Mahāpadānasutta (The Great Discourse on the Life Stories)

Original text: 7D/1 Mahāpadānasutta 2–189 in the World Tipitaka Edition

Summary

At Sāvatthī the bhikkhū in the Kareri pavilion fall to talking about former lives, and the Bhagavā joins them. He recounts the six Buddhas before him and himself: the aeon of each, his birth, clan and lifespan, his tree of awakening, his chief disciples, assemblies, attendant and parents. He then tells the life of Vipassī in full: the wonders of his birth and the thirty-two marks, the four sights and his going forth, his insight into dependent origination, Brahmā’s request, his first disciples and the sending out of his bhikkhū. The gods of the Pure Abodes confirm the account.

Parts

The edition’s divisions, grouped by narrative stage, with the edition’s paragraph numbers:

1. Pubbenivāsapaṭisaṃyuttakathā (The Account Concerning Former Lives) — 7D/1.1, 2–33
2. Bodhisattadhammatā (The Nature of a Bodhisatta) — 7D/1.2, 34–49
3. Dvattiṃsamahāpurisalakkhaṇā (The Thirty-two Marks of a Great Man) — 7D/1.3, 50–84
4. Vipassīsamaññā (The Naming of Vipassī) — 7D/1.4, 85–91
5. Jiṇṇapurisa to Bodhisattapabbajjā (The Old Man, the Sick Man, the Dead Man, the Renunciant, and the Bodhisatta’s Going Forth) — 7D/1.5–1.9, 92–108
6. Mahājanakāyaanupabbajjā and Bodhisattaabhinivesa (The Great Crowd’s Going Forth after Him, and the Bodhisatta’s Settling into Seclusion) — 7D/1.10–1.11, 109–138
7. Brahmayācanakathā (The Account of Brahmā’s Request) — 7D/1.12, 139–156
8. Aggasāvakayuga to Purimapabbajitānaṃ dhammābhisamaya (The Pair of Chief Disciples, the Great Crowd’s Going Forth, and the Earlier Renunciants’ Arriving at the Dhamma) — 7D/1.13–1.15, 157–170
9. Cārikāanujānana (The Permission to Wander) — 7D/1.16, 171–180
10. Devatārocana (The Deities’ Report) — 7D/1.17, 181–189

Commentary

• The sutta tells the Buddha’s own story as Vipassī’s: the account of the bodhisatta from birth to the sending out of the disciples follows the Mahākhandhaka’s account of Gotama step by step, with Brahmā’s request and the going-forth formulas word for word the same. The Khandhaka pages are therefore its twins on this site: Brahmayācanakathā, Bodhikathā.
• The seven Buddhas’ particulars in part 1 are repeated by the gods of the Pure Abodes in part 10, in the same sentences.

Parallels

The Chinese parallel is the first discourse of the Dīrgha Āgama, 大本經 (長阿含經 fascicle 1, CBETA T01, no. 1, pp. 1b–10c), read here in CBETA’s text and in Charles Patton’s translation (Patton, n.d.); a Sanskrit Mahāvadānasūtra of the Sarvāstivādins, recovered from Central Asian manuscripts, is the third version, edited with an analysis of the Chinese parallels by Waldschmidt and again by Fukita (Fukita, 2003; Waldschmidt, 1953). The Pāḷi and the Chinese agree in frame and sequence: the bhikkhus’ talk of former lives, the Buddha’s answer that he knows the past Buddhas both by his own penetration and from the gods, the seven Buddhas’ aeons, clans, lifespans, trees, assemblies, chief disciples, attendants and parents, Vipassī’s conception and birth, the thirty-two marks, the four sights, the going forth and the crowd that follows, the awakening, Brahmā’s request, the first disciples, the sending out with the six-yearly return, and the visit to the gods of the Pure Abodes, who recite the particulars back. The differences, checked in CBETA’s text:

• Verses. The Chinese follows almost every prose section with verses restating it, forty-four times in all; the Pāḷi has no verses but the three of the pātimokkha in part 9, of which the Chinese keeps only “patience is the foremost” (忍辱為第一, p. 10a).
• The Buddhas’ sons. The Chinese names a son for each Buddha, Rāhula (羅睺羅) for Gotama (p. 3a–b); the Pāḷi names none.
• Numbers. The Chinese opens with 1,250 bhikkhus (p. 1b) where the Pāḷi gives no number; it gives Vipassī’s first assembly 168,000 (十六萬八千) against the Pāḷi’s 6,800,000, and Vessabhū’s two 70,000 and 60,000 against 80,000 and 70,000 (p. 2b), the other assemblies agreeing with part 1.
• Dependent origination. The Chinese gives twelve links, from delusion (癡) through constructions and consciousness to ageing and death, consciousness conditioning name-and-form in one direction (p. 7b); the Pāḷi stops at the mutual conditioning of consciousness and name-and-form, ten links without ignorance and constructions (part 6).
• The first two disciples. Both name Khaṇḍa (騫茶) and Tissa (提舍), but the Chinese makes Tissa the king’s son and Khaṇḍa the minister’s son (王子提舍、大臣子騫茶, p. 9a), the Pāḷi the reverse (part 8).
• The sending out. The thought of sending the bhikkhus out in pairs is Vipassī’s in both; in the Pāḷi a great Brahmā reads it and approves, in the Chinese the gods of the Pure Abodes do (首陀會天, p. 10a), the same gods who recite the account to Gotama at the end (p. 10b); the Chinese has the bhikkhus return for the full precepts (具足戒) where the Pāḷi has the pātimokkha recited.

Go to parent page (Dīgha Nikāya)

References

Fukita, T. (2003). The Mahāvadānasūtra: A New Edition Based on Manuscripts Discovered in Northern Turkestan. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

Patton, C. (n.d.). The Long Discourses: An English Translation of the Dīrgha Āgama. Dharma Pearls, work in progress. https://dharmapearls.net/01_agama/dirgha/index.html

Waldschmidt, E. (1953). Das Mahāvadānasūtra: Ein kanonischer Text über die sieben letzten Buddhas, Sanskrit, verglichen mit dem Pāli nebst einer Analyse der in chinesischer Übersetzung überlieferten Parallelversion. Akademie Verlag.