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The title of the extant Sanskrit text in the Divyāvadāna is Kanakavarṇāvadāna, which places it in the avadāna category. However, this designation is likely to have happened when the Divyāvadāna, the collection of texts in which it has been preserved, was compiled. At this time, the different individual texts, whether strictly belonging to the jātaka, avadāna, or pūrvayoga genres or not, were all given the avadāna designation. Historically, the avadāna and pūrvayoga genres, which involve the past lives of other figures apart from the Buddha, appear to be posterior to the jātakas, which exclusively narrate the Buddha Śākyamuni’s past lives. This development might be suggested by the fact that the avadāna genre is among the three added categories in the Sanskrit list of twelve types of teaching (dvādaśāṅga) that are not found in the Pali list of nine types of teachings (navaṅga), which, however, does include jātaka as a category. Both the avadāna and the pūrvayoga genres seem to have been especially popular in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent, as can be inferred from the relatively large number of texts of this type among the recently discovered Kharoṣṭhī manuscripts in the Gāndhārī language (see Lenz 2003; 2010). In fact, the term pūrvayoga might have its provenance there, as has been suggested by von Hinüber (2001, p. 520) on the basis of the occurrence of the term in the Milindapañha, a Pali text that has its origin in Gandhāra. At the beginning of the Milindapañha, before the narration of the past lives of its two protagonists, Nāgasena and King Milinda, we also find a short definition of the term: “pubbayoga means their past actions” (pubbayogo ti tesāṃ pubbakammaṃ; Mil 2.23). Interestingly, within the surviving Gāndhārī corpus of avadānas and pūrvayogas, which has been dated to approximately the first half of the first century
See The White Lotus of the Good Dharma (Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra, Toh 113), chapters 7, 22, and 25; and The King of Samādhis Sūtra (Samādhirājasūtra, Toh 127) chapters 2, 16, 21, 29, and 37. There are also two pūrvayoga chapters in the Mahāvastu, one at Mvu III 170–172 and one immediately following it at III 172–175.
Tripathi 1995, p. 18. There is no Tibetan translation of the Dāna Sūtra, at least as a standalone text, in the Tibetan Kangyur. There is also an extant Sanskrit Dāna Sūtra in the Schøyen Collection, BMSC iv (from Bamiyan). Mentioned in Braarvig 2014, p.163.
This phrase has given rise to considerable discussion in modern scholarship, since the compound word that is used in Sanskrit and Pali, khaḍgaviṣāṇa and khaggavisāṇa, can be interpreted in more than one way. The word khaḍga/khagga itself can mean “rhinoceros,” and since viṣāṇa/visāṇa means “horn,” the compound can be taken as “the horn of a rhinoceros,” which is the interpretation followed in the Pali commentarial tradition. In this interpretation, the entire phrase is understood as “move alone like a rhinoceros horn,” in reference to the fact that the Indian rhinoceros has a single horn, distinguishing it from animals that have two horns. On the other hand, khaḍga/khagga also has the meaning “sword,” and together with viṣāṇa/visāṇa, “horn,” the entire compound khaḍgaviṣāṇa/khaggavisāṇa can mean “[the animal which has] a sword-horn,” thus referring to the rhinoceros itself. In this understanding, which is mostly seen in Buddhist Sanskrit literature, the phrase “move alone like a rhinoceros” alludes to the solitary behavior of the Indian rhinoceros, which is known not to roam about in groups. It should be kept in mind, however, that both meanings could be intended at the same time in this particular phrase, as has been pointed out by Salomon (2000, p. 13; 2018, p. xx). For a recent discussion of this issue, see Jones 2014, and for a wider survey on the imagery of the wandering ascetic as a rhinoceros in Brahmanical, Jain, and Buddhist literature, see af Edholm 2021.
The first texts in which these verses are attributed to pratyekabuddhas are the Pali Cullaniddesa, an old commentary on the Suttanipāta, and the Pali Apadāna, a collection of autobiographical poems ascribed to the Buddha Śākyamuni, the pratyekabuddhas of the past, and the foremost arhat disciples of the Buddha. Both texts are old enough to have been included in the Khuddakanikāya of the Suttapiṭaka of the Pali canon; the Apadāna was probably compiled around the second century
This Sanskrit is from the extant Sanskrit version of the story of King Kanakavarṇa, which is included in the Divyāvadāna collection, as discussed further below. Cowell & Neil 1886, p. 294; Vaidya 1959, p. 182.
Sn v. 36. This Pali verse occurs in the same form in the Paccekabuddhāpadāna (v. 11) and the Cullaniddesa (Cn 57). For a translation of the Pali Paccekabuddhāpadāna, the pratyekabuddha section in the Apadāna, see http://apadanatranslation.com/text/chapter-2/poem-001.html.
“Keeping close company, one comes to have attachment; It is from attachment that this suffering comes about. Fully reflecting upon the danger in friends, One should move alone like a rhinoceros.”
In this later Pali commentary on the Suttanipāta, attributed to the fifth-century Pali scholar Buddhaghosa but based on earlier Sinhala commentaries, each verse of the Khaggavisāṇa Sutta is accompanied by its own background story. In the case of verse 36, this involves a paccekabodhisatta, a being striving for individual awakening, who grows up as a prince in Vārāṇasī. Upon hearing of the death of his future bride, the prince reflects upon the conditions of existence and attains individual awakening, after which he shares the verse in question with his ministers. For the full story, see Bodhi 2017, pp. 425–430.
Salomon (2000, p. 6, n. 4) makes mention of a Sanskrit manuscript from Turfan that is said to contain another such text with pratyekabuddha stories around these verses. He points out that this part of the manuscript does not appear to have been published yet.
This is stated in one of the concluding verses of The Rhinoceros Sutta in both the Pali (Sn v. 73) and the Gāndhārī (v. 36), but it is also expressed at the beginning of the Gāndhārī version and the Sanskrit verses in the Mahāvastu, in which the second half of the first verse reads: maitreṇa cittena hitānukaṃpī eko care khaḍgaviṣāṇakalpo, “With a mind of loving-kindness, being compassionate for the welfare [of others], one should move alone like a rhinoceros.”
Taishō 155, 109c1–110b18. While we have taken the Chinese 本行 as a rendering of the Sanskrit pūrvacaryā, these characters could also very well be a rendering of pūrvayoga.
Bagchi (1927, p. 262) mentions that according to several Chinese scriptural catalogs, this Chinese translation of the Kanakavarṇapūrvayoga was the second to be made, after a first translation by Dharmaruci, a monk from southern India who resided at Luoyang at the beginning of the sixth century. This first translation is said to have been made in 507
Denkarma, folio 301.a; Herrmann-Pfandt 2008, p. 164; Phangthangma 2003, p. 22. In both the Denkarma and Phangthangma entries, the title is extended with bstan pa, which renders the translation of the entire title as “The Teaching on the Past Endeavor of Kanakavarṇa.”
For this Sanskrit version of the Divyāvadāna, see Cowell & Neil 1886, pp. 290–98; and Vaidya 1959, pp. 180–84. Most of the Nepalese Divyāvadāna manuscripts are on Himalayan paper and date from the seventeenth century onwards. Cowell and Neil’s Sanskrit edition—from which Vaidya’s edition is derived—is based on four of these relatively late manuscripts. In recent years, however, two older manuscripts of the Divyāvadāna have been brought to light, which are written on palm leaf and dated on paleographical grounds to the eleventh century
On the Avadānakalpalatā (byang chub sems dpa’i rtogs pa brjod pa dpag bsam gyi ’khri shing or dpag bsam ’khri shing for short, Toh 4155) and its popularity in Tibet, both in textual and visual form, see Tucci 1949, pp. 437–41. For an example of such a woodcut depiction of the story of King Kanakavarṇa, see Rani 2005, p. 49 and woodcut 14.
See Feer 1891, pp. 119–20 for a short summary of this versified version of King Kanakavarṇa’s story. One notable difference in this version seems to be that the bodhisattva abandons his bodhisattva path after seeing a child who had died due to insufficent breastmilk. The Sanskrit text, however, has not been published yet; the Sanskrit edition by Kanga Takahata is based on another recension of the Ratnamālāvadāna that does not contain the story of King Kanakavarṇa.
For a French translation from the Tibetan, see Feer 1891, pp. 117–19; for the Sanskrit text, see Speyer 1902–6, pp. 173–76.
The Tibetan translators have here rendered the Sanskrit śloka as tshigs su bcad pa, “verse,” but since it is here used in conjunction with kīrti, “renown,” and śabda, “fame,” it is more appropriate to interpret śloka in its wider sense as “acclaim” or “praise.”
The extant Sanskrit of the Divyāvadāna version (henceforth “the extant Sanskrit version”) here adds digvidikṣu, “in [all] directions and subdirections.”
The extant Sanskrit version in the Divyāvadāna here adds dṛṣṭa eva dharme, “in this present life.”
The extant Sanskrit version here adds the verbs upasaṃpadya pravedayate, “having attained which, he makes it known,” which then concludes the sentence. Both the Tibetan and the Chinese translation lack renderings of these verbs, which indicates that they were absent in the underlying Sanskrit versions from which they were made.
The Tibetan translation has dam pa’i chos ston te (S, N, H: to), which may be translated as a present or an imperfect past tense. The phrase dam pa’i chos suggests that the translators had read saddharmaṃ, “the good Dharma,” in the underlying Sanskrit text. The standard reading of this set passage, however, is sa dharmaṃ deśayati, “he teaches the Dharma,” which is the reading in the extant Sanskrit. The Chinese translation likewise does not contain an equivalent for the Tibetan dam pa’i.
Following S: sbyin pa la ’gyed pa; D, N: sbyin pa la ’ged pa; Y, J, C: sbyin pa la ’god pa; U: sbyin pa la dged pa. The Stok reading seems to be the older rendering for the Sanskrit dānasaṃvibhāgasya.
The extant Sanskrit version here lacks an equivalent for the Tibetan bdag gis, “themselves.” The Chinese rendering 自, however, indicates that another Sanskrit version here did read ātmanas, “themselves.”
The Tibetan translation reads gzhan dag la, “to others,” whereas the extant Sanskrit reads sacel labheran dakṣiṇīyaṃ pratigrāhakam, “if they were to meet a recipient worthy of offerings,” which is also the reading in the Dāna Sūtra (Tripathi 1995, p. 18). The Chinese translation here reads 他, in agreement with the Tibetan, which suggests that another Sanskrit version indeed read parān, “to others.” Similar to the extant Sanskrit, the parallel passage in the Pali Dānasaṃvibhāga Sutta (It 26) contains the phrase “if there were to be recipients” (sace nesaṃ paṭiggāhakā assu), and in the following verses the recommended recipients are specified as “noble ones” (ariyesu) and “those worthy of offerings” (dakkhiṇeyyesu).
While the extant Sanskrit version here only reads mātsaryaṃ, “selfishness,” the Tibetan ser sna’i sems kyi dri ma, “mental defilement of selfishness,” indicates that its underlying Sanskrit read mātsaryamalaṃ, “the defilement of selfishness.” This is in agreement with the Pali maccheramalaṃ in the Dānasaṃvibhāga Sutta (It 26). In the first part of the Sanskrit Dāna Sūtra we also find the expression mātsaryamala, but then in the second part and in the verses only mātsarya is used (cf. Tripathi 1995, p. 18). It should be noted here that the Tibetan translators seem to have taken the Sanskrit cittaṃ, “mind,” with mātsaryamalaṃ, “defilement of selfishness,” rather than as the object of the verb paryādāya, “having taken possession of,” with mātsaryamalaṃ being the subject of this sentence. The Tibetan instead reads “they would not remain possessed by the arisen mental defilement of selfishness” (ser sna’i sems kyi dri ma skyes pas kun nas dkris te ma ’dug cig).
The extant Sanskrit version lacks an equivalent for the Tibetan bdag nyid, “themselves,” but instead adds āgṛhītena cetasā, “with a stingy mind.” The latter phrase is also present in the parallel passage in the Sanskrit Dāna Sūtra (Tripāṭhi 1995, p. 18). The Chinese translation, however, has 自, which indicates that another Sanskrit version indeed read ātmanas, “themselves,” as is the case above.
The extant Sanskrit version reads prabhūtasattvasvāpateyaḥ, “abundant beings and possessions,” but neither the Tibetan or the Chinese translation contain an equivalent for sattva, “being.” The Sanskrit edition, therefore, needs to be emended to prabhūtasvāpateyaḥ, as pointed out by Hiraoka (2009, p. 66).
The extant Sanskrit version adds vaiḍūrya, “beryl,” and śaṅkha, “conch.” The Chinese translation has 珂, “white jade shell,” but, like the Tibetan, it lacks a rendering of vaiḍūrya.
