Articulating Potency: A Study of the Suvarṇa(pra)bhāsottamasūtra

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Descriptionངོ་སྤྲོད།

This study examines how the Suvarna(pra)bhāsottamasūtra (Discourse of Utmost Golden Radiance) articulates its own potency—its intrinsic value and capacity to transform beings and the cosmos. Although this potency is the predominant theme of the text, it is never definitively named or located; it is only visible in its effects. The mysterious, indeterminate source of the sūtra's potency significantly contributes to its allure: what cannot be seen or located is infinite, and the infinite inspires awe and devotion.

The dissertation explores the complex relationships among the sūtra, the Buddha, and the dharmabhānaka (the orator), as well as the synesthetic representation of the oral/aural sūtra as a potent substance (especially as a rasa, a savory liquid that is also an aesthetic quality) that enters and transforms its audience and their world. The categories of analysis employed in this close reading are derived from the Suvarna(pra)bhāsottamasūtra itself: the relationships between the form and the content of the sūtra, and between the sūtra and its auditors and orators. The words of the sūtra are about the potency of the words of the sūtra; this involuted relationship between form and content is critical to the articulation of the sūtra's potency. The sūtra also asserts the critical dependence of its value and transformative capacity upon its being uttered by an eloquent orator and heard by a receptive audience—a scenario that is intricately mirrored in the narrative content and form of the sūtra. The role of these relationships in the articulation of the sūtra's potency informs the methodology of this study.

While the Sanskrit text is the primary focus of the study, Chinese, Tibetan, and Khotanese translations of the Suvarna(pra)bhāsottamasūtra are also considered. Translation, as an interpretive process, provides a crucial glimpse of the different ways in which potency has been interpreted and re-created in varied Buddhist communities, thereby both confirming and complicating the reading of the Sanskrit text presented in this study. (Source Accessed Aug 5, 2026)

Citation

Gummer, Natalie Dawn. "Articulating Potency: A Study of the Suvarṇa(pra)bhāsottamasūtra." PhD diss., Harvard University, 2000.

Table of contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSvi
ABBREVIATIONSxi
NOTES ON TRANSLATIONxiii

INTRODUCTION1
- The Economy of Potency5
- Text and Context: Inside and Outside the Potent Discourse11
- The Translingual Discourse: Connecting the Contexts of Potency22
  - Tracing the Translingual Discourse23
  - The Potency of the Foreign31
- Discourse, Orator, Audience40
  - Inside Out42
- Form and Content: Two Sides of the Same Coin43
  - What the Discourse Contains43
  - Container and Contained51
- Entering the World of the Discourse57

CHAPTER 1: OF INDETERMINATE RELATIONS61
- The Source of Golden Radiance62
  - The Potency of Indeterminate Origin66
  - Hearing about Speaking about Hearing75
  - The Form and Content of the Voice of the Victor78
- Buddha and Buddhavacana93
  - (Dis)locating the Narrative Voice94
  - The Significance of Form98
- Where the Buddha Dwells106
  - Recitable Relics and Reliquary Realms: Dwelling in the Dharmadhātu119

CHAPTER 2: THE VOICE(S) OF THE ORATOR136
- (In)visible Voices138
- Ventriloquized Voices145
- The Voice(s) of the Dharma Drum159

CHAPTER 3: A DISCOURSE OF SUBSTANCE165
- The Material Manifestation of Potency169
  - The Sensual Substance of Sound180
- The Sweet Savor of Imperishable Nectar195
  - Savory Sounds and their Visible Signs204
  - Shaken by the Savor of the Discourse215

CHAPTER 4: ENTERING THE WATERS OF ELOQUENCE231
- Mixing the Elixir of Eloquence232
  - How Does the "Goddess of Euphony" Sound?234
  - Repeating the Bathing Ritual239
  - A Pharmacopoeia of Foreign Phonemes246
- Bearing the Waters of the Dharma256
  - "I Am a Doctor"258
  - Naming and Being Named262
- The Visible Voice and the Audible Body of the Buddha269
  - Moon on the Water271
  - Thirsting for the Form of the Buddha281

