འཕགས་པ་ས་ལའ་ལྗང་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད intro: 84000's introduction
The Rice Seedling intro
- Language
- English
84000's introduction
intro.1
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.
intro.2
The Rice Seedling (Śālistamba ¹) is one of the most important sūtras on the topic of dependent arising. In this sūtra Śāriputra approaches Maitreya and requests him to explain the meaning of the following statement of the Buddha, which he had made earlier that same day while gazing at a rice seedling: “Whoever sees dependent arising sees the Dharma. Whoever sees the Dharma sees the Buddha.” What follows is an explanation of dependent arising through the twelve links, the eightfold path of the noble ones, and their relation to outer and inner causes and conditions. Crucially, it is by understanding the very nature of dependent arising that one can be free from it and attain enlightenment.
intro.3
We are not aware of any extant complete Sanskrit text of The Rice Seedling. However, it is quoted extensively in surviving Sanskrit treatises like Yaśomitra’s Abhidharmakośavyākhyā, Candrakīrti’s Prasannapadā, Prajñākaramati’s Bodhicaryāvatārapañjikā, Śāntideva’s Śikṣasamuccaya, and also a critical non-Buddhist treatise, the Bhāmatī by Vācaspatimiśra. Mainly based on these, several Sanskrit reconstructions have been carried out which are claimed to include about ninety percent of The Rice Seedling. The first reconstructed edition was prepared by Louis de La Vallée Poussin (1913). Without having access to this, N. Ayaswami Sastri (1950) produced another reconstruction. Another one was produced by V.V. Gokhale (1961). Finally, a thorough comparative study and new reconstructed edition was carried out by N. Ross Reat (1993), taking into account Sanskrit, Tibetan, Pāli, and Chinese sources; Reat also provides a complete English translation. This work also illustrates the many parallel and similar passages in Pāli suttas.
intro.4
There are three Indian commentaries on The Rice Seedling which have been preserved in Tibetan and Mongolian translations, namely the Śālistamba[ka]ṭīkā by Kamalaśīla, as well as the Śālistamba[ka]mahāyanasūtraṭīkā and Śālistambakakārikā , both attributed to Nāgarjuna. These works have been thoroughly studied and translated by Jeffrey D. Schoening (1995). He also gives a chronological account of both partial and complete Western language translations of The Rice Seedling, the first being a translation from the Chinese into Italian in 1908; and he mentions a Japanese translation from the Chinese of Taishō 709.
intro.5
Most of the information given in this introduction can be found in more detail in the sources mentioned above, especially Reat and Schoening. Being of such significance, The Rice Seedling has also been discussed in the context of multiple other studies, the details of which would go beyond the scope of this brief introduction.
intro.6
There are four Chinese translations (Taishō 709–712), the first and earliest having been carried out during the Eastern Jin Dynasty (317–420 ce). A very similar sūtra (Taishō 708) had already been translated by Chih-ch’ien in the Wu Dynasty (222–280 ce). As Martin (2014, p. 283) has noted, the Testament of Wa / Ba (dba’ / sba bzhed) mentions that a Chinese version was translated into Tibetan before the completion of the first monastery of Tibet, Samye, toward the end of the eighth century. The Tibetan translation is also mentioned in the Denkarma (ldan dkar ma) catalogue compiled by Kawa Paltseg et al., probably in the year 812. The colophons in two of the oldest surviving Tibetan manuscripts identified so far (the Dunhuang manuscripts PT 551 and PT 552), credit Yeshé Dé, a famous Tibetan translator of the eighth to ninth centuries, as the translator. This information is absent in the later editions.
intro.7
There are considerable differences and variant readings across the many versions, editions, and translations of this sūtra that are not recorded in detail here. Variant readings as well as references to the commentaries are only given for passages that were crucial for essential decisions made with regard to the translation. Thus this translation does not aim to improve on the studies mentioned above. Readers who are interested in academic and philological research on the available textual sources may refer to them. What is intended here is a translation that is mainly based on the Tibetan version in the Degé Kangyur collection and the Pedurma (dpe bsdur ma) comparative edition of the Kangyur, with reference to available Sanskrit materials, particularly Reat’s edition.