Yesterday I brazenly said Gene Reeves had misstated the facts when he said the Buddha Sun and Moon Light was a prince before he became a buddha. I said, no, he was a king before he became that buddha. My “facts” were taken from the Murano translation of the Lotus Sutra.
I confess that I don’t put a lot of time into my daily 32 Days of the Lotus Sutra posts. Just coming up with something appropriate to say each day, month after month, year after year, is success enough.
So today while doing morning Gonyo it occurred to be that it really – really – was unlikely that Reeves had made such a mistake. So I checked all of my English translations of Kumārajīva’s Chinese translation of the Lotus Sutra.
The BDK translation has “The Last Buddha fathered eight princes before he renounced household life.”
The SGI translation by Burton Watson has “The last Buddha, when he had not yet left family life, had eight princely sons.”
Leon Hurvitz’s Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma has “Before that last buddha left his household, he had eight princely sons.”
The 1975 Risshō Kōsei Kai translation has “Before the last of these Buddhas left home, he had eight royal sons: …”
The 2019 Risshō Kōsei Kai translation has “At the time that the last of these buddhas renounced home life, he had eight royal sons: …”
So unlike Murano – “The last Sun-Moon-Light Buddha was once a king. He had eight sons born to him before he renounced the world” – none of the translations specify that the last buddha was a king before leaving household life.
On the other hand, Reeves’ translation – “Before the last of these buddhas had left his home, he had eight royal sons – doesn’t specify that the last buddha was a prince before leaving household life.
I suppose it gets down to the question of whether the father of princes is always a king or whether Śākyamuni’s son, Rāhula, was a prince. Murano says kings father princes; Reeves calls Rāhula a prince.
Whatever answer wins out, my initial suggestion that Reeves had his facts wrong was clearly in error.