Following S, N: rta pho rgod; D: rta rgod ma. The Stok and Narthang reading would indicate that the underlying Sanskrit text read vaḍava/ vaḍaba, whereas the extant Sanskrit manuscripts read eḍaka, “sheep” or “goats.” The Chinese 騲馬群 also appears to be a rendering of vaḍava, with no indication of any female gender vaḍavā, which the Degé reading rta rgod ma, “mare,” would suggest.
The extant Sanskrit version adds aṣṭādaśa kulakoṭī, but this makes little sense here and has no equivalent in either the Tibetan or the Chinese translation.
We have here followed the standard understanding of the Sanskrit koṭi as “ten million.” The Tibetan reads sa ya phrag lnga bdun ’bum, “5.7 million,” which indicates that the Tibetan translators had understood the Sanskrit koṭi as “100,000,” a number which is normally denoted by the Sanskrit lakṣa. In the Chinese translation the Sanskrit koṭi has been rendered as 億, “hundred million.”
The extant Sanskrit version lacks an equivalent phrase for the Tibetan chos kyi rgyal po’i, “as a Dharma king.” It also lacks the following two sentences on the king’s generosity and the people’s lifespan at the time. The Chinese translation, however, confirms that the phrase and these sentences were present in another Sanskrit version.
The Tibetan translators have taken the Sanskrit grāmaṇyaḥ, “sirs,” as the object of the sentence, and have translated it (as grong mi “city people”), understanding it as together with sarvabaṇijo, “all merchants.” However, in the Sanskrit it is in the vocative case, so it should be understood as the king’s form of address to his courtiers, as is the case throughout the narrative.
The reading anekopāyena in Cowell and Neil’s Sanskrit edition of the Divyāvadāna (p. 292) is erroneous and should be emended to anenopāyena in light of the Tibetan thabs ’dis, as also pointed out by Hiraoka (2009, p. 66). It seems that Vaidya has silently made this emendation in his Sanskrit edition (p.181).
Following S, N: ltas ngan pa; D: ltas pa. The Stok and Narthang reading appears to bring out a specific connotation of the Sanskrit naimittika as “one who can read bad omens.”
Following S, N: mos pa rnams dang / bar snang gi; D: mo ba rnams sa dang / bar snang gi. The extant Sanskrit version reads bhūmyantarīkṣamantrakuśalā, “skilled in consulting the earth and the sky,” and it seems that sa, “earth,” in the Degé reading and the following bar snang gi, “sky,” in all three Kangyurs reflect the first half of this compound, albeit misplaced within the sentence.
The extant Sanskrit version lacks this second exclamation, but it is there in both the Tibetan and the Chinese translation.
The extant Sanskrit version here adds the sentences: “Let me count all the beings of Jambudvīpa. And having counted them, let me make measurements.” (sarvajāmbudvīpān sattvān gaṇeyam / atha gaṇayitvā māpeyam). These sentences are also present in the Chinese translation.
The extant Sanskrit version lacks an equivalent for the Tibetan legs par, “properly,” in this sentence, but in the following passage we find the verb gaṇ- prefixed with saṃ-. The Sanskrit version that underlies the Tibetan translation might have had the prefix here. In the Chinese translation the prefix appears to have been rendered as 善, “well,” but only for the second instance of the verb gaṇ- in this sentence.
The extant Sanskrit version here lacks the phrase “starting with myself,” but it is there in both the Tibetan and the Chinese translation. In the following passage the extant Sanskrit version does contain the phrase rājanaṃ kanakavarṇam ādau kṛtvā, “starting with King Kanakavarṇa.”
The extant Sanskrit version here adds paraṃ deveti, “saying, ‘Yes, Your Majesty.’” The Chinese translation lacks a rendering of this phrase, as is the case in the Tibetan.
The extant Sanskrit version lacks this sentence and any mention of the eleventh month in the following sentence, but it is there in both the Tibetan and the Chinese translation.
The Chinese translation adds that the entire storehouse was empty and that the food that was left was only for one person for one day.
The extant Sanskrit version here adds ime sattvāḥ, “these beings [are].” The Chinese translation contains this exclamatory sentence only once.
The extant Sanskrit version reads atraiva kālaṃ kariṣyatīti, which does not make sense here and should be emended to atraiva evaṃ kariṣyatīti in light of the Tibetan de nyid du de ltar byed. This emendation is also suggested by Hiraoka (2009, p. 66).
The extant Sanskrit version here adds adhārmikair, “unrighteous,” which is also reflected in the Chinese translation as 非法.
We have followed the order of the Tibetan, which begins with phar mi ’dzin pa, “those who do not honor their fathers.” The extant Sanskrit begins with amātṛjñair, “those who do not honor their mothers,” and lacks any reference to fathers, but the Chinese 不識父母 confirms that another Sanskrit version did contain the phrase apitṛjñair, “those who do not honor their fathers.” This emendation is also suggested by Hiraoka (2009, p. 66).
We have followed the extant Sanskrit pratimukhaṃ smṛtim upasthāpya in rendering this standard description of establishing mindfulness. The Tibetan translation reads dga’ ba dang bde ba dang dran pa mngon du bzhag nas, “established joy, ease, and mindfulness.” This might reflect a misreading of the Sanskrit pratimukhaṃ as prītisukhaṃ. The Chinese translation also makes no mention of establishing joy and ease.
The Tibetan reads gang cung zad skye ba’i chos de thams cad ni / yun mi ring ba nyid du ’gag pa’i chos yin, “Whatever is of the nature to arise, all that, before long, is of the nature to cease,” but this well known statement, most famously expressed by Ājñātakauṇḍinya after the first teaching of the Buddha in The Sūtra of Turning the Wheel of Dharma (Dharmacakrapravartanasūtra, Toh 31), usually never contains the phrase “before long.” Rather, the Sanskrit acirād eva, “before long,” should here be taken with the verb viditvā, “having realized,” as has been done in the Chinese translation.
The Tibetan rkyen ji lta ba bzhin gyis chos thob pa mthong nas seems to be preserving the full and correct reading, whereas the extant Sanskrit only reads yathāprāptān dharmān avalokya, “after beholding dharmas according to how they are attained.” The Chinese 以是因緣 likewise indicates that another Sanskrit version contained the word pratyaya, “condition,” a term which is traditionally associated with the pratyekabuddha (see Norman 1983), and which is reflected in such Tibetan renderings as rten ’brel bsgom, “one who meditates on dependence,” and rkyen gcig rtogs, “one who realizes every single condition.” On the basis of the Tibetan and Chinese translations, Hiraoka (2009, p. 66) has proposed to emend the Sanskrit edition to yathāpratyayaṃ prāptān dharmān avalokya.
Following S, N: tshigs su bcad pa ’di smras pa; D reads tshigs su bcad pa ’di dag smras pa, with “verses” (plural). The Stok and Narthang reading is in agreement with the Sanskrit gāthāṃ bhāṣate. The Degé reading, however, seems to indicate that at some point the following five-lined verse, with its added line (see next note), was considered to consist of two verses. On this verse, and its Sanskit and Pali equivalents, see the Introduction.
The Tibetan chags las sdug bsngal ’di byung ste is here followed by a further line that reads chags la (S, N, H: las) sdug bsngal ’di ’jug pas. This extra line, which would make for an odd five-lined verse, seems to be a slightly adjusted second rendering of the same underlying Sanskrit line which somehow got included in the final Tibetan translation. In the extant Sanskrit version, the line reads snehānvayaṃ saṃbhavatīha duḥkham, “Suffering here [in saṃsāra] comes about as a consequence of attachments,” for which the parallel verse in the Mahāvastu (Mvu I 358) reads snehānvayaṃ duḥkham idaṃ prabhoti, which is in close correspondence with the Pali snehanvayaṃ dukkhaṃ idaṃ pahoti in the Khaggavisāṇa Sutta (Sn 6). The Tibetan ’di could possibly be a shortened form of ’di na for metrical reasons, but in light of these attestations, it seems more likely that the Sanskrit version from which the Tibetan translation was made did in fact have idaṃ, “this,” instead of iha, “here,” which is the reading found in the extant Sanskrit version, as given in the Introduction.
The Tibetan reads de phyir mkhas pas chags sun phyung, “Therefore the wise one, wary of attachments,” but the extant Sanskrit version reads ādīnavaṃ snehagataṃ viditvā, so the Tibetan seems to have misread the Sanskrit viditvā, “realizing,” as vidvān, “the wise one” (“Therefore the wise one, wary of attachments, should move alone like a rhinoceros”). Like the extant Sanskrit, the Chinese translation of this verse makes no mention of “the wise one,” but then it lacks the first line of the verse and differs significantly in the subsequent lines:
Like the Sanskrit khaḍgaviṣāṇa, the Tibetan bse ru allows for two interpretations: (1) either bse is interpreted as “tanned leather,” which, together with ru, “horn,” makes for a compound word that means “rhinoceros;” (2) or bse is taken as “rhinoceros” for short, which would make for a phrase meaning “the horn of a rhinoceros.” We have chosen to translate the term according to the interpretation commonly found in the Buddhist Sanskrit tradition, since this is the tradition that would have been familiar to the Tibetan translators. For more on the ambiguity of the compound word khaḍgaviṣāṇa, see n.5 to the Introduction.
The extant Sanskrit version here adds viśuddhena, “completely pure,” which is also rendered in the Chinese translation as 清淨.
The extant Sanskrit version reads “Let me receive and eat alms from the house of King Kanakavarṇa (kanakavarṇasya niveśanāt).” The Chinese translation agrees with the Tibetan.
The Tibetan de’i rdzu ’phrul ’di lta bus indicates that the Tibetan translators read tasya evaṃ ṛddhyā where the extant Sanskrit has tata eva ṛddhyā, “from there, by miraculous ability.” The Chinese rendering 即以神通 seems to be in agreement with the extant Sanskrit reading.
Following S, N: dbul ba dag gi nang na shi dang mtshungs par gyur pa ste; D: dbul ba dag ni nang na shi dang mtshungs par gyur pa ste. The Sanskrit reads: maraṇasamaṃ dāridryam.
The last line of this verse is not preserved in the extant Sanskrit version. It is, however, present in the Chinese translation, albeit more elaborately rendered for metrical reasons.
The extant Sanskrit version lacks an equivalent api for the Tibetan kyang, “even,” but instead it adds the phrase yadi vā na paribhokṣye, “or if I do not eat it.” The Chinese translation agrees with the extant Sanskrit version.
The Tibetan translation reads ’di ’dra ba’i drang srong tshul khrims dang ldan pa dge ba’i chos can de (S, N: te), without the second half of the sentence that would have contained the verb. We have supplied this from the extant Sanskrit: mama niveśane ’dya yathādhautena pātreṇa nirgamiṣyati, which is also reflected in the Chinese translation. By way of explanation, the Chinese translators have paraphrased the Sanskrit yathādhautena pātreṇa as 其不得飯食空鉢, “without having gotten food in his empty alms bowl.”
The Tibetan sbyin pa gtong ba, lit. “giving away a gift,” indicates that the Tibetan translators read dānātisargaḥ in the underlying Sanskrit, whereas the extant Sanskrit version in the Divyāvadāna reads odanātisargaḥ, “giving away boiled rice.” Rotman translates it “this last bit of rice” (Rotman 2017, 233). The Chinese rendering 最後布施 also suggests an underlying Sanskrit reading with dāna-.
The extant Sanskrit version is more elaborate in the description of this scene: “Thereupon King Kanakavarṇa took the bowl of that great sage (tasya maharṣes), put the single measure of food in the bowl, and holding the bowl in both hands, fell to his knees (ubhābhyāṃ pāṇibhyāṃ pātraṃ gṛhītvā jānubhyāṃ nipatya) and placed the bowl in the blessed pratyekabuddha’s right hand.” Like the Tibetan, the Chinese translation does not describe the king as holding the bowl in both hands and falling to his knees, nor does it here refer to the pratyekabuddha as “that great sage.”
This statement refers to the tradition whereby a Buddhist monk will usually give a short Dharma teaching or recitation for any donor from whom he receives alms. It is said that a pratyekabuddha, however, simply accepts the alms and silently leaves, but in doing so can display supernormal powers as a highly realized being. As stated by Vasubandhu in the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya (Pradhan 1975, p. 183.21; Toh 4090, F.159.b), pratyekabuddhas “are not without compassion, because they display their miraculous power for the sake of benefitting beings” (nāpi niṣkaruṇāḥ / sattvānugrahārtham ṛddher āviṣkaraṇāt). This statement implied that by manifesting supernormal abilities in bodily form, pratyekabuddhas can instill faith in the Dharma in those who witness their miraculous feats, but without giving any verbal teaching.
The extant Sanskrit version reads piṇḍapātram, “alms bowl,” which is likely a scribal error for piṇḍapātaṃ, “alms,” as reflected in the Tibetan bsod snyoms and the Chinese 所施食. Elsewhere in the extant Sanskrit, an alms bowl is simply referred to as pātra, “bowl.”
