Mahayana sutras

This dissertation deals with the Buddhist dhāraṇī, mainly understood as the term selected by Indian Buddhism to assimilate the non-Buddhist notion of mantra. In the Introduction the two major categories of dhāraṇīs are defined, i.e., the ‘formulaic’
and ‘syllabic’ dhāraṇīs. In Chapter 1 the two sources for the emergence of dhāraṇīs are studied: the non-Buddhist source being focused on the non-Vedic, Vedic and Śaiva Tantric factors, and the Buddhist one being focused on several mainstream Buddhist and Mahāyāna factors. It continues with a study on the Dhāraṇī Scriptures’ emergence and their inclusion within Vajrayāna Tantras. Chapter 2 provides a detailed summary
on the traditional definitions of the dhāraṇī term, its synonyms, compound terms, and its pairing with other Dharma qualities. It is followed by a survey on how the dhāraṇī term is defined and classified according to key Indian Mahāyāna Sūtras and Śāstras,
and the Indo-Tibetan and East Asian Vajrayāna traditions. Chapter 3 is focused on the dhāraṇī practice, first dealing with its ethical basis, its non-ritual and ritual approaches, and its mundane and supramundane accomplishments, and then the main dhāraṇī practices are analysed intended for worldly and soteriological purposes. The dissertation closes with five Appendices including a study on a set of early Vedic mantras appearing within the Buddhist dhāraṇīs, an analysis of the ‘formulaic’ and ‘syllabic’ dhāraṇīs, a survey on mantras/dhāraṇīs accepted by several mainstream Buddhist schools, and another one on mantras/dhāraṇīs within Mahāyāna Scriptures,
and finally, a ‘References’ list providing a comprehensive and updated bibliography in several Western languages mainly focused on Buddhist mantras/dhāraṇīs.

This study explores self-referential passages in Mahāyāna sutra literature. It argues that these passages serve to mediate a reader or listener's approach to a text in much the same manner as paratexts mediate one's approach to a text through external or adjacent devices such as commentaries; these passages, rather than being paratextual and outside of a text, are rather within the body of the text itself. This study explicates the types of self-referential passages in Mahāyāna literature, including encouragement to practice and propagate the text; turning it into a book; preserving the text; statements regarding the text's benefits; identification of the text with other qualities or principles; the qualifications required for obtaining the text; and passages for the entrustment of the text. After noting the relative absence of such passages outside of Mahāyāna literature, it is argued that such passages reveal that for some of the adherents of the disparate early Mahāyāna, textuality was a medium of unprecedented value and utility in promoting novel texts and doctrines.

Mahayana Sutras, largely composed in the first half of the first millennium CE, are situated within the normative gender hierarchies of the ancient cultures of South Asia. Therefore, for the most part, they do not espouse gender equity. is vast textual corpus has constituted and informed the teachings and praxis of Buddhism across Asia both historically and today, inclusive of the fairly recent entrance of Zen and Tibetan traditions in the West. Such texts include the highly revered Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sutra, which has itself long been personified as a goddess who continues to be honored in both Eastern and Western Buddhist traditions. As explored further below, Mahayana sutras made certain doctrinal concessions to female practitioners who aspired to take up the bodhisattva vow, particularly when we compare female access to the path toward buddhahood in Mahayana versus mainstream texts. Nonetheless, as numerous scholars have noted, Mahayana sutras appear to generally prohibit female devotees from advancing to the highest levels of bodhisattvahood until they have been reborn as male. The present article suggests that the Gaṇḍavyūha Sūtra puts female bodhisattvas on an equal footing with most of its advanced and enlightened male bodhisattvas. I also assert that there is an urgency to revisit this text as evidence of a shift in the attitudes of Mahayana Buddhist authors toward the representation of female bodhisattva enlightenment, particularly because issues of soteriological equity had—and continue to have—a gendered impact on Buddhist audiences.

The self-referential strategies of Mahāyāna sūtras are woven with time. As recent scholarship has demonstrated, the conception of time as linear, quantifiable, and homogeneous is strongly privileged both in secular history and in much of contemporary life—indeed, to such an extent that different understandings of time are all too easily viewed as evidence of false consciousness. Without denying the considerable insight to be gained by means of the historicist lens through which most contemporary scholars (myself included) usually approach the interpretation of Buddhist sūtras, I seek in this paper to explore the temporal alternatives found in the sūtras themselves. I focus in particular on the temporal frameworks and strategies employed in the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka and the Suvarṇa[pra]bhāsottama, which frequently intervene in the past, present, and future of their audiences. What might we learn by attending to the tension between historical readings of these texts and the temporal frameworks at play in the sūtras themselves? How might the conceptions and experiences of time offered by the sūtras challenge our assumptions about time and history? Are we able to imagine a form of historiography that does not require the imposition of a single temporal framework? I analyze the conceptions and manipulations of time in these sūtras with the aim of identifying alternative hermeneutical approaches and expanding our temporal understanding.

