དག་བ་དང་མ་དག་བའ་ལས་ཀྱ་རྣམ་པར་སྨན་པ་བསྟན་པའ་མད intro: 84000's introduction
Teaching the Ripening of Virtuous and Nonvirtuous Actions intro
- Language
- English
84000's introduction
intro.1
Teaching the Ripening of Virtuous and Nonvirtuous Actions begins with Nanda asking the Buddha why beings living in this world experience different ranges of conditions. This leads the Buddha to explain how all experiences are brought about by the ripening of a variety of virtuous and nonvirtuous actions. The results of nonvirtuous actions are detailed first, prompting Nanda to ask about people, such as benefactors, who, conversely, are committed to performing virtuous actions. The Buddha’s discourse then details the workings of karma by making use of a plethora of examples before concluding with a description of virtuous actions and the benefits they bring.
intro.2
In Teaching the Ripening of Virtuous and Nonvirtuous Actions, Nanda asks the Buddha why different beings experience different fortunes and what types of past actions have now ripened into their respective conditions. The Buddha answers this question by elucidating the inconceivable dynamics of karma through a series of examples of virtuous and nonvirtuous actions along with their positive and negative results. While these one-to-one correspondences might strike the reader as an oversimplification of a very subtle and complex process, such pedagogical devices are common in the Buddhist tradition. Notably, in the classical presentation of the three types of karmic results (Tib. las kyi ’bras bu gsum), the second is said to be the “correlated effect” (Tib. rgyu mthun pa’i ’bras bu), which describes how results mirror their causes.
intro.3
The Tibetan version of Teaching the Ripening of Virtuous and Nonvirtuous Actions is a translation of the Chinese sūtra titled Shanwo yinguo jing 善惡因果經 (Taishō 2881). One thing that is particularly intriguing about this Tibetan sūtra is that it is practically identical to another Tibetan translation, Teaching the Causes and Results of Good and Ill (Toh 354).¹ Upon comparison, it is clear that these two Tibetan texts are simply different translations of the same Chinese sūtra. However, perhaps solely on account of their dissimilar titles, they are retained as two distinct yet adjacent entries in the Degé Kangyur.
intro.4
The principal difference between these two sūtras is that Toh 355, translated here, employs a Sino-Tibetan lexicon whereas Toh 354 uses an Indo-Tibetan lexicon.² These two lexicons refer respectively to the indigenous and presumably more archaic range of Tibetan terminology used to translate Chinese texts, whether they be Buddhist or otherwise, and the range of terminology that was constructed in the likeness of Sanskrit and implemented during the early ninth century in order to imbue translations with a more Indic flavor. This may suggest that Toh 355 is the older of the two translations, since the dominance of Indian Buddhism came at a later point in the Tibetan imperial period.
intro.5
The translator of Toh 355 is unknown, since the translation does not contain a colophon. Nor is its title present in either the Denkarma (Tib. ldan/lhan dkar ma) or Phangthangma (Tib. ’phang thang ma) catalogs of the early ninth century. The translator of Toh 354 was the prolific translator Chödrup (Tib. chos grub, alias Facheng 法成, c. 755–849), who was active in Dunhuang during the early ninth century. Given that Chödrup is known for his use of Indian vocabulary, it is quite certain that he did not also translate Toh 355.
intro.6
Beyond the Tibetan, the sūtra was translated from Chinese into Sogdian and an English translation of the Sogdian has previously been published by David Neil MacKenzie (1970). While this translation corresponds more closely to Toh 354, it nevertheless helped clarify several passages in Toh 355. The present English translation was produced based on the Degé block print with reference to the Comparative Edition (Tib. dpe bsdur ma) and subsequently compared with the Chinese version.