The Teaching to the Venerable Nanda on Dwelling in the Womb

In the context of one of the most famous stories in all of Buddhist literature, the story of the Buddha’s half-brother Nanda, The Teaching to the Venerable Nanda on Dwelling in the Womb (Skt. Āryanandagarbhāvakrāntinirdeśa; Tib. ཚེ་དང་ལྡན་པ་དགའ་བོ་ལ་མངལ་ན་གནས་པ་བསྟན་པ།, Wyl. tshe dang ldan pa dga’ bo la mngal na gnas pa bstan pa) offers the Buddha’s detailed account of the thirty-eight weeks of human gestation. The Buddha gives this teaching to Nanda after taking him to visit other realms, as the final method to break Nanda of his infatuation with his beautiful wife and settle him in the monastic life and its result. The sutra explains conception in terms of how a being, in the state between death in one life and birth in the next, enters the womb, and it details the physical composition of the embryo, the suffering of the newborn being, and the miseries experienced over the course of a lifetime. After the concluding verses, there is also an account of Nanda’s past lives. Including as it does the most comprehensive ancient Indian account of gestation, this sūtra was an important source for embryology in Tibetan medicine.

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The Tibetan translation of this sutra can be found in the Heap of Jewels section of the Tibetan Dergé Kangyur, Toh 57

• English translation: The Teaching to the Venerable Nanda on Dwelling in the Womb