A good deal of important scholarship on early Indian Mah ay ana Buddhism has been done in recent years. Well established theories, such as the theory that the Mah ay ana arose as a lay reaction to the arhat ideal and the theory that it arose from the Mah as a _ mghika monastic lineage, have been rejected, and a number of new theories, perhaps most notably theories linking Mah ay ana to forest ascetics and to a 'cult of the book,' have been put forward. Part 1 of this article surveys and evaluates these recent developments. Part 2 will present a number of new perspectives for future scholarship.

Mahāyāna Buddhism, hostile to any kind of conceptual construction (vikalpa), which is blamed for operating artificial delimitations within a homogenous and amorphous reality, presents its own doctrine not as a “truth” but rather as psychological “skill-in-means” (upāya), which aims at liberating humans from the illusory reality cast by their own mental discriminations. Thus, doctrine is denied all cognitive value, both in respect to a metaphysical level of reality and in respect to the mere empirical level. Its validity pertains to the psychological efficiency that it could display in the process of “counter-acting/opposing” the errors that ensnare humans. Therefore, the issue of religious truth is transferred from the cognitive sphere to the psychological and existential sphere, its value being of a rather therapeutic type.
The doctrine is considered as an antidote (pratipaksa) which has the sole role of denying the reality of the various mental constructions which create the sphere where the self inflicted human drama takes place. Thus, the doctrine is deprived not only of cognitive value but also of objectivity, its efficiency depending on the existence of some particular errors, of a particular type of bondage. The actual content of a religious teaching does not reflect an „objective truth” but rather a particular kind of error, which is denounced and rejected by the doctrine. Buddhist texts even utterly state that it is not possible to identify an own-meaning of the term „void” (sūnya), the main soteriological concept of Buddhism, which gets a sense only in association with another term, whom it could determine. Thus, religious teachings have more to do with subjective errors than with an objective truth.
Therefore, Buddhism does not hesitate to claim the voidness of its own path („the voidness of voidness” - sūnyatāsūnyatā), which is considered only as a temporary useful tool, which must be itself discarded during the process of liberation. The old school of Buddhism, Hīnayāna, is blamed for having developed an extremely elaborated psychological analysis which turned to be itself an obstacle on the path to liberation; this way, their religion itself opposed the accomplishment of the religious goal.
Mahāyāna Buddhism considers its own doctrine in a relativist, instrumental manner, rather existential and therapeutic than cognitive and metaphysical.

Keywords: Buddhism; Mahāyāna; doctrine; void; pluralism; relativism; non-cognitive religion.

RELS 323 Mahāyāna Buddhism examines, in a selected survey format, the classification, cultural formations, literature, and systematic thought of Mahāyāna doctrines and practices utilizing a range of interdisciplinary methods and approaches. The course focuses on the problems of classification and definition; the "new metaphysics" of emptiness; controversies in the conception of Buddhahood; the centrality of compassion; visualization and other meditation techniques; the role of faith and the practices of lay people; and the development of the bodhisattva ideal.

This thesis is a study of the Māṃsabhakṣaṇaparivarta (The Chapter on Meat-Eating) of the Laṅkāvatārasūtra, one of the key scriptures of the Yogācāra school of Mahāyāna Buddhism which in turn was a key influence on the Chan/Zen schools of China and Japan.

The Māṃsabhakṣaṇaparivarta argues strongly that a bodhisattva should abstain from eating meat. In doing so it not only argues against but flatly contradicts earlier Buddhist scriptures with which its audience would have been familiar. The Māṃsabhakṣaṇaparivarta is unusual for a Buddhist text in the strength of the rhetoric it employs against those who hold a different view. This suggests that at the time the text was composed, the debate around whether Buddhists were obliged to abstain from eating meat or not was a heated one. Indeed, the popularity of the Laṅkāvatārasūtra in China and Japan was a major factor in promoting vegetarianism in those societies – particularly amongst Buddhist monks and nuns.

I use philological methods, and an intertextual theoretical approach to analysing this text, drawing on the key concepts of the ideologeme and the horizontal and vertical axes of a text first used by the French theoretician Julia Kristeva, as well as Roland Barthes' concept of the death of the author.

I attempt to place the Māṃsabhakṣaṇaparivarta in its historical and ideological context by tracing links to not only Buddhist texts, but also texts and ideas from the Jaina and Brahminical traditions. In the main part of the thesis I examine the text thematically, looking at the rules on the permissibility of meat-eating found in early Buddhism, the issue of karma and the karmic effects of meat-eating, loving kindness and compassion as a motivation for abstaining from meat-eating, desire as a motivation for meat-eating, the role of meat-eating and vegetarianism in the competition for support between Buddhism and other Indian religious traditions, the question of purity, and finally examine discussions of vegetarianism in other Mahāyāna texts specifically mentioned in the Māṃsabhakṣaṇaparivarta.

