Taking Refuge in the Three Jewels
Translation of འཕགས་པ་གསམ་ལ་སྐྱབས་ས་འགྲ་བ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད (འཕགས་པ་གསུམ་ལ་སྐྱབས་སུ་འགྲོ་བ་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོའི་མདོ)
- Language
- English
- Translator
- Benjamin Collet-Cassart
- Extent
- 11 passages, 1,192 words
- Text
- complete digital text
- Source
- 84000 · Translated by the Dharmachakra Translation Committeeunder 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…
Contents
- intro 84000's introduction — 3 parts
- 1
- 2
- 3
- notes Notes — 5 parts
Text
84000's introduction
intro.1
In Taking Refuge in the Three Jewels, the venerable Śāriputra wonders how much merit accrues to someone who takes refuge in the Three Jewels: the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Saṅgha. He therefore seeks out the Buddha Śākyamuni and requests a teaching on this topic. The Buddha proceeds to describe how even vast offerings, performed in miraculous ways, would not constitute a fraction of the merit gained by someone who takes refuge in the Three Jewels.
intro.2
Taking Refuge in the Three Jewels ¹ unfolds in the Jeta’s Grove at Śrāvastī, where the Buddha Śākyamuni is residing with a large gathering of monks. The sūtra begins as the venerable Śāriputra, who is practicing meditation alone in the forest, wonders how much merit is obtained by those who take refuge in the Three Jewels: the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Saṅgha. After finishing his meditation practice, Śāriputra goes before the Buddha Śākyamuni and requests the Buddha to teach on that topic. In his answer, the Buddha presents an analogy that is meant to describe the enormous merit that such devotees obtain. Even if someone could magically erect a stūpa the size of the entire world and make vast, miraculous offerings to it for eons on end, the merit gained thereby would not constitute even a fraction of the merit gained by those who take refuge in the Three Jewels. After the Buddha has delivered this teaching, the earth quakes, lightning strikes, and the gods in the heavens play divine music to celebrate the teaching. Finally, the Buddha instructs Ānanda to remember the teaching so that he can pass it on to others.
intro.3
Very little is known about the history of this text in India. The Sanskrit version of this sūtra is no longer extant, and it seems to have never been translated into Chinese. Hence, the only witness of this sūtra available today is the Tibetan translation included in the Kangyur. The colophon of the Tibetan translation states that it was produced by the Indian paṇḍita Sarvajñādeva and the Tibetan translator-editor Paltsek, thus locating its translation in the late eighth or early ninth century. This dating is also confirmed by the text’s inclusion in the Denkarma (lhan/ldan dkar ma) catalog of the early ninth century ce.² The text has previously been translated into English by Kenneth Liberman with the assistance of Jampa Losel in 1988, and most recently, there is another English translation by Peter Skilling, along with some helpful notes, found in his 2021 anthology Questioning the Buddha: A Selection of Twenty-Five Sutras.³ The translation presented here was made primarily based on the Degé edition, in consultation with the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma) and the Stok Palace manuscript edition.
1
Homage to the Three Jewels!
Thus did I hear at one time. The Blessed One was residing in Śrāvastī, in Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍada’s park, together with a great saṅgha of 1,250 monks.
At that time, while the venerable Śāradvatīputra was alone in the forest, this thought arose in his mind: “I should go before the Teacher so that I can ask the Well-Gone One, the Dharma Lord, this question: ‘How much merit is accumulated by faithful noble sons or noble daughters who take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Saṅgha of monks?’ ”
At dusk the venerable Śāriputra emerged from his meditative seclusion and went to see the Blessed One. When he arrived, he bowed his head to the Blessed One’s feet and sat to one side. While seated to the side, the venerable Śāriputra asked the Blessed One, “Honored One, while I was staying alone in the forest in meditative seclusion, this thought arose in my mind: ‘How much merit is accumulated by faithful noble sons or noble daughters who take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Saṅgha of monks?’ ”
The Blessed One replied to the venerable Śāriputra, “Śāriputra, you have asked this question in order to benefit and bring happiness to many beings. Out of love for the world, you seek to help a vast number of beings,
2
gods and humans alike, by accomplishing their welfare and happiness. That is excellent, excellent! Śāriputra, as you have thought to come and question the Thus-Gone One about this matter, I will reply with an analogy to make you understand.
“Imagine that someone endowed with magical powers were to transfer into another world all the beings that live in Jambudvīpa—the land of Jambudvīpa and its subcontinents, which measure seven thousand leagues across and lengthwise. Having made the ground even like the palm of a hand, that person would then build a stūpa made of the seven precious gems—gold, silver, beryl, crystal, red coral, emerald, and white coral. It would be the size of Jambudvīpa, and its summit would reach the Brahmā realms. That person would then worship that stūpa with offerings of divine incense, divine flowers, divine garlands, and divine parasols, banners, and flags. This person endowed with these magical powers would then pour all the water of the four great oceans into another world system and replace it with four oceans filled with maruka oil.⁴ He would then place a wick the size of Mount Sumeru into the oceans so that for many eons this oil lamp would continuously burn.
“Śāriputra, tell me, would that person accumulate a lot of merit on that basis?”
“Blessed One, yes, a lot! Well-Gone One, yes, a lot! This is beyond all the hearers and solitary buddhas. Blessed One, this is the domain of the thus-gone ones. Well-Gone One, this is the domain of the thus-gone ones.”
“Śāriputra, that amount of merit would not match even a hundredth,
3
a thousandth, or even a hundred thousandth of the merit created by a noble son or noble daughter who takes refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Saṅgha. This difference could not be illustrated by any numbers, examples, or calculations.”
When this Dharma teaching was given, the whole great trichiliocosm began to quiver, tremble, quake, wobble, rock, sway, vibrate, shudder, and reel. Great lightning flashes struck, and the gods caused the sound of drums to be heard.
The venerable Ānanda asked the Blessed One, “Blessed One, what is the name of this Dharma teaching? How should it be remembered?”
The Blessed One replied, “Ānanda, you should remember this Dharma teaching as Accomplishing Limitless Gateways.⁵ This is how you should see its meaning, and this is how you should remember it.”
When the Blessed One had spoken, the venerable Śāriputra and the other monks praised the Blessed One’s words.
Colophon
This was translated, edited, and finalized by the Indian upādhyāya Sarvajñādeva and the translator-editor Bandé Paltsek.
Notes
notes.1
1. Although the title in the Degé version only reads Taking Refuge in the Three, we have added Jewels based on the title as it appears in the Stok Palace manuscript. This is also clearly the subject and meaning of the text.
notes.2
2. The Denkarma catalog is dated to ca. 812 ce. See Denkarma, folio 301.a.3. See also Herrmann-Pfandt (2008), p. 162, no. 298.
notes.3
3. Skilling (2021), pp. 189–98.
notes.4
4. Tibetan: ma ru ka’i til mar.
notes.5
5. Translated based on Choné, Lithang, Kangxi, Yongle, and Narthang: sgo mtha’ yas pa. Degé and Stok: sgo mtha’ yas pas.