purpose for which gifts are given. The wise are said, for example, to give gifts with faith in order to dispel stinginess, or respectfully in order to dispel mental agitation. For each of the remaining thirty-two ways in which gifts are given, the Buddha describes the result that ripens from the particular act, and in each case the result that ripens is similar to the gift that was its cause. For example, giving a gift of food ripens as the elimination of hunger in all one’s future lives. The discourse concludes with the Buddha proclaiming the thirty-seventh and final way in which the wise give gifts, namely, without any expectation of reward, the full ripening of which is the unsurpassed and perfect awakening of a buddha.

intro.3

No Sanskrit text that completely matches the content of this sūtra is known to be extant, but a version in Sanskrit known as the Dānādhikaraṇa is preserved in the Nepalese manuscripts of the Divyāvadāna, a collection of avadāna narratives drawn mostly from the Mūlasarvāstivāda vinaya that may have been compiled from earlier sources in late medieval times (although no manuscripts exist from earlier than the seventeenth century). The text, like the version of the sūtra translated here, contains thirty-seven ways of giving gifts, although some differ to a varying degree in their detail. A much earlier Sanskrit text that probably resembled the present version more closely is represented by a fragment identified among the manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection by Matsuda in 2003. It is written on a piece of leather, in a Gupta Brāhmī script that allows it to be dated to the fifth or sixth centuries, but the fragment includes only the last seven ways of giving.¹

intro.4

The Tibetan translation of this sūtra, the colophon tells us, was made by the Indian preceptor Surendrabodhi and the Tibetan translator-editor Yeshé Dé. It is also listed in the Denkarma (ldan dkar ma)² and Phangthangma (’phang thang ma)³ imperial catalogs, so we can infer that this sūtra was translated from Sanskrit sometime during the late eighth- to early ninth-century. In the Degé Kangyur, this sūtra is placed after The Perfection of Generosity,⁴ a longer, explicitly Mahāyāna sūtra, also translated by Yeshé Dé during the imperial period, that also treats the topic of generosity. Not only is the present sūtra significantly shorter than The Perfection of Generosity, but its content, apart from a small number of references to the result of buddhahood, is not in the same way explicitly or exclusively concerned with the bodhisattva path.

intro.5

A version of the sūtra is also included in the Chinese Buddhist canon (Taishō 705, 佛說布施經), translated in the tenth century by Faxian. The opening section, which describes the circumstances under which the discourse was delivered, is the same in the Tibetan and Chinese versions, as is the closing section. However, the enumerated gifts, the descriptions of how these gifts should be given, and the ripened results are a close match only in just over half of the stanzas.⁵

intro.6

The Divyāvadāna version of the sūtra was translated from the Sanskrit into English by James Ware in 1929 (along with passages from the Tibetan version), and more recently by Andy Rotman in the second volume of his translations from that collection.⁶ An abbreviated translation of the sūtra made by Kalpana Upreti appeared in 1989, and the most recent version in English is Peter Skilling’s translation, with helpful notes, in his 2021 anthology Questioning the Buddha: A Selection of Twenty-Five Sutras.⁷

intro.7

The present translation is based on the version in the Degé Kangyur, with reference to the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma).

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Homage to all buddhas and bodhisattvas!

Thus did I hear at one time. The Blessed One was dwelling in Śrāvastī, in the Jetavana, Anāthapiṇḍada’s Park. Then the Blessed One said to the monks, “Monks, the wise give gifts in thirty-seven ways. What are those thirty-seven? They are as follows:

“They give gifts with faith in order to rid themselves of stinginess.

“They give gifts at the right time.

“They give gifts, in a pure manner, of the three things suitable to be given by the Thus-Gone One.⁸

“They give gifts respectfully in order to rid themselves of all the faults of mental agitation.

“They give gifts with their own hands in order to take hold of the essence from the essenceless body.

“When they have given a gift that does not harm others, the ripening is that they will acquire great generosity.

“When they have given a gift with exquisite colors, the ripening is that they will acquire a beautiful complexion.

“When they have given a gift with an exquisite scent, the ripening is that they will acquire the scent of fame.