This book is about the spiritual journey that took a skeptic to the discovery of Pure Land Buddhism. You will find many different quotes from the buddhist sacred texts (sutras) and the commentaries and teachings of the great masters of the past.  Modern research is analized  in order to point to the core truths taught in the Dharma (the Buddhist teachings) like rebirth, the 6 realms of samsara and the existence of different universes or world-systems. The offers reflections to question beliefs about yourself and the world in order to transcend your doubts and deeply reflect upon the Buddhist teachings, and the Pure Land Dharma method as taught in the Chinese Pure Land School, the most popular and cheriched Mahayana school in Asia which is centered in Amitabha Buddha and His Wester Pure Land of Utmost Bliss.

Those who study Yoga and Buddhist literature  can find a similarity between the Vedic and Buddhist perspectives of Yoga.
We can see a strong yogic
influence on Buddhism. This similarity between Vedic and Buddhist
thoughts is quite natural, as Buddha was born in Jambudvipa (India was called Jambudvipa in ancient literature), in the land of Vedic tradition. It was after Buddha had passed away Buddhism became a religion. We can find the accounts of a Shiva-Buddha teaching that existed in Indonesia in medieval times. All Hindus even today accept Buddha as a great teacher, even if they do not follow Buddhism as a religion. Some say, Yoga is neither Vedic nor Buddhist. It began as an independent, very ancient Indian thought and
tradition which gained universal acceptability.

The concept of the “single vehicle” (Skt. ekayāna, 一乘, Ch. yisheng, Jpn. ichijō) is found in various Buddhist sūtras which are classified as “Mahāyāna”  sūtras, such as the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka, Śrīmālādevīsiṃhanādanirdeśa, and Laṅkāvatāra. In general, these sūtras utilize the term ekayāna in the sense of the “one path” or “one vehicle” that leads to full Buddhahood as opposed to other paths that are considered unreal. The single vehicle (ekayāna) is famously celebrated in the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka (hereafter, Lotus Sūtra), whose characterization of the ekayāna strongly influenced forms of Buddhism in East Asia, and continues to have an impact on present day knowledge of Mahāyāna forms of Buddhism. Other Mahāyāna discourses, however, vary in their description of the ekayāna and the concept has been subject to a number of diverse interpretations throughout the history of Buddhism.  This paper examines the characteristics of ekayàna found in the Lotus sūtra and compares these to the characteristics found in the Avaivartikacakra sūtra to gain a greater understanding of the notion of ekayāna in self-proclaimed Mahāyāna sūtras that become more prominent from the second century CE onwards.

En primer lugar, debe entenderse claramente que este no es un estudio académico, secular o histórico, sino un comentario religioso. Su objetivo es explicar en términos fáciles de entender el significado profundo del Sutra más grande  para que así las personas puedan recibir fe en el Buda Amida  y nacer en Su Tierra Pura después de la muerte. Yo, el autor de este comentario, acepto con fe el contenido del sutra y considero que describe eventos reales, un Buda real y existente llamado Amida y un lugar iluminado real llamado la Tierra Pura. El deseo de mi corazón es que los lectores lleguen a compartir la misma opinión para que surja la verdadera fe y aspiración en ellos. Hay muchas maneras de leer el Sutra más grande y existen varias capas de  interpretación, por eso se benefician diferentes tipos de practicantes: aquellos que optan por enfocarse en el Buda Amida pero aún se aferran a su poder propio como seguidores de los votos 19 y 20, así como los seguidores del Voto Primordial (el Voto 18) quienes son practicantes que confían exclusivamente en el poder del Buda Amida.

Sin embargo, debido a que el Jodo Shinshu es la escuela del Voto Primordial, este comentario y explicación está escrito desde la perspectiva del Voto Primordial y la total confianza en el Poder del Buda Amida.

Como soy un ser no-iluminado con muchas limitaciones, mi comentario no puede ser perfecto. Solo un Buda puede enseñar perfectamente su propia enseñanza. Sin embargo, debido a que ningún Buda ahora está aquí en forma humana, hice mi mejor esfuerzo, invocando la ayuda y las bendiciones de Amida, para explicárselo a mis compañeros de viaje en el Camino del Nembutsu. Lo hice especialmente porque hay muchos malentendidos con respecto al sutra entre los practicantes Jodo Shinshu y muchas personas encuentran obstáculos y supuestas contradicciones cuando lo leen sin una guía previa. Esta es la razón por la cual los miembros y seguidores del templo Amidaji deberían considerar este comentario como su guía para leer y estudiar el Sutra más grande.
En mi comentario, usé principalmente la traducción al inglés del Rev. Hisao Inagaki  y, a veces, la del Centro Internacional Hongwanji.
Esta traducción incluye, además de mi comentario, una traducción del sutra más grande al español  (hecha por el mismo traductor del comentario) basada en las mencionadas versiones en inglés que he usado.

