Toh 205 — The City Beggar Woman

Nagarāvalambikā

The Noble Mahāyāna Sūtra

The City Beggar Woman

F.92.a Homage to all buddhas and bodhisattvas.

Thus did I hear at one time. While staying in Śrāvastī, in Prince Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍada’s park, the Blessed One was served, honored, venerated, and revered F.92.b by gods, nāgas, yakṣas, gandharvas, asuras, garuḍas, kinnaras, and mahoragas; by Śakra, Brahmā, and the world protectors; by kings and ministers; and by bodhisattvas, monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen. Yet he remained like a lotus unsullied by water.^[1]

At that time, in order to venerate the Thus-Gone One, on the full moon day of the last month of autumn, King Prasenajit had a thousand large copper cauldrons filled with grain oil and set them out so that the entire area for four leagues around was illuminated by their flames.

At the same time, in the great city of Śrāvastī, there was a city beggar woman called Maker of Joy.^[2] She had bought a tiny amount of oil, as a result of which she had gone without food for four days and had grown weak.^[3] She took the oil to Prince Jeta’s Grove and, using it to light a lamp at the edge of the courtyard, she made this wish:

“Blessed One, with this root of virtue, may I too become a teacher in the future. May I teach the Dharma and gather a community, just as the thus-gone, worthy, perfect, and complete Buddha does now. If I am to become a buddha in the future, may this oil lamp continue to burn until I return.” Whereupon she lit the lamp, and returned to the city.

The light of that oil lamp illuminated all of Jambudvīpa and the following day the lamp was still burning. Then Venerable Mahāmaudgalyāyana tried to put it out with the edge of his robe, but he could not. Venerable Mahāmaudgalyāyana then tried to extinguish it with gales of wind, but still he could not put it out. Venerable Mahāmaudgalyāyana then went to the Brahmā realms and caused sheets of rain the size of chariot axles^[4] to fall upon this whole trichiliocosm. However, even though he directed the deluge right over the lamp, still he could not douse it.

Then the Blessed One said, “Let it be, Maudgalyāyana! This lamp has been lit with a mind set on awakening, and a mind set on awakening cannot be overcome by a śrāvaka. F.93.a How so? Because no śrāvaka or pratyekabuddha can ever overcome a mind set on omniscience.”

A while later, as the sun was rising, the woman returned from the city. When she saw that the lamp was still burning brightly, she was filled with tremendous joy.

At that moment, the Blessed One smiled.^[5] It is the nature of things that whenever a blessed buddha smiles, rays of light of many colors—blue, yellow, red, white, crimson, and the colors of crystal and silver—stream forth from the blessed buddha’s mouth. These illuminate and pervade worlds without end, reaching as far as the Brahmā realms where they outshine even the sun and the moon. They then return once again, and, after circling the blessed one thrice, descend into the uṣṇīṣa at the crown of that blessed one’s head. So, indeed, did such rays of light, having circled the Blessed One thrice, disappear into the uṣṇīṣa of the Blessed One’s head.

Venerable Ānanda then spoke the following verse to the Blessed One:

“Excellent victor, guide, and best of men,

You do not smile without reason,

So please, with compassion, for the benefit of the world,

Tell us what gives you cause to smile.”

The Blessed One replied, “Ānanda, this city beggar woman will not fall into a lower rebirth for twenty-eight eons. She will experience only the abundance of the human and god realms, and then will become a thus-gone, worthy, perfect, and complete buddha called All-Illuminating.”

Then the Blessed One spoke these verses:

“To venerate the holder of ten powers, Prasenajit lit a thousand fine lamps F.93.b

In huge copper cauldrons, which illuminated everything for four leagues.

The city beggar woman lit a lamp with a tiny amount of oil

And, by the power of the mind set on awakening, it illuminated the whole world.

“Maudgalyāyana wanted to extinguish the lamp with his vast magical powers,

But even powerful gales could not extinguish it.

Sending down sheets of rain the size of chariot axles from the Brahmā realms,

Still he could not douse that lamp, which shone like the sun.

“After four days with no food, she came to the delightful Jeta Grove

And, with joyful heart, paid respects with folded hands to the feet of the Sugata.

The peerless one smiled, and Ānanda, thoroughly delighted, asked,

‘What kind of result does this smile foretell, infinitely radiant one?’

