Abstract
Mahāyāna sūtras are obviously texts in the conventional sense of the word, but how they work as texts, the purposes they serve, and the manner in which they are constructed have so far attracted comparatively little sustained theoretical attention of the sort that goes beyond specific examples. This paper addresses itself to two well-known formal features of this voluminous genre which have yet to receive the critical reflection they deserve. The first is a pervasive self-referentiality, taking various forms, some of them fairly straightforward, even banal, others highly challenging and paradoxical in their effect. The second feature is the use of formulas and lists, not singly, but in combination, in a way which expands a theme along two or more axes or vectors concurrently. These two features, while by no means exhaustive of all the things that make Mahāyāna sūtras the distinctive type of scripture they are, provide evidence of a passion for complexity which seems to be part of their DNA. Intensely generative of ever greater amounts of text, these features blur and even erase the boundaries between the creators of texts, the writers and speakers, and their consumers, the readers and hearers. In this paper they are explored with special reference to a small number of sūtras, some of which are demonstrably early productions of the Mahāyāna movement.
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Notes
As Sarah Shaw (2021, pp. 5–6) points out, such studies are rare even for the suttas of the Pāli Nikāyas. Second-order reflection on Mahāyāna sūtras has occasionally been attempted, to be sure, and one could point to the especially provocative contributions of Alan Cole (2005) and Natalie Gummer (2012, etc.) as prime examples of this. Their work calls for a response, but this is not the place to offer it.
It goes without saying that I am not the first to do this. An especially stimulating and insightful set of critical reflections is offered by Gummer 2012, which anticipates some of what I have to say in this paper, but deals exclusively with one text, the Suvarṇaprabhāsottama-sūtra. Cole 2005 also offers a provocative and comprehensive consideration of this theme on the basis of four texts, but some of his interpretive moves are in my view problematic.
For example, in the Vajracchedikā prajñāpāramitā (hereafter Vaj), we find such passages in sections §§8, 11, 12, 13e, 14b, 14h, 15a, 15b, 16a, 16b, 24, 32a. In earlier recensions of the text the sequence of verbs usually appears in a more truncated form, on which see Harrison & Watanabe 2006, pp. 101–102.
The number varies from one to eight or even more, but it is possible that even if only one or two are given, that might be intended as the trigger for the recitation of the entire sequence. In other words, the full list may often be implicit.
All references to and citations from the text draw on Harrison (1990).
See, e.g. §§8K, vv. 18–19, 9A, 9D, 9H, 9I, 9J, 10A, 10B, 11A, 11B, 12A, 12B, 13B (an especially important passage), 13Lv6, v11, 14C, 14D, 14Eff., 14Jvv1, 9–13 (which deal with “reciting this samādhi”), 15G, 16K, 16L, 18J, 19Dv6, 23P, 23Q, 23R, 23T, 23U, 23W, 23X, vv. 3–7, 11–15, 24A, 24C, 24D, 24G, 26D. Note that this is not a full listing of all the passages in which “the samādhi” is mentioned, far from it, but only those in which a reading of it as referring also or even exclusively to the text is unavoidable.
It is possible that this brief discussion of the issue oversimplifies it, insofar as it does not address Andrew Skilton’s provocative thesis (Skilton 2002) that samādhi in various samādhi sūtras refers not to a meditative practice (in the normal sense) but to a list of items. If the thesis is accepted, and samādhi is understood as inventory, then the distinction we are drawing between text and practice is blurred even more. In this paper there is insufficient space to pursue such problems further, but for some earlier thoughts on the interplay of practice and text, see Harrison (2003).
I am indebted for this insight to Christian Wedemeyer, in a talk delivered at Stanford in December 2016 and now to appear in a special issue of History of Religions devoted to the rhetoric of Mahāyāna sūtras (see Wedemeyer forthcoming). In performance theory the fourth wall is an imaginary barrier at the front of the stage dividing the actors from the audience, which, to the extent that it is not breached, helps the audience to maintain the illusion that what they are seeing is real and unconnected with them, and not a mere performance—in other words, it supports their willing suspension of disbelief. The audience can see through this invisible wall, while the actors behave as if they cannot, and are unaware of the presence of the audience. It is, however, a common dramatic convention for actors to “break the fourth wall,” e.g., by turning and speaking directly to the audience, in order to achieve various effects.