Estoy muy agradecido con mi amigo del Dharma,
Juan Sebastián Hincapié Arana de Colombia por la traducción del texto al español.

Namo Amida Bu,
Josho Adrian Cîrlea

English version here, https://amida-ji-retreat-temple-romania.blogspot.com/2019/01/commentary-on-sutra-on-buddha-of.html

KUMĀRAJĪVA’s early 5th century translation entitled the Xiaŏpĭn Bānruòbōluómì Jīng (小品般若波羅蜜經), i.e. the Small Section Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, is the fourth of seven Chinese translations of the early Mahāyāna text commonly known by its Sanskrit name the Aṣṭasāhasrikā, or in English the Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines. While this text has generated great interest among scholars of Budhism, many have relied on the Sanskrit recensions, which are considerably later than the Xiaŏpĭn, representing an earlier source. Even within the text as a whole, the first two chapters (of the Sanskrit) have been a focus of numerous philological attempts to ascertain a possible ur-text. As such, the translation here is of the corresponding Chinese content of the Xiaŏpĭn, namely chapters one, two, and the start of chapter three. Before the translation proper, the Introduction discusses the source and its editions, provides an overview of the doctrinal content of these two chapters, and discusses the voice and policy of our translation. The English translation is not an attempt to return to its now unknown Sanskrit original, nor by reading it through later Chinese traditions, but as close as we can understand to KUMĀRAJĪVA’s own understanding and translation technique. The entire English translation is critically annotated, marking significant points of interest both internally within the text, but also externally when compared to the other Chinese translations and later Sanskrit recensions.

Mahāyāna streams of Buddhism have had a profound impact on the shape of Buddhist formations in India, throughout Asia, and beyond. This course examines, in a selected survey format, the classification, cultural formations, literature, and systematic thought of Mahāyāna doctrines and practices utilizing a range of interdisciplinary methods and approaches. The course focuses on the problems of classification and definition; the "new metaphysics" of emptiness; controversies in the conception of Buddhahood; the centrality of compassion; visualization and other meditation techniques; the role of faith and the practices of lay people; and the development of the bodhisattva ideal.

"This article examines the occurrence of the phrase dharmaparyāyo hastagato,  “having the enumeration of the teaching in one’s hand,” in a select number of  texts classified as Mahāyāna sūtras and theorizes its occurrence in relation to the use of the book (pustaka) in the religious cultures of middle period (Common Era to fifth/sixth centuries) Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism. In recent scholarly discourse,  the “cult of the book” in Mahāyāna Buddhist formations has been hypothesized to occur in relation to shrines (caitya) or not even to have occurred at all. This article suggests an alternative hypothesis. The paper first analyzes the syntax and composition of the terms dharmaparyāya and the participle hastagata as well as their occurrences within Indian Buddhist literature in Indic languages and in Tibetan and Chinese translations. The paper then identifies the occurrence of the phrase dharmaparyāyo hastagato in a select number of Mahāyāna sūtras and relates this phrase to an observable gradual process of bibliofication, a process where texts increasingly reference themselves as protective objects, that is detectable in the layers of accretion found within the comparative analysis of extant manuscripts. Based on this analysis, the paper concludes that the “cult of the book,” rather than being a stable or local cult phenomena, was comprised of highly mobile and  translocal textual communities who carried their object of veneration with them. "

First of all, it must be clearly understood that this is not an academic, secular or historical study, but a religious commentary. Its goal is to explain in easy to understand terms the deep meaning of the Larger Sutra  so that people can receive faith in Amida Buddha and be born in His Pure Land after death. I, the author of this commentary, accept in faith the contents of the sutra and consider that it describes real events, a real, existing Buddha called Amida  and a real Enlightened place called the Pure Land. My heart’s desire is that readers will come to share the same view so that true faith and aspiration arise in them.

There are many ways to read the Larger Sutra and various layers of interpretation, which is why different types of practitioners benefit from it - those who choose to focus on Amida Buddha but still cling to their self-power like followers of the 19th and 20th Vows, as well as followers of the Primal Vow (18th) who rely exclusively on Amida’s power.
However, because Jodo Shinshu is the school of the Primal Vow, this commentary and explanation is written from the perspective of the Primal Vow and the complete reliance on the Power of Amida Buddha.