“When they have given a gift with an exquisite taste, the ripening is that they will acquire the excellent marks of supreme taste.

“When they have given a gift that is abundant, the ripening is that they will acquire abundant wealth.

“When they have given a gift that is vast, the ripening is that they will acquire vast wealth.

“When they have given a gift of food, the ripening is that they will acquire the elimination of hunger in all future lives.

“When they have given a gift of drink,

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the ripening is that they will acquire the elimination of thirst in all future lives.

“When they have given a gift of clothing, the ripening is that they will acquire a manifold wealth of clothing.

“When they have given the gift of a dwelling, the ripening is that they will acquire houses with parapets and multiple stories, and they will acquire courtyards, mansions, palaces, gardens, parks, and land.

“When they have given a gift of bedding, the ripening is that they will acquire a higher caste-status.

“When they have given the gift of a conveyance, the ripening is that they will acquire the four bases⁹ of miraculous power.

“When they have given a gift of medicine, the ripening is that they will acquire the nirvāṇa that is free from aging and death and is the cessation of sorrow and defilement.

“When they have given a gift of Dharma, the ripening is that they will acquire the recollection of former lives.

“When they have given a gift of flowers, the ripening is that they will acquire the flowers that are the branches of awakening.

“When they have given a gift of garlands, the ripening is that they will acquire the purification of the stains of attachment, aversion, and ignorance.

“When they have given a gift of incense, the ripening is that they will acquire total freedom from the stench of the defilements.

“When they have given a gift of a parasol, the ripening is that they will acquire sovereign mastery of the Dharma.

“When they have given a gift of a bell, the ripening is that they will acquire a pleasing voice.

“When they have given a gift of cymbals, the ripening is that they will acquire a voice like Brahmā’s.

“When they have given a gift of a lamp, the ripening is that they will acquire the divine eye, unobscured and pure.

“When they have given a gift of silk, the ripening is that they will acquire the silken bond of liberation among gods and humans.

“When they have made an offering of fragrant oil or perfumed bathing water to a stūpa of the Thus-Gone One or an image of the Thus-Gone One, the ripening is that they will acquire the thirty-two marks

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and eighty excellent signs of a great being.

“When they have given a gift of bathing necessities, the ripening is that in all their future lives they will acquire few illnesses, birth in the highest caste, and great beauty.

“When they have given a gift of the five essential substances,¹⁰ the ripening is that in all future lives they will acquire great power and irrepressible great joy.

“When they have given a gift while abiding in loving kindness, the ripening is that they will acquire freedom from ill will.

“When they have given a gift while abiding in compassion, the ripening is that they will acquire harmlessness.

“When they have given a gift while abiding in joy, the ripening is that they will acquire the ability to bestow fearlessness.

“When they have given a gift while abiding in equanimity, the ripening is that they will rid themselves of sadness.

“When they have given gifts of various kinds, the ripening is that they will acquire various riches.

“When they have given a gift while abiding with no expectation of reward, the ripening is that they will acquire unsurpassed and perfect awakening.

“Monks, the wise give gifts in these thirty-seven ways.”

The Blessed One having spoken thus, the monks rejoiced and praised what the Blessed One said.

Colophon

This was translated, edited, and finalized by the Indian preceptor Surendrabodhi and the translator-editor Bandé Yeshé Dé.

Notes

notes.1

1. See Rotman (2017), pp. 197–99 and 396 n.559; also Skilling (2021) pp. 173–74.

notes.2

2. Denkarma, 299.b.7. See also Herrmann-Pfandt (2008), p. 122, no. 231.

notes.3

3. See Phangthangma (2003), p. 18.

notes.4

4. See Dharmachakra Translation Committee, trans., The Perfection of Generosity , Toh 182 (84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, 2019).

notes.5

5. Both the gifts and their results are identical in nineteen of the thirty-seven stanzas. Interestingly, where there are differences, they are usually in the result rather than the gift itself. An example is where the Tibetan reads, “When they have given a gift while abiding in loving kindness, the result is that they will acquire freedom from ill will.” The corresponding verse appears in Chinese as “If a gift is given in loving kindness, your appearance will be benevolent and without anger.”