Into this category of passages fall claims about the place where the text is recited, etc., becoming shrines or like shrines (caitya, caityabhūta), on the basis of which Gregory Schopen wrote his highly influential article on the Mahāyāna cult of the book (Schopen, 1975). The resulting cult centres and their shrines were convincingly demolished by Drewes (2007), but see also Harrison (2006, p. 148, n. 57) for an earlier attempt to emphasize the likelihood that such passages imply personal relationships and social dynamics rather than actual places and physical structures.
Such a gambit might conceivably pay off, for example, with the Samādhirāja, which within itself contains a kind of listing of approximately 330 things which is indeed referred to as the sarvadharmasvabhāvasamatāvipañcitasamādhi, and is repeated on three different occasions in somewhat different forms (in Chapters 1, 17 and 39 of the Sanskrit text), but even so, it is still difficult to understand the sūtra’s innumerable references to “this samādhi” and “this sūtra” as applying only to this list.
Gummer (2012, p. 149ff.) explores this same pattern in the Suvarṇaprabhāsottama-sūtra.
It is anachronistic to refer to this text as the AsPP, since it is highly unlikely for it in this form to have been 8,000 ślokas (i.e. 256,000 syllables) long. The Gāndhārī version, like the Indic text translated by Lokakṣema, must have been a much shorter work.
Karashima has in certain places not correctly aligned the Gāndhārī and the Chinese, and this has led to misunderstanding the import of the text. My own study of the manuscript was carried out in the context of a group project with Richard Salomon, Timothy Lenz and many others, to whom I record my thanks here. The inferences I draw from the material are my own, and so is the responsibility for any errors in interpretation.
A translation of this chapter from the Gāndhārī can be found in Salomon (2018, pp. 353–358). In some places I would interpret the text differently, but it should be noted that the need to rely on conjectural restorations where the manuscript has gaps makes translation more than usually difficult.
Once more the reference is somewhat fuzzy, although the idea of the prajñāpāramitā as text is dominant.
Since the beginning of the sequence is lost in the Gāndhārī, we follow the translation of Lokakṣema.
The verb used to jump from one level to the next is tiṣṭhatu in the later Sanskrit text, tiṭhadu in the Gāndhārī.
It is here that the Gāndhārī text starts, at a point corresponding to T 224, 8:436c22–26, and not 436c17ff., as in Falk and Karashima (2013, p. 105). The consequence is the obvious mismatch in Falk & Karashima 2013 between Gāndhārī, Sanskrit and Chinese through to p. 109. Even Salomon 2018 does not stitch the Sanskrit and the Gāndhārī together in the right place.
Here we present the reading of Kumārajīva’s version, although Lokakṣema is close, and so is the Gāndhārī, the three texts having a fair degree of consistency. The progression in the Gāndhārī, for example runs from (1) giving the perfection of insight as a book to others to copy, to (2) reciting it oneself and giving it to another to copy, and then to (3) reciting it oneself and teaching its meaning to another. It is possible that (3) implicitly includes the giving of the book. The implicit assumption of literacy on the part of the faithful, especially the ability to write, is striking, and calls for further reflection about the social status of the implied audience of the text.
The translation of this part, although correct as far as it goes, fails to convey the almost hypnotic cadence of the Sanskrit, in which each term is paired, nominative with dative (“believer to believer, devotee to devotee, etc.”).