As I am an unenlightened being with many limitations my commentary cannot be perfect. Only a Buddha is able to perfectly teach His own teaching. However, because no Buddha is now here in human form, I tried my best, while invoking Amida’s help and blessings, to explain it to my fellow travelers on the Nembutsu Path. I did this especially because there are a lot of misunderstandings regarding the sutra among Jodo Shinshu practitioners and many people find obstacles and so-called contradictions when reading it without prior guidance. This is why members and followers of Amidaji temple should look to this commentary as their guide in reading and studying the Larger Sutra.

In my commentary, I used mostly the English translation of Rev Hisao Inagaki  and sometimes the one by Hongwanji International Centre .

In this essay the principal concepts of a Buddhist educational
theory and pactice, the ‘good friendship’ (kalyāṇamittatā) and ‘good friend’ (kalyāṇamitra/kalyāṇamitta) are discussed in relation to their occurrence in some texts of the Pāli canon and two Mahāyāna sūtras: the Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra in Eight Thousand Lines (Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra) and the Supreme Array Scripture (Gaṇḍavyūha-sūtra). On the basis of excerpts from reference books and source texts, the meaning and content of these terms are analysed and compared and some conclusions are outlined.

From the Preface:

In March 2021, I started reading the Priceless Treasure That is The Buddha-Dharma by Upasaka Li Bing Nan (1890-1986), and found it to be a most excellent Dharma-booklet that made the profound principles of Pure Land Buddhism both accessible and easy to implement in our daily lives. I believe that if a man who has never read the Buddha-sutras were to read this booklet, then this alone would be sufficient to allow him to realize the full benefits of the Buddha-dharma.

My father suggested that such a great booklet should not remain unknown to the wider English speaking community, and so from then on, I started selecting the most important excerpts from his works to translate. Soon, I realized that the wealth of wisdom and knowledge left by the Great Dharma Masters and Eminent Upasakas of the 20th Century, such as the works of Master Yin Guang, Upasaka Huang Nien Tsu, and Upasaka Xia Lian Ju, could scarcely be found in English.

The following article provides a diplomatic edition and analysis of a Dunhuang Tibetan version of the Vīradattaparipṛcchā, the oldest extant Tibetan version of the discourse. The diplomatic edition of the Dunhuang Tibetan version is based on one complete Dunhuang manuscript as well as two small Dunhuang fragments that restores a Tibetan version of the sūtra that existed around the time of the imperially decreed (bkas bcad) language reforms that were finalized in 814 CE.

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/716427

Feel free to contact me if you do not have access to the journal.

Abstract:
In this essay, I analyze the multilayered metaphors of sovereignty and sovereign ritual through which the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka and the Suvarṇa(pra)bhāsa, two Mahāyāna sūtras, represent and enact their own potency. I develop a theory of ritual-poetic speech acts and an interpretative methodology from this analysis. According to these sūtras, the dharma that constitutes them is the verbal essence of sovereignty. It consecrates its listeners through predictions and related speech acts that are activated in the moment of utterance; it proclaims the royal decrees through which buddhas govern reality in their own fields; it embodies all buddhas and makes them present in its eternal ritual- poetic substance. Through the performative strategies mobilized by these metaphors, the sūtras rhetorically position their audiences as subjects of (and subject to) this supreme sovereign power and motivate their engagement in a progressive series of ritual-verbal practices of incorporation by which they are in turn transformed into buddhas with the same sovereign essence. The ritual metaphors and mechanisms through which these transformations are evoked and effected reveal linguistic theories and practices quite different from those that continue to dominate the study of religious texts, and demand that we develop new approaches to the interpretation of these and other texts.

十二处是根触境和合生识的处所，对唯识学来说，十二处是万法所生处。可是十二处像是被动的处所，怎么能够独自生起万法呢？根据根触境和合生识的说法，根应该也是生起万法的主要因素。可是唯识虽然推理有根的存在，但不认为有物质性的根，那是否我们的前五根都是非物质性的根呢？二十二根是早期就有的佛法，通常不被提起也被忽略，这里建立唯识学的根便是二十二根。除了十二处，「种子」是唯识解释宇宙万法的根本，十二处与二十二根共生「种子」便是一个非常重要的课题，而不是简单的归于「法尔本有」。深入探索会发现五蕴、十二有支、色法的四大、甚至四缘五果都出自二十二根。通过这个认识将会深层的了解以上的法，而且根除对于二十二根这么重要的法的严重误会，比如：「男、女二根」、「信等五根」有更深层超越字面上的意思，特别是以为二十二根中的「眼等五根」与「男、女二根」是物质性的根。宇宙万法可以说都是源于二十二根的依、受、生、住的结构。另外，这里也建立十二处的真正意义，一般对于十二处的认识不过是根触境和合生识于十八界的处所，根据「唯识无境」的道理，根不是根而境也不是境，根为二十二根非物质性的根，那么什么是境呢？这里的境便是唯识所谓的「本质」，那么什么是「本质」呢？用今天的术语便是「信息」。因此十二处便是存储「信息」的处所或载体。十二处与二十二根结合能生宇宙万法的「种子」，已被今天科学算出为宇宙「全息图」与「二十二额外维次波色子弦论」的「弦」。

The important soteriological trend placing at its core the ambition to become a perfect buddha progressively suffused Indian Buddhism throughout the Middle Period, that is, between the first and sixth centuries CE. Across South Asia, evidence of various kinds concurs in identifying the late fourth to early sixth century as marking a shift, when the ideas propounded by the Bodhisattva movement became, so to speak, the “main stream”.