The Tibetan ’di ltar rdzu ’phrul gyis indicates that the Tibetan translators read evamṛddhyā where the extant Sanskrit version has tata eva ṛddhyā, “from there, by miraculous ability.” The Chinese translation reads 即以神通, which seems to be in agreement with the extant Sanskrit.
The extant Sanskrit version lacks an equivalent for the Tibetan lha’i bka’, “Your Majesty’s instruction,” and it has these two sentences in reverse order. The Chinese translation is in agreement with the extant Sanskrit.
The extant Sanskrit version reads meghāśca pravarṣayantaḥ pāṃśūn śamayanti, “and raining rainclouds settled the dust.” The Chinese translation instead repeats the sentence 涼風吹閻浮提其地淨, “cold winds began to blow in Jambudvīpa that made the ground clean.”
Following S, N, H: bca’i bar bya; D: bza’i bar bya. The Stok, Narthang, and Lhasa reading is in agreement with the Sanskrit khādanīyaṃ.
The extant Sanskrit version here includes skandha-, “stalks,” which is not rendered in the Tibetan. The Chinese translation does contain a rendering of this as 莖.
The Tibetan here adds til mar, “sesame oil,” and in the Chinese translation we also find oil included in the list, but this item seems out of place. The extant Sanskrit lacks this item. Note that there will be a separate rain of sesame oil further on.
The extant Sanskrit version here concludes the list with piṣṭakhādanīyam, “edible flour,” and it lacks the following sentence, which is found in both the Tibetan and the Chinese translation.
We have followed the Tibetan for this last sentence. The extant Sanskrit version is shorter, reading only phalam anyad bhaviṣyati, “There will be another fruit.” The Chinese translation likewise makes no mention of leaves and flowers here.
The extant Sanskrit version lacks an equivalent for the Tibetan ’bru’i rigs thams cad dang, “and all types of grains.” The Chinese translation only reads 等, “and so forth.”
Following S, N, H: rdzas rnam pa sna tshogs; D: zas rnam pa sna tshogs, “various kinds of food”. The Stok, Narthang, and Lhasa reading is preferable in light of the extant Sanskrit which reads nānāvidhadūṣya, “various kinds of cloths.” The Tibetan translators appear to have read dravya, “substance” or “material,” instead of dūṣya, “cloth.” The Chinese rendering 種種雜, “various miscellaneous things,” likewise seems to suggest that dravya may have been the underlying Sanskrit reading.
The Tibetan translation has taken this sentence as an exhortation: “Monks, you should not be uncertain and in doubt about whether that king Kanakavarṇa at that time, at that moment, was someone else. Monks, you should see that at that time, at that moment, it was I who was named Kanakavarṇa.” As a standard passage that comes at the end of an avadāna, we have followed the extant Sanskrit version here, with which the Chinese translation is in agreement.
The extant Sanskrit version here includes bhikṣavaḥ, “Monks,” at the beginning, but this is absent in both the Tibetan and the Chinese translation.
The Tibetan text is problematic in this passage with repeated use of mi bya’o. We have, therefore, translated the passage in accordance with the passage at the beginning of the text.
Following the Tibetan ’phags pa’i skyes bos legs par bshad pa. The extant Sanskrit version reads āryajaneṣu bhāṣitaṃ, “What is said among the noble,” but the Tibetan indicates that the Tibetan translators were reading āryajane subhāṣitaṃ. The Chinese 聖眾中善語 is also a rendering of such a reading.
The extant Sanskrit version and the Chinese translation add another verse that is commonly found at the end of avadānas:
There is no mention of bodhisattvas being present in the extant Sanskrit version or the Chinese translation. These versions instead read: “Elated, the monks, nuns, devoted laymen, devoted laywomen, gods, nāgas, yakṣas, gandharvas, asuras, garuḍas, kinnaras, mahoragas, and so on, and the entire assembly, rejoiced at what the Blessed One had said.”
An epithet of the Buddha.
The five “heaps” that are clung to and thereby constitute individual existence in the desire realm: form (rūpa), feeling (vedanā), perception (saṃjñā), conditionings (saṃskāra), and consciousness (vijñāna).
One of the first Buddhist monasteries, located in a park outside Śrāvastī, the capital of the ancient kingdom of Kośala in northern India. This park was originally owned by Prince Jeta, hence the name Jetavana, meaning Jeta’s grove. The wealthy merchant Anāthapiṇḍada, wishing to offer it to the Buddha, sought to buy it from him, but the prince, not wishing to sell, said he would only do so if Anāthapiṇḍada covered the entire property with gold coins. Anāthapiṇḍada agreed, and managed to cover all of the park except the entrance, hence the name Anāthapiṇḍadasyārāmaḥ, meaning Anāthapiṇḍada’s park. The place is usually referred to in the sūtras as “Jetavana, Anāthapiṇḍada’s park,” and according to the Saṃghabhedavastu the Buddha used Prince Jeta’s name in first place because that was Prince Jeta’s own unspoken wish while Anāthapiṇḍada was offering the park. Inspired by the occasion and the Buddha’s use of his name, Prince Jeta then offered the rest of the property and had an entrance gate built. The Buddha specifically instructed those who recite the sūtras to use Prince Jeta’s name in first place to commemorate the mutual effort of both benefactors.
Anāthapiṇḍada built residences for the monks, to house them during the monsoon season, thus creating the first Buddhist monastery. It was one of the Buddha’s main residences, where he spent around nineteen rainy season retreats, and it was therefore the setting for many of the Buddha’s discourses and events. According to the travel accounts of Chinese monks, it was still in use as a Buddhist monastery in the early fifth century ᴄᴇ, but by the sixth century it had been reduced to ruins.
According to Buddhist tradition, one who is worthy of worship (pūjām arhati), or one who has conquered the enemies, the mental afflictions (kleśa-ari-hata-vat), and reached liberation from the cycle of rebirth and suffering. It is the fourth and highest of the four fruits attainable by śrāvakas. Also used as an epithet of the Buddha.
A general term applied to spiritual practitioners who live as ascetic mendicants. In Buddhist texts, the term usually refers to Buddhist monastics, but it can also designate a practitioner from other ascetic/monastic spiritual traditions. In this context śramaṇa is often contrasted with the term brāhmaṇa (bram ze), which refers broadly to followers of the Vedic tradition. Any renunciate, not just a Buddhist, could be referred to as a śramaṇa if they were not within the Vedic fold. The epithet Great Śramaṇa is often applied to the Buddha.
A type of nonhuman being whose precise status is subject to different views, but is included as one of the six classes of beings in the sixfold classification of realms of rebirth. In the Buddhist context, asuras are powerful beings said to be dominated by envy, ambition, and hostility. They are also known in the pre-Buddhist and pre-Vedic mythologies of India and Iran, and feature prominently in Vedic and post-Vedic Brahmanical mythology, as well as in the Buddhist tradition. In these traditions, asuras are often described as being engaged in interminable conflict with the devas (gods).
Also known as urad, a type of pulse.
A type of pulse.
In Buddhist literature, this is an epithet applied to buddhas, most often to Śākyamuni. The Sanskrit term generally means “possessing fortune,” but in specifically Buddhist contexts it implies that a buddha is in possession of six auspicious qualities (bhaga) associated with complete awakening. The Tibetan term—where bcom is said to refer to “subduing” the four māras, ldan to “possessing” the great qualities of buddhahood, and ’das to “going beyond” saṃsāra and nirvāṇa—possibly reflects the commentarial tradition where the Sanskrit bhagavat is interpreted, in addition, as “one who destroys the four māras.” This is achieved either by reading bhagavat as bhagnavat (“one who broke”), or by tracing the word bhaga to the root √bhañj (“to break”).
A high-ranking deity presiding over a divine world; he is also considered to be the lord of the Sahā world (our universe). Though not considered a creator god in Buddhism, Brahmā occupies an important place as one of two gods (the other being Indra/Śakra) said to have first exhorted the Buddha Śākyamuni to teach the Dharma. The particular heavens found in the form realm over which Brahmā rules are often some of the most sought-after realms of higher rebirth in Buddhist literature. Since there are many universes or world systems, there are also multiple Brahmās presiding over them. His most frequent epithets are “Lord of the Sahā World” (sahāṃpati) and Great Brahmā (mahābrahman).
The “grit” (śarkara) of crystallized brown sugar that is made with the juice of sugar cane.
The meaning of this term varies according to context. As one of the skandhas, it refers to various mental activities. In terms of the twelve phases of dependent origination, it is the second, “formation” or “creation,” referring to activities with karmic results.
Consciousness is generally classified into the five sensory consciousnesses and mental consciousness. Fifth of the five aggregates and third of the twelve links of dependent origination.
A king who rules his kingdom righteously and in accordance with the Dharma.
The Sanskrit khādanīya is especially used for hard or raw foods.
One of the twelve genres or types of teaching (dvādaśāṅga) given by the Buddha. The Sanskrit avadāna means “exceptional feat” or “illustrious deed.” However, in the context of the twelve types of teachings, it came to refer to the narrative accounts of such deeds. In the Yogācārabhūmi (Śbh I 230; Toh 4036, F.56.a), Asaṅga defines the term avadāna as “that which is illustrated with an example, an example by which the relevant meaning becomes completely clear” (yat sadṛṣṭāntakam udāhṛtam, yena dṛṣṭāntena yasya prakṛtasyārthasya vyavadānaṃ bhavati). This definition is echoed in the Abhidharmasamuccayabhāṣya (ed. Tatia, p. 96; Toh 4053, F.69.a) and Vasubandhu’s Gāthāsaṃgrahaśāstrārtha (Toh 4103, F.228.a).
Potential sources for the accumulation of merit.
The Sanskrit bhojanīya refers especially to the five soft foods that do not need to be chewed much: boiled rice, sattu, khichri, fish, and meat.
A class of generally benevolent nonhuman beings who inhabit the skies, sometimes said to inhabit fantastic cities in the clouds, and more specifically to dwell on the eastern slopes of Mount Meru, where they are ruled by the Great King Dhṛtarāṣṭra. They are most renowned as celestial musicians who serve the gods. In the Abhidharma, the term is also used to refer to the mental body assumed by sentient beings during the intermediate state between death and rebirth. Gandharvas are said to live on fragrances (gandha) in the desire realm, hence the Tibetan translation dri za, meaning “scent eater.”
In Indian mythology, the garuḍa is an eagle-like bird that is regarded as the king of all birds, normally depicted with a sharp, owl-like beak, often holding a snake, and with large and powerful wings. They are traditionally enemies of the nāgas. In the Vedas, they are said to have brought nectar from the heavens to earth. Garuḍa can also be used as a proper name for a king of such creatures.
Clarified butter.
An epithet of the Buddha.
The awakening of pratyekabuddhas, those who realize the conditioned nature of reality on their own, without the instruction of a buddha in their current lifetime.
The “lump” (guḍa) of solidified molasses that is made with the juice of sugar cane.
The name of the southern continent in Buddhist cosmology, which can signify either the known human world, or more specifically the Indian subcontinent, literally “the jambu island/continent.” Jambu is the name used for a range of plum-like fruits from trees belonging to the genus Szygium, particularly Szygium jambos and Szygium cumini, and it has commonly been rendered “rose apple,” although “black plum” may be a less misleading term. Among various explanations given for the continent being so named, one (in the Abhidharmakośa) is that a jambu tree grows in its northern mountains beside Lake Anavatapta, mythically considered the source of the four great rivers of India, and that the continent is therefore named from the tree or the fruit. Jambudvīpa has the Vajrāsana at its center and is the only continent upon which buddhas attain awakening.
A park in Śrāvastī, the capital of the ancient kingdom of Kośala in northern India. It was owned by Prince Jeta, and the wealthy merchant Anāthapiṇḍada, wishing to offer it to the Buddha, bought it from him by covering the entire property with gold coins. It was to become the place where the monks could be housed during the monsoon season, thus creating the first Buddhist monastery. It is therefore the setting for many of the Buddha's discourses.
“Golden Hue.” The name of a king in the distant past. This king was a former life of the Buddha Śākyamuni.
“Golden One.” The royal capital from which King Kanakavarṇa ruled over the whole of Jambudvīpa in the distant past.
A nourishing porridge that is made by boiling rice and lentils together.
A class of nonhuman beings that resemble humans to the degree that their very name—which means “is that human?”—suggests some confusion as to their divine status. Kinnaras are mythological beings found in both Buddhist and Brahmanical literature, where they are portrayed as creatures half human, half animal. They are often depicted as highly skilled celestial musicians.
An epithet of the Buddha.