See Wogihara (1932, pp. 288–289): bhagavān āha | ataḥ sa kauśika kulaputro vā kuladuhitā vā bahutaraṁ puṇyaṁ prasavet yaḥ imāṁ prajñāpāramitām antaśaḥ pustakagatām api kṛtvā ’bhiśraddadhad abhiśraddadhate avakalpayann avakalpayate adhimuñcann adhimuñcate prasannacittaḥ prasannacittāya adhyāśayasaṁpanno ’dhyāśayasaṁpannāya bodhāya cittam utpādya samutpāditabodhicittāya bodhisattvāya adhyāśayena dadyād antaśo likhanāyāpi vācanāyāpy akilāsitayā saṁpādayed udyukto ’muṁ grāhayet sandarśayet samādāpayet samuttejayet saṁpraharṣayed vācā neṣyati vineṣyaty artham asyā asmai saṁprakāśayiṣyaty evaṁ cāsya cittaṁ viśodhayiṣyati nirvicikitsaṁ kariṣyati evaṁ cainaṁ vakṣyaty ehi tvaṁ kulaputrāsminn eva bodhisattvamārge śikṣasvātra hi tvaṁ śikṣamāṇaś caran vyāyacchamānaḥ kṣipram evānuttarāṁ samyaksaṁbodhim abhisaṁbhotsyase | abhisaṁbudhya cāparimitāṁ sattvadhātum anuttare upadhisaṁkṣaye ’bhivineṣyasi yad uta bhūtakoṭiprabhāvanatāyām iti ||. The same passage, with minor variations, is repeated in Wogihara (1932, pp. 291, 292, 293–295, 296–297, 300–301, 302, 303–304, 305, 306–307, 308, 309, 311, 312–313, 314). Cf. the translation provided by Salomon (2018, p. 353) and the less satisfactory, truncated rendition in Conze (1975, pp. 120–121). Interestingly, this refrain does not form part of the sequence in the Pañcaviṃśatikā.
This brief excursus has the additional merit of clarifying a hitherto puzzling passage in the PraS, at §3F, which represents the teaching of the Dharma as expounding the fact that things we normally take to be impermanent, including the elements and the aggregates, do not perish, are not destroyed.
Or, according to some Chinese versions, if they were to be made to conceive the aspiration. A causative reading of the Sanskrit text of the AsPP is also possible, at least in parts of the text, yielding a much better fit with the thrust of the preceding passages, which turn on the merit derived from bringing others to a higher spiritual state. Turning all the beings in Jambudvīpa and so on into bodhisattvas is thus one step up from making them pratyekabuddhas, turning them into avaivartika bodhisattvas is better, and turning them into buddhas, when they wish to reach their final attainment as soon as possible, is best. It is instructive that this is the unmistakable sense of the Pañcaviṃśatikā’s elaboration of this part of the text.
In fact, my own attempt to devise some kind of notation with which to chart the permutations of the various versions proved incapable of capturing them fully, and so I abandoned the exercise.
The implication may be that these are bodhisattvas on the point of attaining the goal of Buddhahood, at the very end of the path.
For example, the Gāndhārī Prajñāpāramitā seems to propose the following sequence: to write the perfection of insight as a book and give to others; to recite it to oneself, write it as a book and give to others; to recite it to oneself and teach the meaning to others; to write it as a book, give to others and urge to train; to write it as a book, give to bodhisattvas and urge to train; to write it as a book, give to non-regressing bodhisattvas and urge to train; to write it as a book, teach to bodhisattvas in spirit and letter; to write it as a book, give and teach to non-regressing bodhisattvas; to teach the perfection of insight to bodhisattvas wanting to attain awakening more quickly. Kumārajīva, on the other hand, runs through the following options: to give the perfection of insight as a book to others and have them copy and recite it; to recite it for others oneself; to explain its meaning for others oneself; to give it as a book to others and have them copy and recite it, telling them they should acquire its merit and blessings; to give it as a book to a single non-regressing bodhisattva, urging them to train in it; to give it as a book to a single non-regressing bodhisattva, explaining its meaning for them; to teach the perfection of insight to a single bodhisattva wanting to attain awakening more quickly.
The beginning of the sequence is lost in the manuscript, but it would add not add very much to the overall length.
In Kimura’s edition of the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā this section of the text fills 17.5 pages, but as we might expect, this is partly the result of commentarial additions typical of the larger Prajñāpāramitā sūtras.
See Karashima (2011, pp. xii–xiii) for an excellent summary statement of the relationship between the seven Chinese translations of the AsPP, only some of which we have investigated for this paper. The full range of correspondences and differences for the textual sequence in question here, with copious annotation, can be seen on pp. 112–126 of Karashima’s most useful monograph. We set aside here any detailed discussion of what happens to this section of the sūtra in the Sanskrit texts of the larger Prajñāpāramitā (Pañcaviṃśatikā, Śatasāhasrikā, etc.), where we find, as expected, differential expansion and contraction. E.g., for the Pañcaviṃśatikā cf. Kimura (1986, pp. 104–120) and for an English translation of the equivalent text Conze (1979, pp. 259–267).