The public impact of the Bodhisattva movement may, for instance, be measured by tracing shifts in the ideology of merit. To explore this issue historically, literary sources—and in particular those texts concerned with the generation and assignment of merit—need to be considered in close connection with epigraphical, visual, and archaeological evidence. These sources generally do not present a coherent picture of a gradual path to liberation in the same way as doctrinal works. Yet, the study of what religious agents define as their goal(s) may allow some understanding of the multi-life trajectory that bodhisattvas expected for themselves.

This contribution attempts to determine how donors self-identifying as bodhisattvas  harmoniously combined and hierarchically structured mundane and supramundane goals. I argue that both categories of expectations are in fact reconciled by an implied multi-life path to liberation, whereby benefits such as auspicious rebirths serve, inter alia, as markers of one’s progress toward Awakening. I also suggest that, at the prominent and well-documented site of Ajanta, the concern for rebirth among gods and high-born, beautiful human beings may well relate to the commemorative dimension of many of the fifth- and sixth-century cave dedications. To illustrate my point, I draw on two examples: (1) a series of short donative inscriptions transmitting a formulaic assignment of merit along with a scriptural quotation; (2) an elaborate record in verse composed by a prominent monastic donor and representing a unique document for understanding the ideology of the gift current in that time and place.

The concept of the irreversible (avaivartika) bodhisattva is considered to be one of the more intriguing subjects in the historical development of Mahāyāna Buddhism due to the concept’s prevalence, yet obscure meaning, in many Mahāyāna sūtras. The term occurs in a great number of sūtras in a variety of different forms within various contexts. In most instances the term and its related forms designate a certain status
of attainment on the way to full Buddhahood. The term generally signifies a point reached in the career of a bodhisattva after which there can be no turning back from the attainment of full Buddhahood. The concept of avaivartika (generally translated in Chinese as 不退bu tui, Jpn. futai, “non-regression” or transliterated from the Indic as 阿惟越致 a wei ye zhi, Jpn. ayuiocchi [=avivartiya, avivartya] or 阿é跋致a bi ba zhi, Jpn. abibacchi [=avivartika])1) has great importance in contemporary strands of Mahåyåna Buddhism found in China, Japan, and Tibet.
This paper investigates avaivartika (along with its equivalents) and avaivartikacakra in a select number of self-proclaimed Mahāyāna sūtras. The paper examines the development and formation of avaivartika as a status marking term in Mahāyāna sūtras and explains its rhetorical use among bodhisattva authorial communities.
The paper then discusses the use of the term avaivartikacakra in Mahāyāna discourse with special attention to its occurence in the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka (Lotus sūtra).

The present paper aims to provide a Sanskrit excerpt from the Tathāgataguhyasūtra (or Tathāgatācintyaguhyanirdeśa), which deals with an episode of Maudgalyāyana in quest of the Buddha’s svaramaṇḍala (the range of the Buddha's voice) in the vāgguhya (the secret of the Buddha's speech) chapter. The excerpt is found as a quotation in the Sūtrālaṃkāraparicaya most probably composed by a lay Kashmiri Buddhist, Mahājana (the 11th and 12th century). Although the Tathāgataguhyasūtra is preserved as in a Sanskrit manuscript (a codex unicus preserved at the Asiatic Society of Bengal), the manuscript has some lacunae. One of the lacunae is recovered by the Sanskrit excerpt provided in this paper. We offer a critical edition of the Sanskrit passages in the excerpt quoted in the Sūtrālaṃkāraparicaya together with its annotated Japanese translation and collate them with their corresponding parts of its Tibetan translation and two Chinese translations.

is article examines materials concerning the role of dharmabhāṅakas, or "dharma preachers," in early Mahāyāna. It argues that early Mahāyāna can best be thought of as a primarily textual movement centered on the composition, use, and transmission of Mahāyāna sūtras, and that dharmabhāṅakas were its primary agents. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, .

