Golden Light Sutra ［金光明経］ ( Suvarnaprabhāsa-sūtra or Suvarnaprabhāsottama-sūtra; Chin Chin-kuang-ming-ching;  Konkōmyō-kyō): A sutra that takes the form of a discourse by Shakyamuni on Eagle Peak in Rājagriha, India. There were five Chinese translations, of which three are extant. One is the four-volume Golden Light Sutra translated in the early fifth century by Dharmaraksha. Another is the ten-volume Sovereign Kings of the Golden Light Sutra (also called the Sovereign Kings Sutra) translated in the early eighth century by I-ching. A third is an eight-volume text translated in the late sixth century by Pao-kuei. The Golden Light Sutra teaches that those who embrace this sutra will obtain the protection of the four heavenly kings and other benevolent deities, and that, if a ruler takes faith in the correct teaching, these deities will protect his country. On the other hand, if he fails to protect the correct teaching, the benevolent deities will abandon the nation, and calamities and disasters will occur. In Japan, this sutra was revered as one of the three sutras for the protection of the nation, the other two being the Lotus Sutra and the Benevolent Kings Sutra. Nichiren (1222–1282) quoted from this sutra to support his contention, found in his work On Establishing the Correct Teaching for the Peace of the Land, that Japan in his time was suffering and would continue to suffer calamities and disasters because the benevolent deities had abandoned the nation due to the ruler’s slander of the correct teaching. The Sanskrit text and a Tibetan translation also exist.