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Description
Śāntideva quotes this sūtra four times in the Śikṣāsamuccaya, citing it as the Nārāyaṇaparipṛcchā (The Inquiry of Nārāyaṇa; Tib. Sred med kyi bus zhus pa), after the bodhisattva Nārāyaṇa, one of its principal interlocutors: once in chapter 1, on giving away one’s possessions and body; once in chapter 7, on the motivation and benefits of moral discipline; and twice in chapter 10, on the value of learning and on respect for the Dharma, the second addressed to Vimalatejas. All four correspond closely to passages in the Derge Kangyur translation of this text (vol. 56, ff. 83b–85a, 87b–89b, and 92b–96b), in the same order in which Śāntideva cites them.
The quotations are not found in the Kangyur text that bears the title Nārāyaṇaparipṛcchā (Toh 684), a dhāraṇī for victory in battle in which Nārāyaṇa, defeated by the asuras, asks the Buddha for protection. According to its colophon, that dhāraṇī had not previously been translated into Tibetan and was rendered from a Sanskrit manuscript obtained from Nepal by Situ Paṇchen Chökyi Jungne in the eighteenth century, long after the Śikṣāsamuccaya was translated. The work Śāntideva cites as the Nārāyaṇaparipṛcchā therefore corresponds, at least in the passages he quotes, to this sūtra, the Sarvapuṇyasamuccayasamādhi.
Kamalaśīla likewise quotes this sūtra under the title Nārāyaṇaparipṛcchā in the second Bhāvanākrama, citing the passage on learning and wisdom that Śāntideva quotes in chapter 10 of the Śikṣāsamuccaya.
