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The Saddharma-puṇḍarika is one of the nine Dharmas which are known by the titles of—I. Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajn͂āpāramitā; 2. Gaṇḍavyūha; 3. Dasabhāmīsvara; 4. Samādhirāja; 5. Laṅkāvatāra; 6. Saddharma-puṇḍarika; 7. Tathāgataguhyaka; 8. Lalitavistara; 9. Suvarṇaprabhāsa.
These nine works, to which divine worship is offered, embrace (to use the words of the first investigator of Nepalese Buddhism, B.H. Hodgson) ‘in the first, an abstract of the philosophy of Buddhism; in the seventh, a treatise on the esoteric doctrines; and in the seven remaining ones, a full illustration of every point of the ordinary doctrine and discipline, taught in the easy and effective way of example and anecdote, interspersed with occasional instances of dogmatic instruction. With the exception of the first, these works are therefore of a narrative kind; but interwoven with much occasional speculative matter.’
As to the form, it would seem that all the Dharmas may rank as narrative works, which, however, does not exclude in some of them a total difference in style of composition and character. The Lalitavistara e.g. has the movement of a real epic, the Saddharma-puṇḍarika has not. The latter bears the character of a dramatic performance, an undeveloped mystery play, in which the chief interlocutor, not the only one, is Śākyamuni, the Lord. It consists of a series of dialogues, brightened by the magic effects of a would-be supernatural scenery. The phantasmagorical parts of the whole are as clearly intended to impress us with the idea of the might and glory of the Buddha, as his speeches are to set forth his all-surpassing wisdom. Some affinity of its technical arrangement with that of the regular Indian drama is visible in the prologue or, Nidāna, where Mañjuśrī at the end prepares the spectators and auditors—both are the same—for the beginning of the grand drama, by telling them that the Lord is about to awake from his mystic slumber and to display his infinite wisdom and power.
In the book itself we find it termed a Sūtra or Sūtrānta of the class called Mahāvaipulya. In a highly instructive discussion on the peculiar characteristics and comparative age of the different kinds of Sūtras, Burnouf arrives at the conclusion that the Mahāvaipulya Sūtras are posterior to the simple Sūtras in general. As there are two categories of simple Sūtras, 1. those in which the events narrated are placed contemporary with the Buddha, 2. those which refer to persons living a considerable time after his reputed period, e. g. Asoka, it follows that the composition of the Mahāvaipulya Sūtras must be held to fall in a later time than the production of even the second category of simple Sūtras. Now in one of the latter, the Asoka-Avadāna, we read of Asoka using the word dināra, which leads us to the conclusion that the said Avadāna was composed, not only after the introduction of dināra from the West, in the first century of our era or later, but at a still more modern time, when people had forgotten the foreign origin of the coin in question.
The results arrived at by Burnouf may be right so far as any Mahāvaipulya Sūtra, as a whole, is concerned; they cannot be applied to all the component parts of such a work. Not to go further than the Saddharma-puṇḍarika and the Lalitavistara, it can hardly be questioned that these works contain parts of very different dates, and derived from various sources. The material discrepancies between the version in prose and that in verse are occasionally too great to allow us to suppose them to have been made simultaneously or even by different authors conjointly at work. …
These few examples I have chosen will suffice to prove that the material of a Mahāvaipulya Sūtra is partly as old as that of any other sacred book of the Buddhists. The language of the prose part of those Sūtras does not differ from that used in the simple Sūtras of the Northern canon. Should the Sanskrit text prove to be younger than the Pāli text, then we may say that we do not possess the Northern tradition in its original shape. That result, however, affords no criterion for the distinction between the simple Sūtras and the Mahāvaipulya Sūtras, for both are written in the very same Sanskrit, if we except the Gāthās.