From the Sanskrit text: tat kiṁ manyase kauśika api nu sa kulaputro vā kuladuhitā vā tatonidānaṁ bahu puṇyaṁ prasavet | śakra āha | bahu bhagavan bahu sugata |. Cf. the Gāndhārī wording: ta ki mañasi kośiḡa avi ṇu so kulaputro va kuladhida vi bahu puño prasavea | aha | bahu bhaṃte bhagava |, or similar.
Finally, we should note that Conze’s English translation of our sequence, although ostensibly based on the highly extended Sanskrit text, manages by dint of abbreviation and downright omission to compress it into a little over two pages (Conze 1975, pp. 120–123). Simply by reading Conze’s translation one would get no clear idea of how the Sanskrit text actually proceeds.
Here referred to using the alternative form Śārisuta metri causa.
Text after Wogihara and Tsuchida (1934–1935, pp. 30–31) (with some modifications):
sace va sarvā iya lokadhātu pūrṇā bhavec chārisutopamānām /
ekībhavitvāna vicintayeyuḥ sugatasya jñānaṃ na hi śakya jānitum // 2.9 //
sace ha tvaṃsādṛśakehi paṇḍitaiḥ pūrṇā bhaveyur daśa pi ddiśāyo /
ye cāpi mahyaṃ imi śrāvakā ’nye teṣāṃ pi pūrṇā bhavi evam eva // 2.10 //
ekībhavitvāna ca te ’dya sarve vicintayeyuḥ sugatasya jñānam /
na śakta sarve sahitā pi jñātuṃ yathāprameyaṃ mama buddhajñānam // 2.11 //
pratyekabuddhāna anāsravāṇāṃ tīkṣṇendriyāṇāntimadehadhāriṇām /
diśo daśaḥ sarva bhaveyu pūrṇāḥ yathā naḍānāṃ vana veṇunāṃ vā // 2.12 //
eko bhavitvāna vicintayeyur mamāgradharmāṇa pradeśamātram /
kalpāna koṭīnayutān anantān na tasya bhūtaṃ parijāni artham // 2.13 //
navayānasaṃprasthita bodhisattvāḥ kṛtādhikārā bahubuddhakoṭiṣu /
suviniścitārthā bahudharmabhāṇakās teṣāṃ pi pūrṇā daśimā diśo bhavet // 2.14 //
naḍāna veṇūna va nityakālam acchidrapūrṇo bhavi sarvalokaḥ /
ekībhavitvāna vicintayeyur yo dharma sākṣāt sugatena dṛṣṭaḥ // 2.15 //
anucintayitvā bahukalpakoṭyo gaṅgā yathā vālika aprameyāḥ /
ananyacittāḥ sukhumāya prajñayā teṣāṃ pi cāsmin viṣayo na vidyate // 2.16 //
avivartikā ye bhavi bodhisattvā analpakā yathariva gaṅgavālikāḥ /
ananyacittāś ca vicintayeyus teṣāṃ pi cāsmin viṣayo na vidyate // 2.17 //
Additionally, the object of all the pondering is reduced in v. 13 (“even a part”)—but this does not appear to lead to a progression (if it did, it would yield a fourth vector)—while the later verses accentuate the degree of concentration applied to the exercise (ananyacitta, “with no other thought in mind”).
Although it may appear to be making a general point, it is arguable that here too the sūtra is in fact referring to itself: the knowledge of the Blessed One (sugatasya jñānam), what the Buddha knows, is what all Buddhas know, i.e. the teaching of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka itself.
The attribution cannot be sustained (see Harrison forthcoming), but that is of no consequence for our present purposes.
The complete sequence occupies almost three folios in the Derge version: Derge Mdo sde Tsha 58a2–60b2. The same basic sequence—with some differences in the wording—is found in the sole Chinese translation of the text, T 305, the Xinli ruyin famen jing 信力入印法門經 (early 6th century), where it takes up nearly two whole pages of the Taishō (10:956b2–957c26).