Literally “great serpents,” mahoragas are supernatural beings depicted as large, subterranean beings with human torsos and heads and the lower bodies of serpents. Their movements are said to cause earthquakes, and they make up a class of subterranean geomantic spirits whose movement through the seasons and months of the year is deemed significant for construction projects.
Māra, literally “death” or “maker of death,” is the name of the deva who tried to prevent the Buddha from achieving awakening, the name given to the class of beings he leads, and also an impersonal term for the destructive forces that keep beings imprisoned in saṃsāra:
(1) As a deva, Māra is said to be the principal deity in the Heaven of Making Use of Others’ Emanations (paranirmitavaśavartin), the highest paradise in the desire realm. He famously attempted to prevent the Buddha’s awakening under the Bodhi tree—see The Play in Full (Toh 95), \1\221.1—and later sought many times to thwart the Buddha’s activity. In the sūtras, he often also creates obstacles to the progress of śrāvakas and bodhisattvas. (2) The devas ruled over by Māra are collectively called mārakāyika or mārakāyikadevatā, the “deities of Māra’s family or class.” In general, these māras too do not wish any being to escape from saṃsāra, but can also change their ways and even end up developing faith in the Buddha, as exemplified by Sārthavāha; see The Play in Full (Toh 95), \1\221.14 and \1\221.43. (3) The term māra can also be understood as personifying four defects that prevent awakening, called (i) the divine māra (devaputramāra), which is the distraction of pleasures; (ii) the māra of Death (mṛtyumāra), which is having one’s life interrupted; (iii) the māra of the aggregates (skandhamāra), which is identifying with the five aggregates; and (iv) the māra of the afflictions (kleśamāra), which is being under the sway of the negative emotions of desire, hatred, and ignorance.
The Sanskrit mānikā is also a term used as a measure of weight for grains. It is usually defined as equal to two kuḍavas or eight palas, which is equivalent to about four hundred grams. In this text, however, it probably just refers to a “small amount,” as reflected in the Tibetan bre’u chung.
Also known as urad, a type of pulse.
A type of pulse.
A class of nonhuman beings who live in subterranean aquatic environments, where they guard wealth and sometimes also teachings. Nāgas are associated with serpents and have a snakelike appearance. In Buddhist art and in written accounts, they are regularly portrayed as half human and half snake, and they are also said to have the ability to change into human form. Some nāgas are Dharma protectors, but they can also bring retribution if they are disturbed. They may likewise fight one another, wage war, and destroy the lands of others by causing lightning, hail, and flooding.
An action or concerted effort on the spiritual path that was performed by an individual during a past lifetime.
An epithet of the Buddha.
Literally, “buddha for oneself” or “solitary realizer.” Someone who, in his or her last life, attains awakening entirely through their own contemplation, without relying on a teacher. Unlike the awakening of a fully realized buddha (samyaksambuddha), the accomplishment of a pratyekabuddha is not regarded as final or ultimate. They attain realization of the nature of dependent origination, the selflessness of the person, and a partial realization of the selflessness of phenomena, by observing the suchness of all that arises through interdependence. This is the result of progress in previous lives but, unlike a buddha, they do not have the necessary merit, compassion or motivation to teach others. They are named as “rhinoceros-like” (khaḍgaviṣāṇakalpa) for their preference for staying in solitude or as “congregators” (vargacārin) when their preference is to stay among peers.
According to most lists (specifically those of the Pāli and some Abhidharma traditions), the (three) roots of virtue or the roots of the good or wholesome states (of mind) are what makes a mental state good or bad; they are identified as the opposites of the three mental “poisons” of greed, hatred, and delusion. Actions based on the roots of virtue will eventually lead to future happiness. The Dharmasaṃgraha, however, lists the three roots of virtue as (1) the mind of awakening, (2) purity of thought, and (3) freedom from egotism (Skt. trīṇi kuśalamūlāni | bodhicittotpādaḥ, āśayaviśuddhiḥ, ahaṃkāramamakāraparityāgaśceti|).
The name for our world system, the universe of a thousand million worlds, or trichiliocosm, in which the four-continent world is located. Each trichiliocosm is ruled by a god Brahmā; thus, in this context, he bears the title of Sahāṃpati, Lord of Sahā. The world system of Sahā, or Sahālokadhātu, is also described as the buddhafield of the Buddha Śākyamuni where he teaches the Dharma to beings.
The name Sahā possibly derives from the Sanskrit √sah, “to bear, endure, or withstand.” It is often interpreted as alluding to the inhabitants of this world being able to endure the suffering they encounter. The Tibetan translation, mi mjed, follows along the same lines. It literally means “not painful,” in the sense that beings here are able to bear the suffering they experience.
The flour of roasted grain and pulses, usually barley or chickpeas. It can be made into a porridge or a drink.
Lit. “brahma conduct.” A term that in some contexts refers specifically to chastity or complete celibacy. It can also be used to refer in general to a spiritual life as a devout person or a renunciant.
Brahman is a Sanskrit term referring to what is highest (parama) and most important (pradhāna); the Nibandhana commentary explains brahman as meaning here nirvāṇa, and thus the brahman conduct is the “conduct toward brahman,” the conduct that leads to the highest liberation, i.e., nirvāṇa. This is explained as “the path without outflows,” which is the “truth of the path” among the four truths of the noble ones. Other explanations (found in the Pāli tradition) take “brahman conduct” to mean the “best conduct,” and also the “conduct of the best,” i.e., the buddhas. In some contexts, “brahman conduct” refers more specifically to celibacy, but the specific referents of this expression are many.
During the life of the Buddha, Śrāvastī was the capital city of the powerful kingdom of Kośala, ruled by King Prasenajit, who became a follower and patron of the Buddha. It was also the hometown of Anāthapiṇḍada, the wealthy patron who first invited the Buddha there, and then offered him a park known as Jetavana, Prince Jeta’s Grove, which became one of the first Buddhist monasteries. The Buddha is said to have spent about twenty-five rainy seasons with his disciples in Śrāvastī, thus it is named as the setting of numerous events and teachings. It is located in present-day Uttar Pradesh in northern India.
A frequently used synonym for buddha. According to different explanations, it can be read as tathā-gata, literally meaning “one who has thus gone,” or as tathā-āgata, “one who has thus come.” Gata, though literally meaning “gone,” is a past passive participle used to describe a state or condition of existence. Tatha(tā), often rendered as “suchness” or “thusness,” is the quality or condition of things as they really are, which cannot be conveyed in conceptual, dualistic terms. Therefore, this epithet is interpreted in different ways, but in general it implies one who has departed in the wake of the buddhas of the past, or one who has manifested the supreme awakening dependent on the reality that does not abide in the two extremes of existence and quiescence. It is also often used as a specific epithet of the Buddha Śākyamuni.
Those of other religious or philosophical orders, contemporary with the early Buddhist order, including Jains, Jaṭilas, Ājīvikas, and Cārvākas. Tīrthika (“forder”) literally translates as “one belonging to or associated with (possessive suffix –ika) stairs for landing or for descent into a river,” or “a bathing place,” or “a place of pilgrimage on the banks of sacred streams” (Monier-Williams). The term may have originally referred to temple priests at river crossings or fords where travelers propitiated a deity before crossing. The Sanskrit term seems to have undergone metonymic transfer in referring to those able to ford the turbulent river of saṃsāra (as in the Jain tīrthaṅkaras, “ford makers”), and it came to be used in Buddhist sources to refer to teachers of rival religious traditions. The Sanskrit term is closely rendered by the Tibetan mu stegs pa: “those on the steps (stegs pa) at the edge (mu).”
In Indian astrology, the presence of Venus in the night sky is one of the indicators of future rains because it is considered to cancel out the influence of heavenly bodies that obstruct rainfall.
A non-Buddhist religious mendicant who literally “roams around.” Historically, they wandered in India from ancient times, including the time of the Buddha, and held a variety of beliefs, engaging with one another in debate on a range of topics. Some of their metaphysical views are presented in the early Buddhist discourses of the Pali Canon. They included women in their number.
One of the standard epithets of the buddhas. A recurrent explanation offers three different meanings for su- that are meant to show the special qualities of “accomplishment of one’s own purpose” (svārthasampad) for a complete buddha. Thus, the Sugata is “well” gone, as in the expression su-rūpa (“having a good form”); he is gone “in a way that he shall not come back,” as in the expression su-naṣṭa-jvara (“a fever that has utterly gone”); and he has gone “without any remainder” as in the expression su-pūrṇa-ghaṭa (“a pot that is completely full”). According to Buddhaghoṣa, the term means that the way the Buddha went (Skt. gata) is good (Skt. su) and where he went (Skt. gata) is good (Skt. su).
In general, a term for a fitting object of generosity who can be considered a field of merit (puṇyakṣetra). Typically refers to monks or ascetics.
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Y Yongle Kangyur
ŚBh I Shomonji Kenkyukai 1998
In The Past Endeavor of Kanakavarṇa the Buddha Śākyamuni illustrates the power of generosity by narrating a distant past life as a magnanimous king named Kanakavarṇa, who ruled over the entire continent of Jambudvīpa. While faced with a devastating famine, this bodhisattva king decided to offer the last bit of food left in Jambudvīpa—which had been kept especially for him—to a pratyekabuddha who had come to his palace begging for alms. As a result of King Kanakavarṇa’s selfless gift, the whole continent was miraculously showered with all possible foods and goods, and the people of Jambudvīpa were saved. In addition to this immediate fruit of the king’s meritorious deed, a further fruit of the king’s good deed is implied when the Buddha discloses King Kanakavarṇa’s identity at the end of the story. The king’s generosity would reach full karmic fruition in his perfect awakening in a future life as the Buddha Śākyamuni.
This text was translated by the Bodhinidhi Translation Group. The Tibetan text was translated into English and compared with the Sanskrit and Chinese versions by Thomas Cruijsen. Khenpo Chowang checked the translation against the Tibetan. The translator would like to thank the staff of the Namgyal Institute of Tibetology, Gangtok, for generously providing access to their library facilities during the translation work.
The translation was completed under the patronage and supervision of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha. George FitzHerbert edited the translation and the introduction, and Dawn Collins copyedited the text. Martina Cotter was in charge of the digital publication process.
As a discourse in which the Buddha narrates one of his past lives, The Past Endeavor of Kanakavarṇa can be placed in the same class of teachings as jātakas, “birth stories,” and avadānas, “exemplary tales.” In this type of teaching, the Buddha explains his present awakened state or the present conditions of others, whether fortunate or unfortunate, by narrating the past-life actions that led to these conditions, thus showing the workings of karma and the inevitable results of meritorious or unmeritorious deeds. Usually, texts of this kind begin with an extensive narrative section that is set in the present. This describes the situation or the individual’s circumstance that the text will then explain by means of a past-life story. However, this is not the case for The Past Endeavor of Kanakavarṇa, which, as will be seen, consists almost entirely of a past-life story of the Buddha, narrated without preamble. Therefore, it was classified as a pūrvayoga, an account of a “past endeavor,” at least according to the title as given in the Tibetan translation. There are no other standalone texts designated as pūrvayoga in the Kangyur, but the genre is represented in individual chapters of Mahāyāna sūtras such as the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Sūtra and the Samādhirāja Sūtra.
The setting of this particular discourse is Jetavana, the grove outside Śrāvastī that had been gifted to the Buddha and the monastic saṅgha by a wealthy lay devotee called Anāthapiṇḍada. There, in the presence of an assembly of 1,250 monks, the Buddha begins his teaching by making a twofold statement on the virtue of generosity. First, he states that if beings were to know what he knows of the karmic results of generosity, they would always share whatever they have, even if, as it is tellingly put, it is their last bit of food. However, as the Buddha then points out, beings are often ignorant of the merit that comes from an act of generosity and tend to be guided by selfishness. This twofold proclamation by the Buddha is also found as a separate discourse, preserved in Pali as the Dānasaṃvibhāga Sutta and in Sanskrit as the Dāna Sūtra. In the present text, the Buddha further illustrates these statements with a story of one of his past lives, thus demonstrating his first-hand knowledge of the immense power of generosity.
The story is that of a king named Kanakavarṇa, who, we are told, lived in a remote past when people still had life spans of eighty-four thousand years. This king is described as possessing all possible worldly attainments: he had a “golden-colored” (the literal meaning of his name) bodily complexion, abundant riches, and a vast and thriving empire stretching across the whole of Jambudvīpa. More impressive, however, was his righteous and generous nature. The Buddha states that he governed his people unselfishly, engaging in all possible forms of charity. The king’s generosity was such that one day—and it was from this that the events narrated begin to unfold—he decided to abolish all taxes and levies for the people of Jambudvīpa.
