The Hymn of the Life and Vows of Samantabhadra

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The Hymn on the Life and Vows of Samantabhadra, With the Sanskrit Text, Bhadracarīpraṇidhāna

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Sutras (Sanskrit)

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Descriptionངོ་སྤྲོད།

No abstract given. Here are the first relevant paragraphs:

My object of editing the Hymn is to produce a perfect Sanskrit text as far as the present source of information and the facility of obtaining the material and the scholarship of the present editor permit. The importance of the text has been well known in Japan since early days, not only from the doctrinal point of view but as a piece of Buddhist Sanskrit literature accessible to Japanese scholars. Jiun 慈雲(1718-1804) and his followers were among the foremost students of the text. The one who brought it first from China was Kōbōdaishi (774-835). When the late Dr. Bunyiu Nanjio was studying Sanskrit under Max Müller of Oxford, he collected according to the advice of his teacher as many original Sanskrit texts as he could at the time; among those there were the Smaller Sukhāvatīvyūha, Vajracchedikā, Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya, and Bhadracarī. Nanjio however did not have the chance to study the Bhadracarī, and it was possible that his friend Kenju Kasawara was planning to take up this study himself. Dr. Kaikioku Watanabe was the first who made a thorough investigation of the text while he was studying in Germany (1900-1910), the result was published in Leipzig ;[1] but the pamphlet is almost inaccessible at present. All the problems that may be raised concerning the Bhadracarīpraṇidhāna are discussed in it. My partial study of the text took place in 1909 and a comparison of the different Chinese and Tibetan translations of the Hymn appeared in a Japanese magazine called Mujinto, but I was unfortunately prevented from pusuing the study any further. (Idumi, introduction, 226)

Notes

Die Bhadracarī, eine Probe buddhistisch-religiöser Lyrik untersucht und herausgegeben. Inaugural Dissertation zur Erlangung der Doktorwürde der philosophischen Fakultät der Kaiser Wilhelms-Universität zu Strassburg, vorgelegt von Kaikioku Watanabe aus Tokio. Leipzig, Druck von G. Kreysing, 1912.

Citation

Idzumi, Hokei, ed. and trans. "The Hymn on the Life and Vows of Samantabhadra, With the Sanskrit Text, Bhadracarīpraṇidhāna." The Eastern Buddhist 5, no. 2–3 (1930): 226-47. https://otani.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=pages_view_main&active_action=repository_view_main_item_detail&item_id=9564&item_no=1&page_id=13&block_id=28.

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.)