The Prayer of Samantabhadra, also known as "a prayer of excellent conduct" and also as "a king of prayers" is one of the five great prayers of the Great Vehicle tradition and one of the most popular prayers in that tradition. For example, it is recited every day without fail by many Tibetans. While using the prayer in Tibetan and English, the author discovered that existing English translations from Tibetan sources have many mistakes, all of which give readers a wrong understanding of what the prayer actually says. Worse, translations into other languages such as German and Russian from the mistaken English translations have carried all the mistakes along with them. Therefore, the author undertook a major study of the sutra in order to provide practitioners with a reliable translation and a complete set of explanations that would explain correctly and in depth every facet of meaning contained of the sutra.

Firstly, the prayer was not composed as a prayer. It is actually a set of verses that were spoken by the bodhisatva Samantabhadra to summarize an amazing teaching he had just given to a young bodhisatva. The teaching was on the subject of the excellent conduct of a bodhisatva. The teaching and the verses were later recorded in one of the Great Vehicle sutras. Later still, the verses were extracted from the sutra and written out alone for ease of recitation. An unfortunate consequence of that has been that many people have mistakenly thought that the verses actually were composed as a discrete prayer, and so have lost the all-important connection to the actual teaching given in the sutra. To rectify this problem and make the fullness of the prayer available to English-speaking practitioners, the author went on to make a translation of the entire sutra and its concluding verses.

However, still more was needed because there is an enormous amount of meaning hidden in the words of the verses, meaning that cannot be seen let alone understood without assistance. Therefore, the author assembled everything needed to explain every facet of meaning of every word in the verses and published all of the work in two full volumes detailing the prayer. The two volumes share a very extensive introduction that clarifies the nature of the prayer. Following that, they share a translation of the entire sutra, including the verses. After that, each volume presents its own commentaries in order to show the meaning of the verses.

Volume I has two commentaries, one by the Indian master Nagarjuna and one written by the author himself. It is essential to have an Indian commentary as a basis for understanding and translating the prayer because it will show the original understanding of the prayer according to the Indian tradition of Buddhism. Several such commentaries are preserved in the Tibetan Translated Treatises and the author read them all. He selected the one by Nagarjuna because it is the earliest of all the preserved Indian commentaries and also because it is particularly clear, showing points of meaning and grammar that are essential to obtaining a correct translation of the prayer. Likewise, it is essential to have a commentary written by an English-speaking expert so that all the issues related to the prayer in English translation can be clearly presented for readers. For this commentary, the author drew together material from many Indian and Tibetan commentaries then explained the prayer directly in English, paying special attention to English-related issues that are not covered in Indian or Tibetan commentaries.
Samantabhadra's Prayer: Volume I: The original sutra with prayer, the Indian commentary by Nagarjuna, and the Western commentary, Tony Duff, PKTC, Paperback, 298 Pages, , $30.00

The author, well-known translator and teacher Tony Duff has practised extensively with Gelug, Kagyu, and Nyingma traditions. He has been translating, teaching, and practising in these schools for thirty-five years. He is well known for his teaching, contributions to the translation of Tibetan Buddhism, and major works in preserving and re-publishing Tibetan Buddhist texts.

Contents: Samantabhadra's Prayer, Volume I with Indian Commentary by Nagarjuna and Thorough Explanation by Tony Duff
Introduction	v
1. The Importance of Samantabhadra's Prayer	x
1.1. It is one of the Five Important Prayers of the Great Vehicle Tradition	x
1.2. The Prayer's Place in Tibetan Buddhist Practice with a Note on its use in Dzogchen Practice in East Tibet	xii
2. The Origin of Samantabhadra's Prayer	xiii
3. The Prayer is an Extract	xiv
3.1. What are the Extracts like?	xiv
3.2. Problems with the Extracts	xv
3.3. Fixing Problems	xv
4. Explanations of the Prayer	xv
4.1. Indian Commentaries	xvi
4.2. The First Tibetan Commentary on the Prayer	xvii
4.3 Later Tibetan Commentaries on the Prayer	xviii
4.4. A Recent but Very Useful Tibetan Commentary	xx
4.5. A Western Commentary	xxi
5. Translating the Prayer into English	xxii
5.1. In General	xxii
5.2. Specific Issues	xxiii
6. Arrangement of the Materials	xxvi
7. Gender Issues	xxvii
8. Sanskrit	xxviii
9. Supports for Study	xxviii
10. Tibetan Texts	xxix
11. Make a Practice Text	xxix
From the Gandavyuha Sutra: Sudhana Meets with the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra and Samantabhadra expresses the Prayer	1
Samantabhadra's Prayer as Arranged for use by Tibetans	33
Samantabhadra's Prayer as Arranged for use by Non-Tibetans	35
A Thorough Explanation of Samantabhadra's Prayer by Tony Duff	39
An Explanation of Samantabhadra's Prayer by Noble Nagarjuna	169
Glossary of Terms	230
Supports for Study	245
Index	251