A New Translation of the Sanskrit Bhadracarī with Introduction and Notes

🤓 Admin Zone 🛠️ hidden to non-admins
view on research edit on research Add an excerpt Add a bilingual page Add full text subpage

Journal Article

Translations of Sutras (Skt-Eng)

LibraryArticlesBibliography PDF Link

Please note that many items in our library are simply pages that represent a detailed library catalog entry and citation of someone else's work, presentation, or performance. Read our General Disclaimer for more information.

Descriptionངོ་སྤྲོད།

The Ārya-samantabhadra-caryā-praṇidhāna-rāja[1] or Bhadracarī is arguably the most popular devotional text in the Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition. A collection of verses originally composed in Sanskrit or Prakrit sometime before the fifth century CE, the Bhadracarī recounts in the first person a bodhisattva’s aspiration to worship all Buddhas and become enlightened for the sake of all beings. By the eighth century, these verses were incorporated as the conclusion of the Mahāyāna narrative known as the Gaṇḍavyūha-sūtra. From this time, the text gained popularity throughout the entire Asian Buddhist world. In the Indian and Tibetan traditions it is referenced in numerous literary sources and appears in Sanskrit and Tibetan inscriptions. Evidence suggests that beyond their semantic significance these verses were considered a dhāraṇī or 'spell', which would bestow merit upon its reciter.
Given the immense popularity and continued importance of the Bhadracarī in the Mahāyāna tradition, I feel that a more updated and text-critical translation of the Sanskrit text would not be inappropriate at this time as a resource adding to the current body of textual scholarship on Mahāyāna Buddhism. Toward this end, I have divided this study into two parts. In Part I, I provide a detailed introduction to the Bhadracarī, which outlines its textual history, describes important inscriptional and art-historical finds in relation to the text, discusses the textual relation between the Bhadracarī and the Gaṇḍavyūha, and argues that the Bhadracarī may be considered a Mahāyāna dhāraṇī. Since the textual history of the Bhadracarī throughout all of Asia is far too broad a topic to cover here, I will limit my introduction to some comments on the text in its Indo-Tibetan context. Part II is a new translation of the Sanskrit Bhadracarī with notes on the Sanskrit text and comparative comments in relation to the Tibetan and Chinese translations.

Notes

This may be roughly translated as 'The Royal Vow to follow the Noble Course of Conduct of Samantabhadra'. The verses are also referred to as the Bhadracarī-praṇidhāna ('Vow to follow the Good Course of Conduct') and the Ārya-bhadracarī-praṇidhāna-rāja ('Royal Vow to follow the Noble and Good Course of Conduct'). In what follows, I will simply refer to them as the Bhadracarī, or the 'Good Course'.

Citation

Osto, Douglas, trans. "A New Translation of the Sanskrit Bhadracarī with Introduction and Notes." New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies 12, no. 2 (2010): 1–21. https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.732.2603&rep=rep1&type=pdf.

Interconnections

Works related to this item

1 Full translation of

Bhadracaryāpraṇidhānarāja [आर्यभद्रचर्याप्रणिधानराज]. 'phags pa bzang po spyod pa'i smon lam gyi rgyal po [འཕགས་པ་བཟང་པོ་སྤྱོད་པའི་སྨོན་ལམ་གྱི་རྒྱལ་པོ།]. [The Prayer of Good Action (84000)]. Kangyur, RKTSK 1095 http://www.rkts.org/cat.php?id=1095&typ=1.

Classical WorksAbout this item

༄༅། །འཕགས་པ་བཟང་པོ་སྤྱོད་པའི་སྨོན་ལམ་གྱི་རྒྱལ་པོ་བཞུགས།

The King of Aspiration Prayers: Samantabhadra’s “Aspiration to Good Actions” (Zangchö Mönlam) from the Gaṇḍavyūha chapter of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra. Many translations of this text exist as it is regularly chanted around the world in many different traditions. For an example, see Lotsawa House.

Bhadracarīpranidhāna. (T. Bzang po spyod pa'i smon lam; C. Puxian pusa xingyuan zan; J. Fugen bosatsu gyōgansan; K. Pohyǒn posal haengwǒn ch'an 普賢菩薩行願讚). In Sanskrit, "Vows of Good Conduct," the last section of the Gaṇḍavyūha in the Avataṃsakasūtra and one of the most beloved texts in all of Mahāyāna Buddhism; also known as the Samantabhadracarīpraṇidhānarāja. The Bhadracarīpraṇidhāna focuses on the ten great vows (praṇidhāna) taken by Samantabhadra to realize and gain access to the dharmadhātu, which thereby enable him to benefit sentient beings. The ten vows are: (1) to pay homage to all the buddhas, (2) to praise the tathāgatas, (3) to make unlimited offerings, (4) to repent from one's transgressions in order to remove karmic hindrances (cf. karmāvaraṇa), (5) to take delight in others' merit, (6) to request the buddhas to turn the wheel of dharma (dharmacakrapravartana), (7) to request the buddhas to continue living in the world, (8) always to follow the teachings of the Buddha, (9) always to comply with the needs of sentient beings, and (10) to transfer all merit to sentient beings for their spiritual edification. The text ends with a stanza wishing that sentient beings still immersed in evil be reborn in the Pure Land of Amitābha. The text was translated into Chinese in 754 by Amoghavajra (705–774). Other Chinese recensions appear in the Wenshushili fayuan jing ("Scripture on the Vows made by Mañjuśrī"), translated in 420 by Buddhabhadra (359–429), which corresponds to the verse section from Ru busiyi jietuo jingjie Puxian xingyuan pin, the last roll of the forty-roll recension of the Huayan jing translated by Prajña in 798. (There is no corresponding version in either the sixty- or the eighty-roll translations of the

Huajan jing.) The verses are also called the "Précis of the Huayan jing (Lüe Huayan jing), because they are believed to constitute the core teachings of the Avataṃsakasūtra. In the main Chinese recension by Amoghavajra, the text consists of sixty-two stanzas, each consisting of quatrains with lines seven Sinographs in length, thus giving a total number of 1,736 Sinographs. In addition to the sixty-two core stanzas, Amoghavajra's version adds ten more stanzas of the Bada pusa zan ("Eulogy to the Eight Great Bodhisattvas") from the Badapusa mantuluo jing ("Scripture of the Maṇḍalas of the Eight Great Bodhisattvas") . . . Buddhabhadra's version consists of forty-four stanzas with 880 Sinographs, each stanza consisting of a quatrain with lines five Sinographs in length. Prajña's version contains fifty-two stanzas with each quatrain consisting of lines seven Sinographs in length. There are five commentaries on the text attributed to eminent Indian exegetes, including Nāgārjuna, Dignāga, and Vasubandhu, which are extant only in Tibetan translation. In the Tibetan tradition, the prayer is called the "king of prayers" (smon lam gyi rgyal po). It is incorporated into many liturgies; the opening verses of the prayer are commonly incorporated into a Tibetan's daily recitation. (Source: "Bhadracarīpraṇidhāna." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 106. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)