However, King Kanakavarṇa did not foresee that, after many years of prosperity and just governance for his people, the astrological conditions would become unfavorable. When the brahmins at the court noticed this adverse shift in the constellations and celestial bodies, they informed the king that there would be no rain for the next twelve years. Aware of the impending disaster this portended for his people, especially for the poor who were without the means to survive a drought of such length, the king immediately went into action. He issued the order that all available foodstuffs were to be collected and placed in a single storehouse, and from there they were to be distributed equally among the people of Jambudvīpa. For eleven years, this strategy was successful and famine was averted, but then in the twelfth year the food started to run out and people began to die of starvation. The situation became ever more dire in the course of the following eleven months, to the point that there was only a single portion of food left in the storehouse, which had been reserved for King Kanakavarṇa himself.
The narrative here shifts to the key protagonist in the momentous event that is about to take place. The Buddha describes how in that particular period there was a bodhisattva—left unnamed—who had been on the bodhisattva path for forty eons, but who, after witnessing a particularly heinous act, had abandoned his aim of reaching perfect buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings. Applying himself instead to his own liberation from saṃsāra, this person, within a short span of time, had gained complete insight into the impermanent nature of phenomena and thereby attained the awakening of a pratyekabuddha, a “solitary awakened one.” In Buddhist traditions, a pratyekabuddha is someone who has attained complete liberation from saṃsāra without the guidance of a teacher. However, such liberation is distinguished from that of a perfectly awakened buddha like the Buddha Śākyamuni, since they are not able to verbally teach the path to liberation to others. This typology of buddhas who reach individual awakening arose early on in Buddhist tradition and was particularly associated with an early text known as the Rhinoceros Sūtra (Pali: Khaggavisāṇa Sutta) in which the practitioner is exhorted to “move alone like a rhinoceros.” At some point during the early period, the individual verses that make up the Rhinoceros Sūtra came to be credited as the utterances of pratyekabuddhas of past times. The verse proclaimed by the pratyekabuddha upon his awakening in The Past Endeavor of Kanakavarṇa (at folio 53.a) is an example of such a verse, which has direct parallels with the second verse of both the Pali Rhinoceros Sūtra as well as the recently discovered Gāndhārī Sanskrit version. In this extant Sanskrit of the story of King Kanakavarṇa, the verse reads as follows:
In the Pali version of The Rhinoceros Sutta it reads:
And in the Gāndhārī version of The Rhinoceros Sūtra, it reads:
The background story to this verse, however, as transmitted in the later Pali commentary to The Rhinoceros Sutta, is entirely different and unrelated to the story of the pratyekabuddha in The Past Endeavor of Kanakavarṇa. It appears, therefore, that over the centuries these verses from The Rhinoceros Sutta became associated with different background stories connected to pratyekabuddhas.
While the verses in The Rhinoceros Sutta urge a solitary way of life in view of the dangers of being in close company with others, they also emphasize the need to cultivate loving-kindness and compassion. This quality is also given expression in the freshly awakened pratyekabuddha in The Past Endeavor of Kanakavarṇa. The Buddha describes how, after attaining “individual awakening,” the pratyekabuddha compassionately thought of benefitting other beings by receiving alms from them, thereby giving them the opportunity to gather merit. Being the only awakened being in the world at that time, albeit lower in rank to a perfectly awakened buddha, the pratyekabuddha would have been the most “worthy of offerings” and the most fruitful “field of merit,” as it is traditionally put, in terms of yielding karmic benefit. As the pratyekabuddha scanned the whole world through his newly acquired supernormal abilities, he discovered that there was only one portion of food left—the one reserved for the king. Therefore, he decided to extend his compassion to King Kanakavarṇa by seeking alms from him.
It is this alms round and its miraculous outcome that forms the centerpiece of the story. This crucial moment—when the pratyekabuddha becomes the recipient of King Kanakavarṇa’s ultimate act of generosity—brings to the fore the prime qualities of the two central actors: the bodhisattva king who accompanies his act of self-sacrifice with the deep wish that it bring an end to the destitution and suffering of his people, and the solitary buddha who teaches the Dharma “bodily, not verbally,” as he silently leaves in the same miraculous way as he had come, after having provided the king with the opportunity to generate immense merit. The “root of virtue” that King Kanakavarṇa has planted through this relinquishment of self-interest is such that, right after the pratyekabuddha has received his meal and departed, it immediately ripens into the fulfillment of the king’s wish, as narrated in the wondrous culmination of the story. Moreover, and more importantly still, when the Buddha reveals at the end of the story that he himself was King Kanakavarṇa at that time, it is implied that the merit of this “past endeavor” occasioned by the compassionate pratyekabuddha would eventually come to full ripening in the attainment of perfect and full awakening by the Buddha Śākyamuni in his present lifetime. Having thus illustrated the karmic potency of such an act of generosity, the Buddha concludes by repeating the twofold statement on the virtue of generosity that he had pronounced at the beginning of the discourse, followed by a verse on the imperishability of good karma.
This story about King Kanakavarṇa’s feat has been preserved in several different versions and retellings. The earliest of these is found in a collection of the Buddha’s past life stories that was translated into Chinese in the fourth or early fifth century
The first version in which all the elements found in The Past Endeavor of Kanakavarṇa appear is a Chinese translation made at least over a century later, in the middle of the sixth century
The Tibetan translation that has been preserved in the Kangyur mostly agrees with this Chinese version, to the extent that one can assume the underlying Sanskrit text must have been very similar. We do not know when exactly the Tibetan translation was made, since the Kangyur text lacks the usual colophon that records the names of the translators and editors involved in the translation. However, the Tibetan title of the text, gser mdog gi sngon gyi sbyor ba, is listed in both the Denkarma and Phangthangma inventories of Tibetan imperial translations, which means that the unattributed Tibetan translation of The Past Endeavor of Kanakavarṇa must have been made at some point in the eighth or early ninth century
The Sanskrit text that has come down to us is part of the Divyāvadāna, a collection of thirty-eight avadānas that has proved to be popular in the Kathmandu Valley over the centuries. Under the title Kanakavarṇāvadāna, this Sanskrit version is practically the same as the Tibetan and the sixth-century Chinese version, leaving aside a number of additions and omissions that are the result of centuries of scribal transmission. There are a few places, however, in which the Sanskrit and the Chinese are more closely aligned with each other than with the Tibetan, as with the extra last verse included at the end. This suggests that the extant Sanskrit version found in the Divyāvadāna represents a somewhat different line of textual transmission than the Tibetan translation and its underlying Sanskrit text.
Apart from these three closely related versions preserved in Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese, King Kanakavarṇa’s story is also found in the Avadānakalpalatā, an anthology of avadānas composed in succinct and poetic Sanskrit verse by the Kashmiri poet Kṣemendra in the middle of the eleventh century. In this concise form, the story also gained popularity in Tibet when the Avadānakalpalatā was translated into Tibetan in the thirteenth century and became the subject of a rich tradition of woodcut depictions and thangka paintings. Another later retelling of the story, also in versified Sanskrit, occurs in the Ratnamālāvadāna (alternatively titled Ratnāvadānamālā), one of several collections of versified avadānas that were composed and compiled in the Kathmandu Valley from the fourteenth century onwards, for which the Divyāvadāna served as one of the main sources.
The English translation of The Past Endeavor of Kanakavarṇa offered here is based primarily on the Tibetan translation contained in the Kangyur. In this, the text in the Degé Kangyur has been taken as the base text, but we have also consulted the Stok Palace Kangyur and the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma) for variant readings. In several cases, this has provided readings that are evidently in better alignment with the Sanskrit text, as recorded in the endnotes. Despite these improved readings, there are several places in the Tibetan text where the textual transmission has proved to be faulty due to omissions or erroneous additions. In those instances, we have taken recourse to the extant Sanskrit text, in consultation with the Chinese translation. However, we have been careful not to uncritically adopt all readings found in the extant Sanskrit, since, as stated above, it appears to belong to a different lineage of textual recension than the Tibetan translation and its underlying Sanskrit text. There are, moreover, several places where the extant Sanskrit has problematic readings that need to be emended in light of the Tibetan translation. We have recorded all such discrepancies between the Sanskrit and the Tibetan in the endnotes, in which we have also included the most significant divergences found in the Chinese translation.
In closing, we would like to refer the reader to two very similar past life stories of the Buddha, both of which are likewise narrated to illustrate the twofold statement on generosity as found in the Dāna Sūtra, from which they also very graphically draw upon the words apaścimakaḥ kavaḍaḥ, “last mouthful.” First, there is the Kavaḍāvadāna in the Avadānaśataka (Toh 343), in which the Buddha recounts his past life as King Brahmadatta in Vārāṇasī, a righteous and compassionate ruler whose generosity was such that during a devastating famine he was able to give up his own daily ration of food, his two “mouthfuls,” to a brahmin left out in the count and to Indra who, disguised as a brahmin, requested the second portion. The other related story is found in the Karmaśataka (Toh 340), in which the narration is about a bodhisattva king named Candraprabha, who also reigned from the city of Vārāṇasī, and who, faced with a severe drought and famine that would last for twelve years, is tested by Indra, again disguised as a brahmin, in giving away both his “mouthfuls” of food—all of which the bodhisattva happily does in his complete dedication to attaining perfect and full awakening for the benefit of all.
Homage to all buddhas and bodhisattvas.
Thus did I hear at one time. The Blessed One was dwelling at Jetavana, Anāthapiṇḍada’s Park, together with a large monastic community of 1,250 monks.
The Blessed One was respected, honored, revered, and venerated by monks, nuns, devoted laymen, devoted laywomen, kings, ministers, the various tīrthikas, ascetics, brahmins, practitioners, and wanderers, as well as by gods, nāgas, yakṣas, gandharvas, asuras, garuḍas, kinnaras, and mahoragas. The Blessed One received abundant and exquisite requisites—robes, alms, bedding and seating, and medicine in case of illness—both divine and human. Yet, the Blessed One remained untainted by them, like a lotus untainted by water. The Blessed One’s renown, fame, and acclaim, was vast, excellent, and exalted. In this way, the Blessed One, the tathāgata, arhat, perfectly awakened one, accomplished in knowledge and conduct, the well gone one, the knower of the world, the unsurpassed guide for people to be tamed, the teacher of gods and humans, the Buddha, the Blessed One, having directly understood and clearly perceived this world with its gods, māras, brahmās, ascetics, brahmins, gods, and humans, was teaching the Dharma that is excellent in the beginning, excellent in the middle, and excellent in the end, fine in meaning and fine in expression, and was expounding the entire and complete spiritual life that is completely pure and completely clean.
Then the Blessed One addressed the monks, “Monks, if beings were to know the fruit of giving and the karmic fruition of sharing gifts as I know the fruit of giving and the karmic fruition of sharing gifts, they would not eat even their last mouthful, their last morsel, themselves without giving, without sharing it with others, and the arisen defilement of selfishness would not remain in possession of their minds. But, monks, because beings do not know the fruit of giving and the karmic fruition of sharing gifts as I know the fruit of giving and the karmic fruition of sharing gifts, they eat even their last mouthful, their last morsel, themselves without giving, without sharing it with others, and the arisen defilement of selfishness remains in possession of their minds. Why is this?
“Previously, monks, in a past time, there was a king named Kanakavarṇa, who was handsome, beautiful, and pleasing to behold, being endowed with a sublime golden complexion. That king Kanakavarṇa was rich, wealthy, and prosperous, having abundant possessions; abundant wealth and means; abundant riches, grains, gems, pearls, crystal, coral, gold, and silver; abundant elephants, horses, cows, and stud horses; and treasuries and storehouses that were completely filled.
“King Kanakavarṇa had a royal capital called Kanakāvatī that was twelve yojanas in length from east to west and seven yojanas wide from south to north. It was prosperous, thriving, happy, well provisioned, pleasant, and bustling with many people. King Kanakavarṇa had eighty thousand such cities that were prosperous, thriving, happy, well provisioned, pleasant, and bustling with many people; five hundred and seventy million villages that were prosperous, thriving, happy, well provisioned, pleasant, and bustling with many people; and sixty thousand market towns that were prosperous, thriving, happy, well provisioned, pleasant, and bustling with many people. And, King Kanakavarṇa had eighteen thousand courtiers and a retinue of twenty thousand attendant women.
“Monks, King Kanakavarṇa was righteous and he ruled his kingdom according to the Dharma as a Dharma king. He engaged in all acts of generosity and there was nothing that he had not given away, including the flesh of his own body. During those times people would attain a lifespan of eighty-four thousand years.
“Now, at one time, when King Kanakavarṇa was alone, having withdrawn in private, a deliberation arose in his mind: ‘Let me free all merchants from customs duties and transit fees. Let me free all the people of Jambudvīpa from taxes and fees.’
“King Kanakavarṇa thereupon summoned his accountants, ministers, courtiers, gatekeepers, and councilors, and announced to them, ‘As of today, sirs, all merchants should be freed from customs duties and transit fees. All the people of Jambudvīpa should be freed from taxes and fees.’
