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The Prediction for Brahmaśrī

Translation of འཕགས་པ་ཚངས་པའ་དཔལ་ལང་བསྟན་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད (འཕགས་པ་ཚངས་པའི་དཔལ་ལུང་བསྟན་པ་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོའི་མདོ)

Language
English
Translator
Sophie McGrath
Extent
21 passages, 1,829 words
Text
complete digital text
Source
84000 · Published by 84000 (v 1.0.6 2024). 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha,… · CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha). Shown whole and unaltered, with its notes, on a…

Contents

Text

84000's introduction

intro.1

The Prediction for Brahmaśrī features a brief encounter between the Buddha, out on his daily alms round, and a group of children playing on the outskirts of Śrāvastī. A boy named Brahmaśrī offers the Buddha the pavilion he has made of sand or dirt. The Blessed One accepts it and transforms it into one made of precious metals and jewels. Seeing this wonder, Brahmaśrī makes a vow to become a buddha himself in the future. This prompts the Buddha to smile and predict Brahmaśrī’s future awakening.

intro.2

The Prediction for Brahmaśrī is a short dialogue that features an encounter between the Buddha, out on his daily alms round, and a group of children playing on the outskirts of Śrāvastī. One precocious boy named Brahmaśrī offers the Buddha the pavilion he has made of sand or dirt. The Blessed One accepts it and then transforms it into one made of precious metals and jewels. Seeing this wonder, the boy Brahmaśrī makes a vow to become a buddha himself in the future, and this prompts the Buddha to smile and give a prediction of Brahmaśrī’s future awakening.

intro.3

In the introduction to his translation of this sūtra,¹ Peter Skilling points out a verse in the Lotus Sūtra (Toh 113)² in which the Buddha seems to describe similar events to those that occur in this sūtra:

intro.4

“And those children playing here and there
Who pile up sand
So as to create stūpas of the jinas:
They will all of them attain enlightenment.”³

intro.5

The above verse is one of two that are quoted together in Śāntideva’s compendium of Buddhist doctrine, The Training Anthology (Śikṣāsamuccaya), in the context of a brief discussion about how simple acts of faith may culminate in the incredible result of awakening as a buddha. For Śāntideva, this illustrates that one should be careful not to disrespect even ordinary people.⁴ In the narrative of The Prediction for Brahmaśrī, the children are not building stūpas out of sand, or, perhaps more accurately, dirt (Tib. sa rdul, Skt. pāṃsu);⁵ they are building houses, surrounding walls, and pavilions. However, the main theme of the narrative—and the image brought to mind—is similar to that found in the passage in the Lotus Sūtra.

intro.6

This theme of a simple act of generosity, faith, and devotion to the Buddha generating incredible, inconceivable results is a common one found in narratives throughout various Buddhist traditions. For instance, in The Hundred Buddhist Tales (Avadānaśataka) there are numerous stories that are quite similar to the one told in The Prediction for Brahmaśrī, which also feature the Buddha’s extraordinary powers and his wondrous smile.⁶ So, while its longer title in the Kangyur describes it as a Mahāyāna sūtra, the narrative type, its themes, and its motifs are not unique to the Mahāyāna tradition.

intro.7

The Prediction for Brahmaśrī is found in the General Sūtra section (mdo sde) of the various Kangyurs. Most of its colophons indicate that it was translated by the Indian scholar Viśuddhasiṃha and the translator Bandé Gewa Pal and edited by Vidyākarasiṃha and Devacandra, all of whom are known to have been active during the height of the Tibetan imperial patronage of Buddhism in the late eighth and early ninth centuries.⁷ That it was translated into Tibetan during the early translation period is further supported by the fact that its title is listed in the Phangthangma and Denkarma imperial catalogs of translated texts.⁸ There is no known extant Sanskrit version of this sūtra and there is no known Chinese translation.

intro.8

This English translation is based on the Tibetan translation in the Degé Kangyur in consultation with the Pedurma (dpe bsdur ma) Comparative Edition. The Tibetan text was also compared with the Stok Palace and Phukdrak editions of the Kangyur, but none of the differences found therein were deemed noteworthy.

1

Homage to all buddhas and bodhisattvas!

Thus did I hear at one time. The Blessed One was dwelling in Śrāvastī, in Prince Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍada’s Park, together with a great assembly of monks. At that time, one morning the Blessed One put on his lower robe and his upper robe, took his begging bowl, and walked toward the city of Śrāvastī to collect alms.

2

At that same time, on the outskirts of Śrāvastī, there was a group of children sitting and playing with houses of sand, surrounding walls of sand, and pavilions of sand. The group of children saw the Blessed One approaching from afar. As soon as they saw him, they were elated, delighted, and glad at heart, and they continued sitting there and playing.

Then, out of compassion for those children, the Blessed One went over to where they were sitting and playing. Among the children, there was one boy named Brahmaśrī, who bowed at the feet of the Blessed One and sat right down in front of him.

Even though he already knew what they would say, the Blessed One asked the children, “What are you doing, children?”

“Blessed One,” the children replied, “we are sitting here playing with these houses of sand, these surrounding walls of sand, and these pavilions of sand.”

The boy Brahmaśrī then said to the Blessed One, “Out of compassion for me, Blessed One, please accept this pavilion of sand.”

The Blessed One knew the lofty ambition and exuberance in the mind of the boy Brahmaśrī and accepted the pavilion of sand out of compassion for him.

