The Ugraparipṛcchā Sūtra (The inquiry of Ugra) is an early Indian sutra which is particularly important for understanding the beginnings of Mahayana Buddhism.
[1] The Ugraparipṛcchā Sūtra was one of the first Buddhist texts to be brought to China and it was apparently very popular as it was translated into Chinese six times between the second and fifth centuries, appearing first as Dharma Mirror sutra (Chinese: 法鏡經; pinyin: Fǎjìng jīng) translated by An Xuan and Yan Fotiao during the Later Han[2][3] and then by Dharmarakṣa during the Jin Dynasty.
It was also widely known in India, being one of the most quoted texts in both the Daśabhūmikā Vibhāṣā (The Great Commentary on the "Ten Stages Sutra" attributed to Nagarjuna) and Shantideva's Śikṣāsamuccaya (8th century).
[5] The central themes of the Ugraparipṛcchā Sūtra are the practices of the householder (gṛhin) and those of the bhikṣu (pravrajita) and bhikṣuṇī (pravrajitā),[6] stressing the importance and superiority of the latter group.
The sutra promotes the bodhisattva ideal as a difficult, strictly monastic path, taking thousands of lifetimes to complete and suited only for the few.