“While ruling his kingdom by these means for many years, at a certain time, the constellations became adverse such that it would not rain for twelve years. The brahmins who could understand the indications read the signs and did divinations. Having observed this in the movements of the constellations and the planet Venus, they went to King Kanakavarṇa and said, ‘Your Majesty, please know that the constellations have become adverse such that it will not rain for twelve years.’
“Upon hearing this news, King Kanakavarṇa broke down in tears, ‘Oh, my people of Jambudvīpa! Oh, my people of Jambudvīpa! Oh, my Jambudvīpa that is prosperous, thriving, happy, well provisioned, pleasant, and bustling with many people—before long you will be empty and bereft of people!’
“After weeping sorrowfully for a moment, King Kanakavarṇa thought, ‘Those who are rich, wealthy, and prosperous will be able to support themselves, but those who are poor, with little wealth, and with little to eat and drink—how will they survive? Let me collect all the foodstuffs in Jambudvīpa, build a storehouse for all the villages, cities, and market towns, as well as for the royal capital, and distribute an equal share to all the people of Jambudvīpa.’
“King Kanakavarṇa then summoned his accountants, ministers, courtiers, gatekeepers, and councilors, and ordered, ‘Sirs, go and collect all the foodstuffs in Jambudvīpa, count them and measure them out, and place them in a storehouse for all the villages, cities, and market towns, as well as for the royal capital.’
“The accountants, ministers, courtiers, gatekeepers, and councilors did as King Kanakavarṇa had ordered, and when they had stored the foodstuffs in the storehouse, they went to King Kanakavarṇa and said, ‘Your Majesty, please know that the foodstuffs from all the villages, cities, and market towns, as well as from the royal capital, have all been collected, counted, measured out, and stored in a storehouse for all the villages, cities, and market towns, as well as for the royal capital. What does Your Majesty deem fit now?’
“King Kanakavarṇa then summoned his counters, accountants, and scribes and ordered, ‘Sirs, go and count all the people of Jambudvīpa. Having properly counted everyone starting with myself, properly distribute an equal share of food to all the people of Jambudvīpa.’
“The counters, accountants, and scribes obeyed and they properly counted all the people of Jambudvīpa. When they had properly counted everyone, starting with King Kanakavarṇa, they assigned an equal share of food to all the people of Jambudvīpa.
“For eleven years everyone survived, but during the first month of the twelfth year, many men, women, and children began to die from hunger and thirst. As the second, third, fourth, and fifth months passed, many more men, women, and children died. This went on until the eleventh month, when all the food in Jambudvīpa had been exhausted, apart from a single measure of food left for King Kanakavarṇa.
“Now, at that time, there was a bodhisattva who had been embarked upon the path for forty eons and who had reached this Sahā world. That bodhisattva saw, somewhere in a forest, a son having sexual intercourse with his mother. Seeing this, he thought, ‘Oh, how defiled, how defiled these beings are! It was in her womb that he stayed for nine months and it was from her breasts that he drank—and now he does this here! I’ve had enough of such beings who are driven by craven desires not in keeping with the Dharma, who have wrong views, who are overcome by unbearable lust, who do not honor their fathers, their mothers, monks, or brahmins, and who do not respect the elders of their family. Who would bother to practice the conduct of a bodhisattva for the sake of such beings? Surely I should practice for my own sake alone.’
“Then the bodhisattva went to a tree and sat down at its base. Having crossed his legs and made his body upright, he established mindfulness to the fore. He then dwelled on observing the arising and passing away of the five aggregates that are subject to clinging: ‘This is form, this is the arising of form, this is the vanishing of form; this is feeling; this is perception; these are conditionings; this is consciousness, this is the arising of consciousness, this is the vanishing of consciousness.’ As he remained like this, observing the arising and passing away of the five aggregates that are subject to clinging, before long, he realized that whatever is of the nature to arise is all of the nature to cease, and right there he reached individual awakening.
“Thereupon, after beholding the dharmas attained according to their conditions, on that occasion the blessed pratyekabuddha spoke this verse:
“Then the blessed pratyekabuddha thought, ‘I have performed many difficult deeds for the sake of sentient beings, but no one has yet been benefitted. To whom should I now extend my compassion? Whose alms should I now receive and eat?’
“The blessed pratyekabuddha surveyed the whole of Jambudvīpa with his superhuman divine vision, and he saw that all the food in Jambudvīpa had been exhausted apart from a single measure of food left for King Kanakavarṇa. He then thought, ‘Let me extend my compassion to King Kanakavarṇa. Let me receive and eat the single measure of food that is left for King Kanakavarṇa.’
“Then the blessed pratyekabuddha, by such miraculous ability of his, rose up into the sky, and, like a bird in bodily appearance, through his miraculous ability, proceeded to the royal capital Kanakāvatī.
“At that time King Kanakavarṇa was on the palace terrace, accompanied by five thousand courtiers. One minister saw the blessed pratyekabuddha coming from a distance. Seeing this, he called the other ministers, ‘Look, sirs, look! From the distance, a red-winged bird is coming toward us here!’
“Another minister said, ‘Sirs, this is not a red-winged bird—it’s a life-robbing demon that is coming here! It is now going to devour us!’
“Then King Kanakavarṇa rubbed his face with both hands and said to the ministers, ‘Sirs, this is not a red-winged bird, nor is it a life-robbing demon—it’s a sage who is coming out of compassion for us!’
“Thereupon that blessed pratyekabuddha alighted on top of King Kanakavarṇa’s palace. Rising from his seat, King Kanakavarṇa welcomed the blessed pratyekabuddha, bowed his head at the feet of the blessed pratyekabuddha, and invited him to sit on a seat that had been prepared. King Kanakavarṇa then asked the blessed pratyekabuddha, ‘Sage, for what purpose have you come here?’
“‘For the purpose of food, great king,’ the sage replied.
“Upon this, King Kanakavarṇa was very distraught, and weeping, he cried, ‘Oh, how poor I am! Even though I have dominion over Jambudvīpa, I am not able to provide alms to even a single sage!’
“Then the deity of the royal capital Kanakāvatī uttered this verse to King Kanakavarṇa:
“King Kanakavarṇa then summoned the person in charge of the storehouse and asked, ‘Sir, is there any food in the house that I could offer to this sage?’
“‘Your Majesty,’ he replied, ‘Please know that all the food in Jambudvīpa has been exhausted apart from a single measure of food that remains for Your Majesty.’
“King Kanakavarṇa thought, ‘If I eat it, I will live. If I do not eat it, I will die.’ But then he thought, ‘Even if I eat it, I will certainly come to die—enough of this life of mine! How could such a virtuous and excellent sage leave my house today with an alms bowl as pristine as before he entered?’
“King Kanakavarṇa then gathered his accountants, ministers, courtiers, gatekeepers, and councilors, and said, ‘Please rejoice, sirs! This is King Kanakavarṇa’s final act of charity. By this root of virtue, may there be a complete end to poverty for all the people of Jambudvīpa.’
“Thereupon King Kanakavarṇa put all there was of the measure of food into the bowl of that blessed pratyekabuddha and gave the bowl into the blessed pratyekabuddha’s right hand.
“Now, it is in the nature of things that blessed pratyekabuddhas teach the Dharma bodily, not verbally. So the blessed pratyekabuddha received the alms from King Kanakavarṇa and, in this way by miraculous ability, departed into the sky. With folded hands, King Kanakavarṇa stood looking on, without blinking, until he had passed from sight.
“Then King Kanakavarṇa summoned his accountants, ministers, courtiers, gatekeepers, and councilors, and said, ‘Sirs, go to your respective homes. Please do not end your time by dying from hunger and thirst here at the palace.’
“They replied, ‘When Your Majesty possessed wealth and good fortune, we amused and enjoyed ourselves together with Your Majesty. How could we now abandon Your Majesty at the end, at this final hour?’
“Then, King Kanakavarṇa broke down in tears and wept. Wiping away his tears, he again said to his accountants, ministers, courtiers, gatekeepers, and councilors, ‘Sirs, go to your respective homes. All of you, please do not end your time by dying from hunger and thirst here at the palace.’
“At this, the accountants, ministers, courtiers, gatekeepers, and councilors also broke down in tears and wept. Wiping away their tears, they approached King Kanakavarṇa, bowed their heads at his feet, and with folded hands said to King Kanakavarṇa, ‘Today is our last sight of Your Majesty. Please forgive us for anything we have done contrary to Your Majesty’s instruction.’
“But just as that blessed pratyekabuddha finished eating the alms, at that very moment, four masses of clouds emerged from all four directions, and cool winds began to blow that swept Jambudvīpa clean. And then, during the second half of that day, it rained various kinds of foods and edible things. There were foods such as boiled rice, sattu, khichri, meat, and fish. There were edible things such as edible roots, stalks, leaves, flowers, fruits, sesame, sesame oil, jaggery, and cane sugar. And there were many other kinds of foods, edible things, and delicacies that rained down.
“King Kanakavarṇa was thrilled, exalted, and elated, and as he rejoiced, full of rapture and gladness, he said to his accountants, ministers, courtiers, gatekeepers, and councilors, ‘Look, sirs! Right now the sprout of giving that single portion of alms has appeared! Fruits, leaves, and flowers will come later!’
“On the second day, a week-long rain of goods and grains began. For seven days it rained sesame, rice, mung beans, black gram, barley, wheat, lentils, white rice, and all types of grains. For seven days it rained ghee. For seven days it rained sesame oil. For seven days it rained cotton cloth. For seven days it rained various kinds of materials. And for seven days it rained the seven precious substances, namely, gold, silver, crystal, beryl, ruby, emerald, and sapphire.
“So, by the power of King Kanakavarṇa, there was a complete end to poverty for all the people of Jambudvīpa.
“Monks, you might be uncertain or in doubt, thinking that it was someone else who was King Kanakavarṇa at that time, at that moment. But, monks, it should not be seen in this way. I was that king named Kanakavarṇa at that time, at that moment.
“Monks, through this teaching, this should be understood: One should know the fruit of giving and the karmic fruition of sharing gifts as I know the fruit of giving and the karmic fruition of sharing gifts. One should not eat the last mouthful, the last morsel, oneself—without giving it or sharing it with others—and the arisen defilement of selfishness will not remain in possession of one’s mind. But because beings do not know the fruit of giving and the karmic fruition of sharing gifts as I know the fruit of giving and the karmic fruition of sharing gifts, they eat even their last mouthful, their last morsel, themselves—without giving, without sharing it with others—and the arisen defilement of selfishness remains in possession of their minds.
This is what the Blessed One said. Elated, the bodhisattvas, monks, and the world with its gods, humans, asuras, and gandharvas rejoiced at what the Blessed One had said.
This concludes “The Past Endeavor of Kanakavarṇa.”
In The Past Endeavor of Kanakavarṇa the Buddha Śākyamuni illustrates the power of generosity by narrating a distant past life as a magnanimous king named Kanakavarṇa, who ruled over the entire continent of Jambudvīpa. While faced with a devastating famine, this bodhisattva king decided to offer the last bit of food left in Jambudvīpa—which had been kept especially for him—to a pratyekabuddha who had come to his palace begging for alms. As a result of King Kanakavarṇa’s selfless gift, the whole continent was miraculously showered with all possible foods and goods, and the people of Jambudvīpa were saved. In addition to this immediate fruit of the king’s meritorious deed, a further fruit of the king’s good deed is implied when the Buddha discloses King Kanakavarṇa’s identity at the end of the story. The king’s generosity would reach full karmic fruition in his perfect awakening in a future life as the Buddha Śākyamuni.
This text was translated by the Bodhinidhi Translation Group. The Tibetan text was translated into English and compared with the Sanskrit and Chinese versions by Thomas Cruijsen. Khenpo Chowang checked the translation against the Tibetan. The translator would like to thank the staff of the Namgyal Institute of Tibetology, Gangtok, for generously providing access to their library facilities during the translation work.
The translation was completed under the patronage and supervision of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha. George FitzHerbert edited the translation and the introduction, and Dawn Collins copyedited the text. Martina Cotter was in charge of the digital publication process.
As a discourse in which the Buddha narrates one of his past lives, The Past Endeavor of Kanakavarṇa can be placed in the same class of teachings as jātakas, “birth stories,” and avadānas, “exemplary tales.” In this type of teaching, the Buddha explains his present awakened state or the present conditions of others, whether fortunate or unfortunate, by narrating the past-life actions that led to these conditions, thus showing the workings of karma and the inevitable results of meritorious or unmeritorious deeds. Usually, texts of this kind begin with an extensive narrative section that is set in the present. This describes the situation or the individual’s circumstance that the text will then explain by means of a past-life story. However, this is not the case for The Past Endeavor of Kanakavarṇa, which, as will be seen, consists almost entirely of a past-life story of the Buddha, narrated without preamble. Therefore, it was classified as a pūrvayoga, an account of a “past endeavor,” at least according to the title as given in the Tibetan translation. There are no other standalone texts designated as pūrvayoga in the Kangyur, but the genre is represented in individual chapters of Mahāyāna sūtras such as the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Sūtra and the Samādhirāja Sūtra.