Tib. brgyad pa. See BHSD, s.v. aṣṭamaka. It is not clear how or why this rank is distinguished here from the next, since the term usually denotes a srotaāpanna.
These unusual terms are explained in the related Niyatāniyatāvatāramudrāsūtra, also cited at this point in the Sūtrasamuccaya, where we learn that the first two are capable of turning back from awakening, the last three are not. It may be that the insertion of these five types of bodhisattvas in the sequence, which we might expect to culminate with the Buddhas, is an intrusive borrowing from that text.
The Upaniṣads provide some excellent examples of formulaic repetition, e.g., in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka, Chāndogya and Taittirīya Upaniṣads, among others.
The difference between Mainstream and Mahāyāna texts in the use of formulas seems therefore to be one of degree, not of kind, although the use of builds, progressions or crescendo effects in the latter may be distinctive. Self-reference, however, appears to be a Mahāyāna innovation, but further examination of Mainstream sources is required to establish whether it has any antecedents in them at all. Furthermore, it would be instructive to investigate whether this degree of complexity in the play of formulas in Mahāyāna sūtras does in fact occur in contexts which are not self-referential.
I thank Justin McDaniel for stimulating my thinking here, in a keynote address which he delivered online at the 2021 UKABS Conference in Edinburgh concerning how to interpret (or not interpret) the decorative excesses of Thai Buddhist temple interiors (“Cajoleries, Thin Description, and Non-Human Ontology.”). In this talk he drew on the concepts of “thin description” and “surface reading” following Heather Love (2013). What works for Buddhist material culture might also work for Buddhist scripture, at least in some of its expressions.
For example, the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa contains no multi-vector formulaic passages, and very little in the way of self-reference, until we come to the end of the text (§§11.8–9, 12.1–6, 16–17, 20–23), but this self-reference is never of the paradoxical type—which is not surprising, given that this sūtra thematizes its situatedness in this Sahā world, one of whose inhabitants plays a leading role in it. On the other hand, the Sarvapuṇyasamuccayasamādhi-sūtra is packed with formulaic passages in its opening section, as well as a goodly amount of self-reference throughout the text, with some of it of the kinds we designate as fuzzy and paradoxical, while the Samādhirāja, long and complicated as it is, is shot through with self-reference of all kinds but contains no multi-vector formulaic passages at all.
So the Sanskrit text in my forthcoming new edition: āttamanā sthavirasubhūtis te ca bhikṣubhikṣuṇyupāsakopāsikāḥ sadevamānuṣāsuragandharvaś ca loko bhagavato bhāṣitam abhyanandann iti. Cf. Harrison 2006: 159. Such endings are modelled on those found (but not invariably) in Mainstream sūtras.
Again, Gummer 2012 makes some interesting points with regard to the well-known Indian dramatic concept of rasa and the deployment of this term in the Suvarṇaprabhāsa (see esp. pp. 144–146), observing that the sūtra “clearly participates in and draws upon broader South Asian dramatic traditions” (p. 145). My sense is that the Suvarṇaprabhāsa may be something of an outlier in terms of the degree to which its invocation of dramatic theory is explicit, but in any case, what interests me is the possibility of a deeper, more organic connection.
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This is a revised version of a paper first presented at the workshop “The Idea of Text in Buddhism” held at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel (HUJI), December 10–12, 2019. A shortened version was later given as an online paper for the 65th International Conference of Eastern Studies/Tōhō gakkai held in Tokyo on May 15, 2021. I owe a warm vote of thanks to Dr. Eviatar Shulman for the invitation to the HUJI meeting, as well as for the stimulating conversations that followed it, in which we continued to discuss the issues raised at the workshop, and much else besides. This paper is all the better for the many suggestions that Tari so kindly offered on it; for the remaining imperfections, I alone am responsible.
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Harrison, P. Bending Minds and Winning Hearts: On the Rhetorical Uses of Complexity in Mahāyāna Sūtras. J Indian Philos 50, 649–670 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10781-021-09502-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10781-021-09502-0