The “Devendrasamaya-parivarta” of the Suvarṇabhāsottamasūtra and the Ratnāvalī on the Dharma for Kings

Abstract

The “Devendrasamaya-parivarta” is the 12th chapter of the Sanskrit Suvarṇabhāsottamasūtra, a Mahāyāna text composed in India in the 4th century. Kanaoka [1980], an authoritative study on the Suvarṇabhāsottamasūtra in Japanese, argued that this chapter expresses two views on the authority of kings, the theory of the divine right of kings of Brahmanism and the Buddhist concept that good karma in previous lives leads to positive rewards (the throne). This study also deduced that the chapter advised sovereigns to govern using the dharma of Bodhisattva doctrines. The present paper determines that the “Devendrasamaya-parivarta” is based on the Buddhist concept of “Sow evil and reap evil.” Moreover, through a comparison of the usage of dharma in the Ratnāvalī by Nāgārjuna, which expresses instructions for the government by a Bodhisattva king, this paper demonstrates that the dharma here is akin to the examples in Jātakas and that it is not the dharma of Bodhisattva doctrines.