The Lotus Sutra, an important Mahāyāna Buddhist scripture, influenced many East Asian Buddhist traditions such as the Tiantai School in China and Korea, its Japanese Tendai derivative, and Nichiren based traditions in Japan. A recent paper argued that the Lotus Sutra had a significant place in the history of Indian Buddhism (Apple 2016). This essay examines the place of the Lotus Sutra in Tibetan Buddhist history
and culture. Part 1 outlines the initial Tibetan translations of the Lotus Sutra in the late eighth century and highlights Tibetan Buddhist understandings of the Lotus Sutra in the early history of Buddhism in Tibetan culture. Part 2 examines the Tibetan understanding of the Lotus Sutra among scholarly commentators from the twelfth century up
to the present day.

*Tathāgatācintyaguhyanirdeśasūtra (a.k.a. Āryatathāgataguhyasūtra, Guhyakādhipatinirdeśa, *Vajrapāṇiparivarta, *Tathāgataguhyanirdeśaparivarta, *Acintyabuddhadharmanirdeśa, *Apramāṇapuṇyodaya) A formatted diplomatic transcript of the Sanskrit ms. (The Asiatic Society, Kolkata, G10765)

Download here: https://openphilology.eu/media/pages/materials/3819930646-1643721916/materials_peter_2021_tathagatacintyaguhyanirdesasutra.pdf

This paper examines vegetarianism in the eighth “no meat-eating” (amāṃsabhakṣaṇa) chapter of the Laṅkāvatāra with specific attention to how the sūtra confronts the previous dietary code (which allowed meat-eating) and combats Buddhist resistance to the new doctrine. This study corroborates previous observations that vegetarianism in Indian Buddhism was a response to outsiders’ censure, rather than an expression of a specific Buddhist doctrine. It goes on to explore how the Laṅkāvatāra introduces a new dietary norm, one that was incompatible with the preexisting monastic code that allowed monks to partake of meat pure in three aspects (trikoṭiśuddha). The Laṅkāvatāra replaced the three conditions for meat to be pure with the three modes of killing, thereby rendering the old regulation into a rule that makes any form of meat-eating impossible. In an effort to suppress intra-Buddhist resistance to vegetarianism, the sūtra prophesized the future appearance of anti-vegetarian Buddhists and identified them as heretics. Eliminating the past and future possibility of meat-eating, the Laṅkāvatāra defines Buddhism as a meat-free tradition.

Genealogies of Mahāyāna Buddhism offers a solution to a problem that some have called the holy grail of Buddhist studies: the problem of the " origins " of Mahāyāna Buddhism. In a work that contributes both to a general theory of religion and power for religious studies as well as to the problem of the origin of a Buddhist movement, Walser argues that that it is the neglect of political and social power in the scholarly imagination of the history of Buddhism that has made the origins of Mahāyāna an intractable problem. Walser challenges commonly-held assumptions about Mahāyāna Buddhism, offering a fascinating new take on its genealogy that traces its doctrines of emptiness and mind-only from the present day back to the time before Mahāyāna was " Mahāyāna. " In situating such concepts in their political and social contexts across diverse regimes of power in Tibet, China and India, the book shows that what was at stake in the Mahāyāna championing of the doctrine of emptiness was the articulation and dissemination of court authority across the rural landscapes of Asia. This text will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students and scholars of Buddhism, religious studies, history and philosophy.

The pdf provided by the publisher (which I have attached here) didn't include the full reference, so here it is:
“Now You Hear It, Now You Don’t:  The Phrase ‘Thus Have I Heard’ in Early Chinese Buddhist Translations.”  In Tansen Sen, ed., Buddhism Across Asia: Networks of Material, Intellectual and Cultural Exchange (Singapore: Institute for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Singapore), in press, 2013.

https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=39998

In this paper, I argue that some Mahāyāna sūtras offer ritual and verbal means for transformative visual encounters with buddhas and their perfect fields. I take as a particularly instructive instance the penultimate chapter of the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa, "The Visual Encounter (darśana) with the Tathāgata Akṣobhya and the Fetching of the Abhirati World," (abhiratilokadhātv-ānayanākṣobhyatathāgatadarśana). The chapter begins with a question posed by the Buddha to Vimalakīrti: when he is "desirous of darśana," of seeing and being seen by the Tathāgata, how does he see him? Vimalakīrti replies with a lengthy apophatic description of the Tathāgata, making it clear that he is, as Vimalakīrti concludes, "inexpressible" (avacanīya). Yet almost immediately thereafter, Vimalakīrti provides an actual opportunity for seeing a Tathāgata: the Tathāgata Akṣobhya, whose entire vast world sphere Abhirati, its glittering features amassed in fairly vivid detail in the sūtra, the bodhisattva gathers up into his hand and brings into this Saha world in order to give darśana to Śākyamuni's assembly. Through this encounter, all present are transformed. While the reality of the Tathāgata is ostensibly "inexpressible," then, he and his world can nonetheless be seen and brought into our own, even when both seem far, far away—and precisely through the verbal and ritual technologies of the sūtra, which make him imaginatively present to audiences and allow darśana of him. These technologies have significant implications for our interpretation of Buddhist “literature,” which often defies any comfortable distinction between textual and visual experience.

