Precious Sutra on Buddha’s Extensive Wisdom

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Nicholas Weeks
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Precious Sutra on Buddha’s Extensive Wisdom

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

Virtually unknown to the West, a large sutra on the kinds of knowledge & powers of a Buddha.

http://read.84000.co/translation/toh99.html
May all seek, find & follow the Path of Buddhas.
Nicholas Weeks
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Joined: Mon Apr 06, 2009 4:21 am
Location: California

Re: Precious Sutra on Buddha’s Extensive Wisdom

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

From the beginning of the Introduction:
This sūtra, The Precious Discourse on the Blessed One’s Extensive Wisdom That Leads
to Infinite Certainty
, is one of the longer works in the Kangyur, filling no less
than five hundred fifty Tibetan pages in the Degé Kangyur. However, in spite of
its impressive size, the sūtra has remained virtually unread and unstudied in the
West. Apart from a brief summary of the text by Csoma de Körös in 1836, it has
not to our knowledge been the focus of any scholarship in English until now.

While little is known of its history in India, the sūtra was translated into
Tibetan at the time of the early transmission period by the prolific Prajñāvarman
and the lesser known Yeshe Nyingpo, and then revised and finalized by
Śuddhasiṃha, the Kashmiri Sarvajñādeva, and the great translator and editor
Kawa Paltsek. It was included in the Denkarma inventory of translated texts,
thought to have been compiled in the early ninth century. The Denkarma
simply mentions that it consisted of the equivalent of 7,500 ślokas in twenty-five
bampo, or bundles.

The sūtra does not seem to have been translated into Chinese, and there is, to
our knowledge, no extant Sanskrit manuscript. This English translation has been
made from the Tibetan, based primarily on the version in the Degé Kangyur but
also with reference to variants as recorded in the Comparative Edition.

The main doctrinal theme of the sūtra is the kinds of knowledge and wisdom
specific to a tathāgata, particularly those usually known as the ten powers or
strengths (Skt. bala, Tib. stobs)—although in this text these ten are not explicitly
enumerated as such, and indeed the classification and scope of the qualities
presented extends well beyond that usual set of ten (see i. 9–i. 10 below). The
explanation takes place first in a long teaching that focuses on how these
qualities make the Buddha unique compared to any other spiritual teacher, and
later in the text when the Buddha himself recounts the roots of merit in his past
that have allowed them to unfold in his awakened state.
May all seek, find & follow the Path of Buddhas.
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Losal Samten
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Re: Precious Sutra on Buddha’s Extensive Wisdom

Post by Losal Samten »

:heart: :hug:
Lacking mindfulness, we commit every wrong. - Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche
འ༔ ཨ༔ ཧ༔ ཤ༔ ས༔ མ༔
ཨོཾ་ཧ་ནུ་པྷ་ཤ་བྷ་ར་ཧེ་ཡེ་སྭཱ་ཧཱ།།
ཨཱོཾ་མ་ཏྲི་མུ་ཡེ་སལེ་འདུ།།
Nicholas Weeks
Posts: 4209
Joined: Mon Apr 06, 2009 4:21 am
Location: California

Re: Precious Sutra on Buddha’s Extensive Wisdom

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

Another meritorious point in favor of the translators is that they did not delete passages with stock phrasing. For purposes of recitation and imbuing the reciter/reader with the spirit of the sutra, leaving them in is valuable.
In his thought-provoking article, “Buddhist Hybrid English,” Paul Griffiths
discourages translators from reproducing such repetitive passages (which he
finds “paralysingly boring”) on the grounds that such repetition is unlikely to
yield significant insights in readers (Griffiths 1981, p. 25). While Griffiths is no
doubt right that modern readers may find such extensive repetition difficult to
digest and hard to appreciate in terms of literary value, it nevertheless seems
important to present texts like this in their totality to allow readers of all kinds,
specialist or not, to appreciate the full spectrum of Indian Buddhist literature.
May all seek, find & follow the Path of Buddhas.
Nicholas Weeks
Posts: 4209
Joined: Mon Apr 06, 2009 4:21 am
Location: California

Re: Precious Sutra on Buddha’s Extensive Wisdom

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

Venerable Purna gives over 50 types of a Tathāgata's knowledge, here are the first two. In depth teachings follow:
“Householder, the Thus-Gone One correctly understands the knowledge of what
is possible. He correctly understands the knowledge of the origin as related to
knowledge of what is possible. He correctly understands the knowledge of
cessation as related to knowledge of what is possible. He correctly understands
the knowledge of the path that leads to cessation as related to knowledge of
what is possible.
“He correctly understands the knowledge of what is impossible. He correctly
understands the knowledge of the origin as related to knowledge of what is
impossible. He correctly understands the knowledge of cessation as related to
knowledge of what is impossible. He correctly understands the knowledge of the
path that leads to cessation as related to knowledge of what is impossible.
May all seek, find & follow the Path of Buddhas.
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