CONCLUSION299
- Interpreting Potency299
- Indeterminacy303
- Translating Potency306
- Transferring Potency308

BIBLIOGRAPHY310

Interconnections

Works related to this item

1 Scholarship on

Suvarṇaprabhāsottamasūtrendrarājasūtra [आर्यसुवर्णप्रभासोत्तमसूत्रेन्द्रराजनाममहायानसूत्र]. 'phags pa gser 'od dam pa mdo sde'i dbang po'i rgyal po zhes bya ba theg pa chen po'i mdo [འཕགས་པ་གསེར་འོད་དམ་པ་མདོ་སྡེའི་དབང་པོའི་རྒྱལ་པོ་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོའི་མདོ།]. [The Sovereign Lord of Sūtras, The Golden Light]. Translated by Jinamitra, Śīlendrabodhi, Ye shes sde, Dharmakṣema, Baogui, Yijing. Kangyur, D556. http://www.rkts.org/cat.php?id=550&typ=1; http://www.rkts.org/cat.php?id=551&typ=1; http://www.rkts.org/cat.php?id=552&typ=1.

Classical WorksAbout this item

There are three translations of this text included in the Tibetan canon:

Suvarṇaprabhāsottamasūtrendrarājasūtra (RKTSK 550) translated from the Chinese by Gö Chödrub.
Suvarṇaprabhāsottamasūtrendrarājasūtra (RKTSK 551) translated from the Sanskrit by Jinamitra, Śīlendrabodhi, and Ye shes sde.
Suvarṇaprabhāsottamasūtrendrarājasūtra (RKTSK 552). Translator not listed.

Suvarṇaprabhāsottamasūtra. (T. Gser ’od dam pai mdo; C. Jinguangming zuishengwang jing; J. Konkōmyō saishōōkyō; K. Kǔmgwangmyǒng ch’oesǔngwang kyǒng). In Sanskrit, "Sūtra of Supreme Golden Light," an influential Mahāyāna sūtra, especially in East Asia. Scholars speculate that the text originated in India in the fourth century and was gradually augmented. It was translated into Chinese by Yijing in 703. The sūtra contains many dhāraṇī and is considered by some to be a proto-tantric text; in some editions of the Tibetan canon it is classified as a tantra. It is important in East Asian Buddhism for two main reasons. First was the role the sūtra played in conceptualizing state-protection Buddhism (huguo fojiao). The sūtra declares that deities will protect the lands of rulers who worship and uphold the sūtra, bringing peace and prosperity, but will abandon the lands of rulers who do not, such that all manner of catastrophe will befall their kingdoms. The sūtra was thus central to "state protection" practices in East Asia, together with the Saddharmapuṇḍarikasūtra and the Renwang jing. Second, the sūtra provides the locus classicus for the "water and land ceremony" (shuilu hui), a ritual intended for universal salvation, but especially of living creatures who inhabit the most painful domains of saṃsāra; the ceremony was also performed for a variety of this-worldly purposes, including state protection and rain-making. According to the sūtra, in a previous life, the Buddha was a merchant s son named Jalavāhana, who one day encountered a dried-up pond in the forest, filled with thousands of dying fish. Summoning twenty elephants, he carried bags of water from a river into the forest and replenished the pond, saving the fish. He then sent for food with which to feed them. Finally, recalling that anyone who hears the name of the buddha Ratnaśikhin will be reborn in the heavens, he waded into the pond and pronounced the Buddha's name, followed by an exposition of dependent origination. When the fish died, they were reborn in the Trāyastriṃśa heaven. Recalling the reason for their happy fate, they visited the world of humans, where each offered a pearl necklace to Jalavāhana's head, foot, right side, and left side. The sūtra also tells the story of Prince Mahāsattva who sees a starving tigress and her cubs. He throws himself off a cliff to commit suicide so that the tiger might eat his body (see Namo Buddha). This is one of the most famous cases of dehadāna, or gift of the body. (Source: "Suvarṇaprabhāsottamasūtra." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 877. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)