འཕགས་པ་ཡལ་འཁར་སྐྱང་གས་ཞས་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད intro.16

intro.16

The sūtra opens in typical fashion, setting the scene with the Buddha presiding over an assembly of thousands of monks, bodhisattvas, and celestial beings. As the bodhisattva Prāmodyarāja praises his splendid, awe-inspiring appearance, the Buddha proclaims all phenomena to be empty. The narrative then shifts to Rāṣṭrapāla, a newly ordained monk who has just received his vows after spending the rainy season in Śrāvastī. Together with a group of monks, Rāṣṭrapāla travels toward Rājagṛha, where the Buddha has been staying. On his arrival, the newly ordained monk approaches the Buddha and, having offered glorifying praises to him, addresses a series of questions to him concerning the qualities and conduct of a genuine bodhisattva and the path to attain inexhaustible wisdom and enlightenment. The Buddha, welcoming Rāṣṭrapāla’s queries, then responds in the form of a discourse—alternating between prose and verse—in which he presents sets of four points that outline how a bodhisattva should comport himself. These highlight the virtue of qualities such as renunciation, mendicancy, perseverance, impartiality, pure discipline, and unworldliness, and extol the benefits of meditating on emptiness.