The setting of this particular discourse is Jetavana, the grove outside Śrāvastī that had been gifted to the Buddha and the monastic saṅgha by a wealthy lay devotee called Anāthapiṇḍada. There, in the presence of an assembly of 1,250 monks, the Buddha begins his teaching by making a twofold statement on the virtue of generosity. First, he states that if beings were to know what he knows of the karmic results of generosity, they would always share whatever they have, even if, as it is tellingly put, it is their last bit of food. However, as the Buddha then points out, beings are often ignorant of the merit that comes from an act of generosity and tend to be guided by selfishness. This twofold proclamation by the Buddha is also found as a separate discourse, preserved in Pali as the Dānasaṃvibhāga Sutta and in Sanskrit as the Dāna Sūtra. In the present text, the Buddha further illustrates these statements with a story of one of his past lives, thus demonstrating his first-hand knowledge of the immense power of generosity.
The story is that of a king named Kanakavarṇa, who, we are told, lived in a remote past when people still had life spans of eighty-four thousand years. This king is described as possessing all possible worldly attainments: he had a “golden-colored” (the literal meaning of his name) bodily complexion, abundant riches, and a vast and thriving empire stretching across the whole of Jambudvīpa. More impressive, however, was his righteous and generous nature. The Buddha states that he governed his people unselfishly, engaging in all possible forms of charity. The king’s generosity was such that one day—and it was from this that the events narrated begin to unfold—he decided to abolish all taxes and levies for the people of Jambudvīpa.
However, King Kanakavarṇa did not foresee that, after many years of prosperity and just governance for his people, the astrological conditions would become unfavorable. When the brahmins at the court noticed this adverse shift in the constellations and celestial bodies, they informed the king that there would be no rain for the next twelve years. Aware of the impending disaster this portended for his people, especially for the poor who were without the means to survive a drought of such length, the king immediately went into action. He issued the order that all available foodstuffs were to be collected and placed in a single storehouse, and from there they were to be distributed equally among the people of Jambudvīpa. For eleven years, this strategy was successful and famine was averted, but then in the twelfth year the food started to run out and people began to die of starvation. The situation became ever more dire in the course of the following eleven months, to the point that there was only a single portion of food left in the storehouse, which had been reserved for King Kanakavarṇa himself.
The narrative here shifts to the key protagonist in the momentous event that is about to take place. The Buddha describes how in that particular period there was a bodhisattva—left unnamed—who had been on the bodhisattva path for forty eons, but who, after witnessing a particularly heinous act, had abandoned his aim of reaching perfect buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings. Applying himself instead to his own liberation from saṃsāra, this person, within a short span of time, had gained complete insight into the impermanent nature of phenomena and thereby attained the awakening of a pratyekabuddha, a “solitary awakened one.” In Buddhist traditions, a pratyekabuddha is someone who has attained complete liberation from saṃsāra without the guidance of a teacher. However, such liberation is distinguished from that of a perfectly awakened buddha like the Buddha Śākyamuni, since they are not able to verbally teach the path to liberation to others. This typology of buddhas who reach individual awakening arose early on in Buddhist tradition and was particularly associated with an early text known as the Rhinoceros Sūtra (Pali: Khaggavisāṇa Sutta) in which the practitioner is exhorted to “move alone like a rhinoceros.” At some point during the early period, the individual verses that make up the Rhinoceros Sūtra came to be credited as the utterances of pratyekabuddhas of past times. The verse proclaimed by the pratyekabuddha upon his awakening in The Past Endeavor of Kanakavarṇa (at folio 53.a) is an example of such a verse, which has direct parallels with the second verse of both the Pali Rhinoceros Sūtra as well as the recently discovered Gāndhārī Sanskrit version. In this extant Sanskrit of the story of King Kanakavarṇa, the verse reads as follows:
In the Pali version of The Rhinoceros Sutta it reads:
And in the Gāndhārī version of The Rhinoceros Sūtra, it reads:
The background story to this verse, however, as transmitted in the later Pali commentary to The Rhinoceros Sutta, is entirely different and unrelated to the story of the pratyekabuddha in The Past Endeavor of Kanakavarṇa. It appears, therefore, that over the centuries these verses from The Rhinoceros Sutta became associated with different background stories connected to pratyekabuddhas.
While the verses in The Rhinoceros Sutta urge a solitary way of life in view of the dangers of being in close company with others, they also emphasize the need to cultivate loving-kindness and compassion. This quality is also given expression in the freshly awakened pratyekabuddha in The Past Endeavor of Kanakavarṇa. The Buddha describes how, after attaining “individual awakening,” the pratyekabuddha compassionately thought of benefitting other beings by receiving alms from them, thereby giving them the opportunity to gather merit. Being the only awakened being in the world at that time, albeit lower in rank to a perfectly awakened buddha, the pratyekabuddha would have been the most “worthy of offerings” and the most fruitful “field of merit,” as it is traditionally put, in terms of yielding karmic benefit. As the pratyekabuddha scanned the whole world through his newly acquired supernormal abilities, he discovered that there was only one portion of food left—the one reserved for the king. Therefore, he decided to extend his compassion to King Kanakavarṇa by seeking alms from him.
It is this alms round and its miraculous outcome that forms the centerpiece of the story. This crucial moment—when the pratyekabuddha becomes the recipient of King Kanakavarṇa’s ultimate act of generosity—brings to the fore the prime qualities of the two central actors: the bodhisattva king who accompanies his act of self-sacrifice with the deep wish that it bring an end to the destitution and suffering of his people, and the solitary buddha who teaches the Dharma “bodily, not verbally,” as he silently leaves in the same miraculous way as he had come, after having provided the king with the opportunity to generate immense merit. The “root of virtue” that King Kanakavarṇa has planted through this relinquishment of self-interest is such that, right after the pratyekabuddha has received his meal and departed, it immediately ripens into the fulfillment of the king’s wish, as narrated in the wondrous culmination of the story. Moreover, and more importantly still, when the Buddha reveals at the end of the story that he himself was King Kanakavarṇa at that time, it is implied that the merit of this “past endeavor” occasioned by the compassionate pratyekabuddha would eventually come to full ripening in the attainment of perfect and full awakening by the Buddha Śākyamuni in his present lifetime. Having thus illustrated the karmic potency of such an act of generosity, the Buddha concludes by repeating the twofold statement on the virtue of generosity that he had pronounced at the beginning of the discourse, followed by a verse on the imperishability of good karma.
This story about King Kanakavarṇa’s feat has been preserved in several different versions and retellings. The earliest of these is found in a collection of the Buddha’s past life stories that was translated into Chinese in the fourth or early fifth century
The first version in which all the elements found in The Past Endeavor of Kanakavarṇa appear is a Chinese translation made at least over a century later, in the middle of the sixth century
The Tibetan translation that has been preserved in the Kangyur mostly agrees with this Chinese version, to the extent that one can assume the underlying Sanskrit text must have been very similar. We do not know when exactly the Tibetan translation was made, since the Kangyur text lacks the usual colophon that records the names of the translators and editors involved in the translation. However, the Tibetan title of the text, gser mdog gi sngon gyi sbyor ba, is listed in both the Denkarma and Phangthangma inventories of Tibetan imperial translations, which means that the unattributed Tibetan translation of The Past Endeavor of Kanakavarṇa must have been made at some point in the eighth or early ninth century
The Sanskrit text that has come down to us is part of the Divyāvadāna, a collection of thirty-eight avadānas that has proved to be popular in the Kathmandu Valley over the centuries. Under the title Kanakavarṇāvadāna, this Sanskrit version is practically the same as the Tibetan and the sixth-century Chinese version, leaving aside a number of additions and omissions that are the result of centuries of scribal transmission. There are a few places, however, in which the Sanskrit and the Chinese are more closely aligned with each other than with the Tibetan, as with the extra last verse included at the end. This suggests that the extant Sanskrit version found in the Divyāvadāna represents a somewhat different line of textual transmission than the Tibetan translation and its underlying Sanskrit text.
Apart from these three closely related versions preserved in Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese, King Kanakavarṇa’s story is also found in the Avadānakalpalatā, an anthology of avadānas composed in succinct and poetic Sanskrit verse by the Kashmiri poet Kṣemendra in the middle of the eleventh century. In this concise form, the story also gained popularity in Tibet when the Avadānakalpalatā was translated into Tibetan in the thirteenth century and became the subject of a rich tradition of woodcut depictions and thangka paintings. Another later retelling of the story, also in versified Sanskrit, occurs in the Ratnamālāvadāna (alternatively titled Ratnāvadānamālā), one of several collections of versified avadānas that were composed and compiled in the Kathmandu Valley from the fourteenth century onwards, for which the Divyāvadāna served as one of the main sources.
The English translation of The Past Endeavor of Kanakavarṇa offered here is based primarily on the Tibetan translation contained in the Kangyur. In this, the text in the Degé Kangyur has been taken as the base text, but we have also consulted the Stok Palace Kangyur and the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma) for variant readings. In several cases, this has provided readings that are evidently in better alignment with the Sanskrit text, as recorded in the endnotes. Despite these improved readings, there are several places in the Tibetan text where the textual transmission has proved to be faulty due to omissions or erroneous additions. In those instances, we have taken recourse to the extant Sanskrit text, in consultation with the Chinese translation. However, we have been careful not to uncritically adopt all readings found in the extant Sanskrit, since, as stated above, it appears to belong to a different lineage of textual recension than the Tibetan translation and its underlying Sanskrit text. There are, moreover, several places where the extant Sanskrit has problematic readings that need to be emended in light of the Tibetan translation. We have recorded all such discrepancies between the Sanskrit and the Tibetan in the endnotes, in which we have also included the most significant divergences found in the Chinese translation.
In closing, we would like to refer the reader to two very similar past life stories of the Buddha, both of which are likewise narrated to illustrate the twofold statement on generosity as found in the Dāna Sūtra, from which they also very graphically draw upon the words apaścimakaḥ kavaḍaḥ, “last mouthful.” First, there is the Kavaḍāvadāna in the Avadānaśataka (Toh 343), in which the Buddha recounts his past life as King Brahmadatta in Vārāṇasī, a righteous and compassionate ruler whose generosity was such that during a devastating famine he was able to give up his own daily ration of food, his two “mouthfuls,” to a brahmin left out in the count and to Indra who, disguised as a brahmin, requested the second portion. The other related story is found in the Karmaśataka (Toh 340), in which the narration is about a bodhisattva king named Candraprabha, who also reigned from the city of Vārāṇasī, and who, faced with a severe drought and famine that would last for twelve years, is tested by Indra, again disguised as a brahmin, in giving away both his “mouthfuls” of food—all of which the bodhisattva happily does in his complete dedication to attaining perfect and full awakening for the benefit of all.
Homage to all buddhas and bodhisattvas.
Thus did I hear at one time. The Blessed One was dwelling at Jetavana, Anāthapiṇḍada’s Park, together with a large monastic community of 1,250 monks.
The Blessed One was respected, honored, revered, and venerated by monks, nuns, devoted laymen, devoted laywomen, kings, ministers, the various tīrthikas, ascetics, brahmins, practitioners, and wanderers, as well as by gods, nāgas, yakṣas, gandharvas, asuras, garuḍas, kinnaras, and mahoragas. The Blessed One received abundant and exquisite requisites—robes, alms, bedding and seating, and medicine in case of illness—both divine and human. Yet, the Blessed One remained untainted by them, like a lotus untainted by water. The Blessed One’s renown, fame, and acclaim, was vast, excellent, and exalted. In this way, the Blessed One, the tathāgata, arhat, perfectly awakened one, accomplished in knowledge and conduct, the well gone one, the knower of the world, the unsurpassed guide for people to be tamed, the teacher of gods and humans, the Buddha, the Blessed One, having directly understood and clearly perceived this world with its gods, māras, brahmās, ascetics, brahmins, gods, and humans, was teaching the Dharma that is excellent in the beginning, excellent in the middle, and excellent in the end, fine in meaning and fine in expression, and was expounding the entire and complete spiritual life that is completely pure and completely clean.
Then the Blessed One addressed the monks, “Monks, if beings were to know the fruit of giving and the karmic fruition of sharing gifts as I know the fruit of giving and the karmic fruition of sharing gifts, they would not eat even their last mouthful, their last morsel, themselves without giving, without sharing it with others, and the arisen defilement of selfishness would not remain in possession of their minds. But, monks, because beings do not know the fruit of giving and the karmic fruition of sharing gifts as I know the fruit of giving and the karmic fruition of sharing gifts, they eat even their last mouthful, their last morsel, themselves without giving, without sharing it with others, and the arisen defilement of selfishness remains in possession of their minds. Why is this?