“In twenty-eight eons, this Maker of Joy will be a victor, a self-arisen one

Known as All-Illuminating, and she will illuminate four great chiliocosms.

In the future, she will make offerings to ten million sugatas;

She will become a universal monarch and venerate the victors.

“This exemplary tale about a future buddha will delight the faithful^[6]

And the wise who hear it will also feel joy.

In this way, the qualities of innumerable victors with the ten powers are inconceivable.

So the matchless result of rejoicing in them will also be inconceivable.”

Thus spoke the Blessed One, and Venerable Ānanda, the city beggar woman, the bodhisattvas and monks, along with the gods, humans, asuras, and gandharvas of the world, rejoiced and thoroughly praised what the Blessed One had said.

This concludes The Noble Mahāyāna Sūtra “The City Beggar Woman.”

Colophon

Translated by the Indian preceptor Jñānagarbha and Lotsawa Bandé Lui Wangpo. Edited and finalized by the Indian preceptor Vidyākarasiṃha and senior editor Lotsawa Bandé Devacandra.

Notes

Tib. pad ma chus ma gos pa bzhin du bzhugs so. That is to say, he remained unaffected by being served and venerated by his many devotees, like a lotus flower remains unblemished by the muddy water in which it grows.
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Tib. dga’ byed ma zhes bya ba. Skilling suggests Nandikā as a possible equivalent for the name. The name dga’ byed ma is also attested as a translation of Nandinī in The Root Manual of the Rites of Mañjuśrī and The Tantra of Siddhaikavīra. In the Tibetan translation of The Sūtra of the Wise and the Foolish, her name is given as bsnyen dga’ mo, a feminine form of a name for which the masculine is attested as “Upananda,” and in the Chinese version of that sūtra it is nantuo难陀, which likewise suggests either “Nandinī” or “Nandikā.” In the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya and Divyāvadāna versions of the story her name is not given.
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Tib. des ’bru mar sran gre’u dang sbyar ba nyos nas zhag bzhi kha ’tshos te nyam chung bar gyur to. Skilling notes that sran gre’u is similar to sran khre’u, which is attested in Negi’s dictionary as a translation of māṣaka and can mean “a bean,” or “a very small amount.” Skilling also notes that kha ’tshos is attested as a translation of anāhāratāṃ pratipannaḥ, “she went without food.” This has been preferred over a possible reading of the Tibetan that she bought some “oil mixed with beans” (’bru mar sran gre’u dang sbyar ba nyos nas) and subsisting on that for four days became weak. In the Vinaya and the Divyāvadāna, she begs for a little oil. In The Sūtra of the Wise and the Foolishhttps://read.84000.co/translation/toh341.html the narrative is a little more elaborate: she finds a coin and goes to an oil merchant who tells her that such a coin would only buy a useless amount of oil. However, when she tells him she plans to use the oil to make an offering to the Buddha, he is moved by pity and he gives her some more. She then goes directly to the monastery to light the lamp.
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Tib. shing rta’i srog shing tsam gyi char Lit. “rain the size of chariot axles,” is an expression found elsewhere in the Kangyur, for example in The Questions of Sāgaramati (Toh 152, #UT22084-058-001-1948) and The Questions of Ratnajālin (Toh 163, #UT22084-059-006-52). Skilling translates it as “torrents of water as wide as chariot axles.”
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The description of many-colored lights emitting from buddhas’ mouths when they smile and streaming upward (to the heavens) and downward (to the hells) before returning and being reabsorbed into various parts of the body (relating to what kind of prophecy is being made) is found with various degrees of elaboration in many Kangyur texts. For one such elaborate expression see The Hundred Deeds (Karmaśataka, Toh 340), #UT22084-073-001-687–#UT22084-073-001-695. For a shorter expression of this theme, similar to that found here, see The Teaching by the Child Inconceivable Radiance (Acintyaprabhāsanirdeśa, Toh 103), #UT22084-048-003-179.
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sangs rgyas rtogs pa brjod pa yi ni dad rnams rab dga’ byed. In light of the Stok Palace version, which reads sangs rgyas rtogs pa brjod pa’i ming ni dad rnams rab dga’ byed, “the name of [this] exemplary tale about a future buddha will delight the faithful,” we have opted to read yi as yis, as Skilling does. Otherwise, an alternative translation could be “She will delight those who have faith in exemplary tales about future buddhas.” This would preserve the subject of byed repeated from previous lines.
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