This paper was initially planned as part of the collaborative work with Prof. Jonathan A. Silk. However, we later decided to publish our works separately. I am heavily indebted to his paper published in 2019 that deals with the same corpus, which forms the background knowledge of the present paper. I also need to express my gratitude to Dr. Lewis Doney and the two peer-reviewers for their insightful comments and revision suggestions. 2 Refer to Brzyski 2007 for a recent critique of the canonical paradigm in the field of art and literature studies. With respect to the Buddhist studies, Silk (2015) has recently published an encyclopaedia entry on canonicity, which not only recapitulates the history, content, and organization of Buddhist canons across Asia, but also discusses how Buddhist canons exert power by admitting or ignoring certain texts, and investigates the reception, interpretation, extension (through ongoing commentaries), fluidity (including mutual influence), and preservation of Buddhist canons in different canonical traditions. 3 Since I restrict the object of this paper to the genre of sūtra, I here mainly deal with the Kanjur (bka' 'gyur) division of the Tibetan canon. However, I add a list of nonsūtra translations from Chinese (including sūtra commentaries) in Appendix II, based on textual information from the four early catalogues: the imperial Dkar chag Lhan (or Ldan) dkar ma (abbr. LKK), Dkar chag 'Phang thang ma (abbr. PTK), Bcom ldan ral gri's (1227-1305) 13th-century catalogue Bstan pa rgyas pa rgyan gyi nyi 'od (abbr. TGGNO), and Bu ston's (1290-1364) Catalogue (abbr. BC)-the main source of knowledge of my ensuing discussion.

３世紀前後に漢訳された初期無量寿経の原始形態を復元し、1700年以上前に印度発生した阿弥陀信仰をどのように漢語に翻訳され、後世の経典にどのような影響の与えたのかという学界100年以上の謎を徹底的に解明するよう、一石を投じた。（日本語）
This paper explores the original forms of the two earliest versions of the Larger Sukhāvatīvyūha sūtra, the Da Amituo jing 大阿彌陀經 (T12, No. 362) and the Wuliang qingjing Pingdengjue jing 無量清淨平等覺經 (T12, No. 361) based on my series of research about them. The issues have been approached from the following perspectives.

Firstly, I clarified the concept of the Early Recension of the Larger Sukhāvatīvyūha sūtra based on the suggestion by FUJITA Kotatsu.

Secondly, I determined the original form of the second earliest version of the Larger Sukhāvatīvyūha sūtra, the Wuliang qingjing pingdengjue jing, and indicated that the original form of this version should be paralleled with the extant Sanskrit version, whose earliest manuscript was recognized as written in the middle of twelfth century.

Thirdly, I discussed the most significant characteristics of the Da Amituo jing, the bodhisattva thought and rebirth.

Moreover, I discussed those 129 characters found in the Dharmākara narrative associated with their counterparts in two verses, Tanbutsu-ge and Tōhō-ge, in the extant Sanskrit version.

Furthermore, I discussed the five vows in the Da Amituo jing from the perspective of bodhisattva thought along with the concept of rebirth purposely highlighted in these five vows.

Finally, I mentioned the vow regarding birth by praising the light of Amitābha, which was not included in those twenty-four vows, and visualizing the Buddha by chanting his name as found in the Da Amituo jing.

In conclusion, I indicated that the original forms of the Da Amituo jing and the Wuliang qingjingjue jing are quite probably similar to each other, and separately, quite parallel with the extant Sanskrit version.

This article provides a critical edition and analysis of a Dunhuang Tibetan version of the Mañjuśrīvihārasūtra (Tib. ’jam dpal gnas pa’i mdo) as a case study for documenting the historical development of Tibetan translations of Mahāyāna sūtras. The critical edition of the Dunhuang Tibetan  version is based on one complete Dunhuang manuscript as well as four Dunhuang fragments, three  previously unidentified, to restore a Tibetan version of the sūtra that existed before the imperially decreed (bkas bcad) language reforms of 814 c.e. The critical edition is annotated against seventeen  Kanjur editions of the sūtra, including Western Tibetan manuscript Kanjurs (Tib. bka’ ’gyur) from  Basgo and Hemis that have not been previously investigated. The Kanjur annotations document the  revisions that Tibetan editors made in implementing the codified rules and principles for translating Buddhist texts issued by Khri lde srong btsan (r. 800-815c.e.). In addition, the annotations provide evidence for three lines of textual transmission, the Them-spangs-magroup, Tshal-pa group, and a Western Tibet group. The documentation of the variant readings has also been supplemented with computer-based phylogenetic systematics to discern a refined estimation of the genealogical relations among extant textual witnesses.