Then, through the power of the Buddha, the pavilion of sand was instantaneously transformed into a pavilion made of the seven precious jewels, and it stood there right in front of the Blessed One. On its eastern side were 84,000 pillars of gold; on its southern side were 84,000 pillars of silver; on its western side were 84,000 pillars of beryl; and on its northern side were 84,000 pillars of crystal.

3

When the boy Brahmaśrī saw this wondrous display of extraordinary power, he became even more elated. The most immense joy welled up inside him, and he addressed the Blessed One with these verses:

“O, the World Protector has displayed
The immense expanse of his extraordinary power!
The Buddha has displayed his extraordinary power
Out of compassion for me alone!

“This offering of a pavilion of sand,
Which I made to the great sage,
Has become something made of jewels!
O, the Buddha is inconceivable!

“O, O, a field such as this one,
A field of a buddha, cannot be surpassed!
The blind, those with loss of vision, and
Those with little wisdom do not know it.

“Best of those who walk on two feet,
I aspire to achieve awakening,
Having obtained this field of beings,
This opportunity so hard to obtain.

“I, too, wish to train in the qualities
That you possess, O Leader, so that,
Having attained unsurpassable awakening,
I can use extraordinary powers such as yours!”

Then, at that moment, the Blessed One displayed a smile and various multicolored rays of light issued from the Blessed One’s mouth in such a way that blue, yellow, red, white, rose madder, crystalline, and silvery rays of light spread throughout endless, limitless world systems, reaching as far as the Brahmā realm, and then they returned, circled the Blessed One three times, and disappeared into the Blessed One’s uṣṇīṣa.

The venerable Ānanda then addressed the Blessed One with this verse:

“The supreme victors, the leaders, the chiefs among beings
Do not display their smile without a reason.
Compassionate one, for the world’s benefit,
Please tell us why you displayed a smile just now.”

When this had been said, the Blessed One answered the venerable Ānanda, “Ānanda, do you see this boy Brahmaśrī?”

“Yes, Blessed One, I see him,” he replied.

4

“Ānanda,” said the Blessed One, “as a result of this root of virtue and this aspiration in his mind, this boy will not become a hell being for 3,200 eons, and then, once he has achieved awakening, he will be a tathāgata, a worthy one, a perfect and completely awakened buddha named The One Exalted above All the Worlds.”

The Blessed One then addressed the venerable Ānanda with these verses:

“Faith in the Buddha generates
Merit in no small measure.
So, too, does hearing the supreme Dharma
And showing respect to the Sangha.

“For those with faith in the Buddha,
Attaining awakening is not difficult.
Hence, those who aspire for awakening
Should venerate the leaders of the world.

“Ānanda, this boy will become
A glorious one, best of those who walk on two feet,
A leader of the world,
Called The Exalted One.

“In this way, the buddhas are inconceivable
And so, too, are the qualities of the buddhas;
Faith in those who are inconceivable
Bears fruit that is like that as well.”⁹

After the Blessed One had spoken these words, the venerable Ānanda and the boy Brahmaśrī were delighted and they rejoiced at what the Blessed One had said.

Colophon

Translated by the Indian preceptor Viśuddhasiṃha and the translator Bandé Gewa Pal. Edited and finalized by the Indian preceptor Vidyākarasiṃha and the great editor and translator Bandé Devacandra.

Notes

notes.1

1. Skilling 2021, pp. 279–80 and note 600. He also points to a stone relief from Gandhāra that is said to depict King Kaniṣka making an offering of sand. Skilling also notes that The Prediction for Brahmaśrī was translated into French in the nineteenth century by the scholar Léon Feer and published, first in Feer 1865 and then again in Feer 1883.

notes.2

2. The White Lotus of the Good Dharma , (Saddharma­puṇḍarīka, Toh 113), translated by Peter Alan Roberts (2018).

notes.3

3. The White Lotus of the Good Dharma, .

notes.4

4. For an English translation, see Goodman 2016, pp. 95–96.

notes.5

5. The verses in the Lotus Sūtra preserved in Sanskrit contain words for both sand and dirt, sikatā and pāṃsu (or pāṃśu), respectively. The former term for sand is typically translated into Tibetan with bye ma, as it is in the case of the Lotus Sūtra, whereas the Tibetan translation of pāṃsu, dirt or dust, is typically sa rdul, and it is this latter term that is used throughout The Prediction for Brahmaśrī. In any case, the city of Śrāvastī is said to have been situated on the banks of the river Aciravatī, which ran dry during the hot season, making it easy to imagine the children in this sūtra playing in the sandy ground outside the city.

notes.6

6. For a translation of one such story and on the theme of the Buddha’s smile, see Fiordalis 2021. For more translations from the same collection of stories, see Appleton 2020.

notes.7

7. The Phukdrak Kangyur version carries a variant colophon, which states that it was translated by Viśuddhasiṃha and Gélo (dge blo) and revised by Lhayi Dawa (lha’i zla ba). The name Lhayi Dawa is the Tibetan equivalent of Devacandra, so as Skilling has observed, “There is some degree of agreement among the records.” Skilling 2021, p. 278.

notes.8

8. Herrmann-Pfandt 2008, p. 121.

notes.9

9. This verse has parallels or close variants in other canonical texts, such as The Chapter on Medicines (Bhaiṣajya­vastu, Toh 1-6), ; The Threefold Ritual (rgyud gsum pa, Toh 846a), ; and The Verses on Circumambulating Shrines (Caitya­pradakṣiṇa­gāthā, Toh 321), .