Previous Aspirations of the Seven Tathagatas

Previous Aspirations of the Seven Tathagatas. A Mahayana sutra that presents an account of the previous aspirations of seven buddhas to benefit beings who are veiled by karmic obscurations, tormented by illnesses, and plagued by mental anguish and suffering. This is one of the main texts on the practice of Bhaisajyaguru (Medicine Buddha) found in the Tibetan and Chinese canons.

The Dharmachakra Translation Committee states:

In response to [a request from Mañjuśrī], Śākyamuni proceeds to enumerate the aspirations that each of these thus-gone ones made when they first generated the mind of awakening and the qualities of the buddhafield that each of them generated upon attaining perfect buddhahood. The material in the first section (Tib. bam po) of the text contains the previous aspirations of the first six thus-gone ones, while the material in the second section of the text opens with a discourse on the previous aspirations of the Thus-Gone One Bhaiṣajyaguru vaiḍūrya-prabha, commonly known as the “Medicine Buddha” (Tib. sangs rgyas sman bla) that is nearly identical to the shorter sūtra that bears his name and that follows in the Kangyur, Toh 504 (Bhaisajyaguru sutra).

Title variations

Medium length title:

• Skt. Saptatathāgatapūrvapraṇidhānaviśeṣavistāra
• C. Yaoshi liuli guang qi fo benyuan gongde jing 藥師琉璃光七佛本願功德經 (T 451)
  • English: Sutra on the Merit of the Former Vows of the Beryl Illumination of Master of Medicine Buddha of the Seven Buddhas
• T. de bzhin gshegs pa bdun gyi sngon gyi smon lam gyi khyad par rgyas pa །དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པ་བདུན་གྱི་སྔོན་གྱི་སྨོན་ལམ་གྱི་ཁྱད་པར་རྒྱས་པ།
  • English: The Detailed Account of the Previous Aspirations of the Seven Thus-Gone Ones

Long title:

• Skt. Ārya­sapta­tathāgata­pūrva­praṇi­dhāna­viśeṣavistāra­nāma mahāyānasūtra
• T. ’phags pa de bzhin gshegs pa bdun gyi sngon gyi smon lam gyi khyad par rgyas pa zhes bya ba theg pa chen po’i mdo
• English: The Noble Great Vehicle Discourse “The Detailed Account of the Previous Aspirations of the Seven Thus-Gone Ones”

Text and translations

There is no known Sanskrit edition or manuscript of this version of the sūtra, but a large portion of the text is almost identical with the shorter sūtra, Toh 504 (Bhaisajyaguru sutra), which survives in three Sanskrit editions edited and compiled from the cache of Buddhist Sanskrit manuscripts excavated from a stūpa in Gilgit in the early twentieth century.

Chinese translation

A Chinese translation of the this sūtra (Taishō 451) was made in 707 CE by Yijing.

Tibetan translation

According to the translators’ colophon to the Tibetan translation of the text in the Kangyur, the text was translated by three ninth-century Indian preceptors‍—Jinamitra, Dānaśīla, and Śīlendrabodhi‍—in conjunction with Bandé Yeshé Dé (mid-eighth to early ninth century), placing the date for its initial translation into Tibetan in the early ninth century.

English translations

Translation from the Tibetan text:

• Dharmachakra Translation Committee (2026), The Detailed Account of the Previous Aspirations of the Seven Thus-Gone Ones, 84000 Collection

Translation from the Chinese text:

• Birnbaum, Raoul (2003). "Sutra on the Merits of the Fundamental Vows of the Seven Buddhas of Lapis Lazuli Radiance, the Masters of Healing" in The Healing Buddha. Shambhala (pp. 173–220). Archive version