Translation of
Bhadrakalpikasūtra. (T. Bskal pa bzang po'i mdo/Mdo sde bskal bzang; C. Xianjie jing; J. Gengōgyō; K. Hyǒn'gǒp kyǒng 賢劫經). In Sanskrit, "Auspicious Eon Scripture"; a Mahāyāna text in twenty-four chapters, written c. 200-250 CE and translated into Chinese by Dharmarakṣa in either 291 or 300 CE. In this scripture, the Buddha teaches a special concentration (samādhi) through the mastery of which bodhisattvas come to be equipped with 2,100 perfections (pāramitā), 84,000 samādhis and 84,000 codes (dhāraṇī). He then lists the names of a thousand buddhas who will appear during the "auspicious eon" (bhadrakalpa) due to the merit they obtained from practicing this samādhi, as well as their residences, parents, disciples, spiritual powers, teachings, and so on. In the Tibetan bka' 'gyur the Bhadrakalpikasūtra takes pride of place as the first in the sūtra section (mdo sde); it is recited often, and it is not uncommon for the elaborate hagiographies (rnam thar) of important Tibetan religious figures or incarnations (sprul sku) to identify their subject as an earlier rebirth of one of the thousand buddhas. (Source: "Bhadrakalpikasūtra." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 106. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)
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