“Previously, monks, in a past time, there was a king named Kanakavarṇa, who was handsome, beautiful, and pleasing to behold, being endowed with a sublime golden complexion. That king Kanakavarṇa was rich, wealthy, and prosperous, having abundant possessions; abundant wealth and means; abundant riches, grains, gems, pearls, crystal, coral, gold, and silver; abundant elephants, horses, cows, and stud horses; and treasuries and storehouses that were completely filled.
“King Kanakavarṇa had a royal capital called Kanakāvatī that was twelve yojanas in length from east to west and seven yojanas wide from south to north. It was prosperous, thriving, happy, well provisioned, pleasant, and bustling with many people. King Kanakavarṇa had eighty thousand such cities that were prosperous, thriving, happy, well provisioned, pleasant, and bustling with many people; five hundred and seventy million villages that were prosperous, thriving, happy, well provisioned, pleasant, and bustling with many people; and sixty thousand market towns that were prosperous, thriving, happy, well provisioned, pleasant, and bustling with many people. And, King Kanakavarṇa had eighteen thousand courtiers and a retinue of twenty thousand attendant women.
“Monks, King Kanakavarṇa was righteous and he ruled his kingdom according to the Dharma as a Dharma king. He engaged in all acts of generosity and there was nothing that he had not given away, including the flesh of his own body. During those times people would attain a lifespan of eighty-four thousand years.
“Now, at one time, when King Kanakavarṇa was alone, having withdrawn in private, a deliberation arose in his mind: ‘Let me free all merchants from customs duties and transit fees. Let me free all the people of Jambudvīpa from taxes and fees.’
“King Kanakavarṇa thereupon summoned his accountants, ministers, courtiers, gatekeepers, and councilors, and announced to them, ‘As of today, sirs, all merchants should be freed from customs duties and transit fees. All the people of Jambudvīpa should be freed from taxes and fees.’
“While ruling his kingdom by these means for many years, at a certain time, the constellations became adverse such that it would not rain for twelve years. The brahmins who could understand the indications read the signs and did divinations. Having observed this in the movements of the constellations and the planet Venus, they went to King Kanakavarṇa and said, ‘Your Majesty, please know that the constellations have become adverse such that it will not rain for twelve years.’
“Upon hearing this news, King Kanakavarṇa broke down in tears, ‘Oh, my people of Jambudvīpa! Oh, my people of Jambudvīpa! Oh, my Jambudvīpa that is prosperous, thriving, happy, well provisioned, pleasant, and bustling with many people—before long you will be empty and bereft of people!’
“After weeping sorrowfully for a moment, King Kanakavarṇa thought, ‘Those who are rich, wealthy, and prosperous will be able to support themselves, but those who are poor, with little wealth, and with little to eat and drink—how will they survive? Let me collect all the foodstuffs in Jambudvīpa, build a storehouse for all the villages, cities, and market towns, as well as for the royal capital, and distribute an equal share to all the people of Jambudvīpa.’
“King Kanakavarṇa then summoned his accountants, ministers, courtiers, gatekeepers, and councilors, and ordered, ‘Sirs, go and collect all the foodstuffs in Jambudvīpa, count them and measure them out, and place them in a storehouse for all the villages, cities, and market towns, as well as for the royal capital.’
“The accountants, ministers, courtiers, gatekeepers, and councilors did as King Kanakavarṇa had ordered, and when they had stored the foodstuffs in the storehouse, they went to King Kanakavarṇa and said, ‘Your Majesty, please know that the foodstuffs from all the villages, cities, and market towns, as well as from the royal capital, have all been collected, counted, measured out, and stored in a storehouse for all the villages, cities, and market towns, as well as for the royal capital. What does Your Majesty deem fit now?’
“King Kanakavarṇa then summoned his counters, accountants, and scribes and ordered, ‘Sirs, go and count all the people of Jambudvīpa. Having properly counted everyone starting with myself, properly distribute an equal share of food to all the people of Jambudvīpa.’
“The counters, accountants, and scribes obeyed and they properly counted all the people of Jambudvīpa. When they had properly counted everyone, starting with King Kanakavarṇa, they assigned an equal share of food to all the people of Jambudvīpa.
“For eleven years everyone survived, but during the first month of the twelfth year, many men, women, and children began to die from hunger and thirst. As the second, third, fourth, and fifth months passed, many more men, women, and children died. This went on until the eleventh month, when all the food in Jambudvīpa had been exhausted, apart from a single measure of food left for King Kanakavarṇa.
“Now, at that time, there was a bodhisattva who had been embarked upon the path for forty eons and who had reached this Sahā world. That bodhisattva saw, somewhere in a forest, a son having sexual intercourse with his mother. Seeing this, he thought, ‘Oh, how defiled, how defiled these beings are! It was in her womb that he stayed for nine months and it was from her breasts that he drank—and now he does this here! I’ve had enough of such beings who are driven by craven desires not in keeping with the Dharma, who have wrong views, who are overcome by unbearable lust, who do not honor their fathers, their mothers, monks, or brahmins, and who do not respect the elders of their family. Who would bother to practice the conduct of a bodhisattva for the sake of such beings? Surely I should practice for my own sake alone.’
“Then the bodhisattva went to a tree and sat down at its base. Having crossed his legs and made his body upright, he established mindfulness to the fore. He then dwelled on observing the arising and passing away of the five aggregates that are subject to clinging: ‘This is form, this is the arising of form, this is the vanishing of form; this is feeling; this is perception; these are conditionings; this is consciousness, this is the arising of consciousness, this is the vanishing of consciousness.’ As he remained like this, observing the arising and passing away of the five aggregates that are subject to clinging, before long, he realized that whatever is of the nature to arise is all of the nature to cease, and right there he reached individual awakening.
“Thereupon, after beholding the dharmas attained according to their conditions, on that occasion the blessed pratyekabuddha spoke this verse:
“Then the blessed pratyekabuddha thought, ‘I have performed many difficult deeds for the sake of sentient beings, but no one has yet been benefitted. To whom should I now extend my compassion? Whose alms should I now receive and eat?’
“The blessed pratyekabuddha surveyed the whole of Jambudvīpa with his superhuman divine vision, and he saw that all the food in Jambudvīpa had been exhausted apart from a single measure of food left for King Kanakavarṇa. He then thought, ‘Let me extend my compassion to King Kanakavarṇa. Let me receive and eat the single measure of food that is left for King Kanakavarṇa.’
“Then the blessed pratyekabuddha, by such miraculous ability of his, rose up into the sky, and, like a bird in bodily appearance, through his miraculous ability, proceeded to the royal capital Kanakāvatī.
“At that time King Kanakavarṇa was on the palace terrace, accompanied by five thousand courtiers. One minister saw the blessed pratyekabuddha coming from a distance. Seeing this, he called the other ministers, ‘Look, sirs, look! From the distance, a red-winged bird is coming toward us here!’
“Another minister said, ‘Sirs, this is not a red-winged bird—it’s a life-robbing demon that is coming here! It is now going to devour us!’
“Then King Kanakavarṇa rubbed his face with both hands and said to the ministers, ‘Sirs, this is not a red-winged bird, nor is it a life-robbing demon—it’s a sage who is coming out of compassion for us!’
“Thereupon that blessed pratyekabuddha alighted on top of King Kanakavarṇa’s palace. Rising from his seat, King Kanakavarṇa welcomed the blessed pratyekabuddha, bowed his head at the feet of the blessed pratyekabuddha, and invited him to sit on a seat that had been prepared. King Kanakavarṇa then asked the blessed pratyekabuddha, ‘Sage, for what purpose have you come here?’
“‘For the purpose of food, great king,’ the sage replied.
“Upon this, King Kanakavarṇa was very distraught, and weeping, he cried, ‘Oh, how poor I am! Even though I have dominion over Jambudvīpa, I am not able to provide alms to even a single sage!’
“Then the deity of the royal capital Kanakāvatī uttered this verse to King Kanakavarṇa:
“King Kanakavarṇa then summoned the person in charge of the storehouse and asked, ‘Sir, is there any food in the house that I could offer to this sage?’
“‘Your Majesty,’ he replied, ‘Please know that all the food in Jambudvīpa has been exhausted apart from a single measure of food that remains for Your Majesty.’
“King Kanakavarṇa thought, ‘If I eat it, I will live. If I do not eat it, I will die.’ But then he thought, ‘Even if I eat it, I will certainly come to die—enough of this life of mine! How could such a virtuous and excellent sage leave my house today with an alms bowl as pristine as before he entered?’
“King Kanakavarṇa then gathered his accountants, ministers, courtiers, gatekeepers, and councilors, and said, ‘Please rejoice, sirs! This is King Kanakavarṇa’s final act of charity. By this root of virtue, may there be a complete end to poverty for all the people of Jambudvīpa.’
“Thereupon King Kanakavarṇa put all there was of the measure of food into the bowl of that blessed pratyekabuddha and gave the bowl into the blessed pratyekabuddha’s right hand.
“Now, it is in the nature of things that blessed pratyekabuddhas teach the Dharma bodily, not verbally. So the blessed pratyekabuddha received the alms from King Kanakavarṇa and, in this way by miraculous ability, departed into the sky. With folded hands, King Kanakavarṇa stood looking on, without blinking, until he had passed from sight.
“Then King Kanakavarṇa summoned his accountants, ministers, courtiers, gatekeepers, and councilors, and said, ‘Sirs, go to your respective homes. Please do not end your time by dying from hunger and thirst here at the palace.’
“They replied, ‘When Your Majesty possessed wealth and good fortune, we amused and enjoyed ourselves together with Your Majesty. How could we now abandon Your Majesty at the end, at this final hour?’
“Then, King Kanakavarṇa broke down in tears and wept. Wiping away his tears, he again said to his accountants, ministers, courtiers, gatekeepers, and councilors, ‘Sirs, go to your respective homes. All of you, please do not end your time by dying from hunger and thirst here at the palace.’
“At this, the accountants, ministers, courtiers, gatekeepers, and councilors also broke down in tears and wept. Wiping away their tears, they approached King Kanakavarṇa, bowed their heads at his feet, and with folded hands said to King Kanakavarṇa, ‘Today is our last sight of Your Majesty. Please forgive us for anything we have done contrary to Your Majesty’s instruction.’
“But just as that blessed pratyekabuddha finished eating the alms, at that very moment, four masses of clouds emerged from all four directions, and cool winds began to blow that swept Jambudvīpa clean. And then, during the second half of that day, it rained various kinds of foods and edible things. There were foods such as boiled rice, sattu, khichri, meat, and fish. There were edible things such as edible roots, stalks, leaves, flowers, fruits, sesame, sesame oil, jaggery, and cane sugar. And there were many other kinds of foods, edible things, and delicacies that rained down.
“King Kanakavarṇa was thrilled, exalted, and elated, and as he rejoiced, full of rapture and gladness, he said to his accountants, ministers, courtiers, gatekeepers, and councilors, ‘Look, sirs! Right now the sprout of giving that single portion of alms has appeared! Fruits, leaves, and flowers will come later!’
“On the second day, a week-long rain of goods and grains began. For seven days it rained sesame, rice, mung beans, black gram, barley, wheat, lentils, white rice, and all types of grains. For seven days it rained ghee. For seven days it rained sesame oil. For seven days it rained cotton cloth. For seven days it rained various kinds of materials. And for seven days it rained the seven precious substances, namely, gold, silver, crystal, beryl, ruby, emerald, and sapphire.
“So, by the power of King Kanakavarṇa, there was a complete end to poverty for all the people of Jambudvīpa.
“Monks, you might be uncertain or in doubt, thinking that it was someone else who was King Kanakavarṇa at that time, at that moment. But, monks, it should not be seen in this way. I was that king named Kanakavarṇa at that time, at that moment.
“Monks, through this teaching, this should be understood: One should know the fruit of giving and the karmic fruition of sharing gifts as I know the fruit of giving and the karmic fruition of sharing gifts. One should not eat the last mouthful, the last morsel, oneself—without giving it or sharing it with others—and the arisen defilement of selfishness will not remain in possession of one’s mind. But because beings do not know the fruit of giving and the karmic fruition of sharing gifts as I know the fruit of giving and the karmic fruition of sharing gifts, they eat even their last mouthful, their last morsel, themselves—without giving, without sharing it with others—and the arisen defilement of selfishness remains in possession of their minds.
This is what the Blessed One said. Elated, the bodhisattvas, monks, and the world with its gods, humans, asuras, and gandharvas rejoiced at what the Blessed One had said.
This concludes “The Past Endeavor of Kanakavarṇa.”