It would lead me too far, were I to enter into the heart of the question which of the three idioms, Sanskrit, Pali, and the so-called Gāthā dialect, was the oldest scriptural language of the Buddhists, and I will therefore confine myself to a few remarks. In the first place it will be granted that the same person cannot have uttered any speech or stanza in two languages at the same time, and, further, that he is not likely to have spoken Sanskrit, when expressing himself in prose, and to have had recourse to a mere dialect, when speaking in poetry. One need not suppose that the common and everyday language of the god Brahma and the Buddha was Pāli or Prakrit, in order to call it an absurdity that those persons would have spoken prose in Sanskrit and poetry in the Gāthā dialect, such as we find in some passages already quoted and in many others. Nor is it absurd, even if we do not believe that Pāli is the original language of scripture, to contend that the Sanskrit text of the canonical works is at any rate a translation from some dialect. If the Sanskrit text of the Northern Sūtras, in general, were the original one, it would be impossible to account for occasional mistranslations and for the fact that the most palpable dialect forms have been left untouched, whenever the passage by being Sanskritized would have been spoilt. …
From the occurrence of peculiar old words and forms we may draw inferences as to the age of certain compositions in ordinary cases; but it is not safe to apply the same test, if there is sufficient reason to suppose that the work, the date of such new words in our Saddharma-puṇḍarika that the bulk of the Sūtra must date from the earlier period of Buddhism.
I had already occasion to notice that the two versions, the prose and the metrical one, in our Sūtra show here and there material discrepancies. The question arises to which of the two we must award the palm of priority. Repeatedly, both in prose and poetry, the sūtra is spoken of as consisting of stanzas; e. g. chap. vii, st. 82; chapters x and xxii in the prose portion, several times. As the term of stanza (gāthā), for aught I know, is never used to denote a certain number of syllables, there is a strong presumption that the ancient text consisted of verses, with an admixture of short prose passages serving as introduction or to connect the more solemn poetical pieces. The idea to expand such passages into a regular prose version would especially recommend itself at a period when the poetical dialect began to become obsolete and obscure. Without being a formal commentary, the prose version would yet tend to elucidate the older holy text.
It will not be objected that, because not all chapters in the Saddharma-puṇḍarika have a poetical version added, the original cannot have been a poem. For the chapters containing but one version, viz. xxi, xxii, xxiii, xxv, and xxvi, show decided traces of being later additions; and as to the final chapter, it may be held to be a moderate amplification of a short prose epilogue.
In contending that the original text of our Sūtra was probably, in the main, a work in metrical form, I do not mean to say that the poetical version in all the chapters must be considered to be prior to the prose. The Gāthās of the Saddharma-puṇḍarika are nowhere very brilliant, but in some chapters they are so excessively clumsy and mechanically put together that involuntarily we are led to the assumption of their having been made by persons to whom the old dialect was no longer familiar. The stanzas, e.g. in chapters xi and xiv, are abominable in form, and unusually silly; those in chap. xxiv are a pattern of mechanical verse-making, and give the impression as if they were intended rather to stultify than to edify the credulous reader. Now it is a curious fact that in a Chinese preface to the translation of our sūtra by Gñānagupta and Dharmagupta, A.D. 601, we meet with the following notice: ‘The omission of the Gāthās in No. 134, chaps. 12 and 25, have since been filled in by some wise men, whose example I wish to follow’
Here we have a direct proof that the Gāthās of some chapters have been added in later times. Had we similar notices concerning all the chapters in which the Gāthās are of a comparatively modern date, and could we prove that the prose of such chapters belongs to a later period, then the supposition of the ancient text of the Saddharma-puṇḍarika having been in the main a metrical one would seem to lose in strength. For, reasoning by analogy, one might say that just as some later chapters have notoriously been enriched with a metrical version in later times, so the ancient parts also will have gradually received their Gāthās. Still the fact remains that those chapters in which the metrical portion is wanting clearly belong to a later period, so that it is questionable whether their case is entirely analogous to that of the more ancient part of the whole work.
At present we are far from the ultimate end which critical research has to reach; we are not able to assign to each part of our Sūtra its proper place in the development of Buddhist literature. We may feel that compositions from different times have been collected into a not very harmonious whole; we may even be able to prove that some passages are as decidedly ancient as others are modern, but any attempt to analyze the compound and lay bare its component parts would seem to be premature. Under these circumstances the inquiry after the date of the work resolves itself into the question at what time the book received its present shape.
There exist, as it is well known, various Chinese translations of the Saddharma-puṇḍarika, or parts of it, the dates of which are well ascertained. The above-mentioned Catalogue by Mr. Bunyiu Nanjio affords some valuable information about the subject, from which I borrow the following particulars.
The oldest Chinese translation, known by the title of Kan-fā-hwā-kifi, is from Ku Fā-hu (Dharmarakṣa), of the Western Tsin dynasty, A.D. 265—316; in 28 chapters.
Equally old is an incomplete translation entitled Sā-thānfan-tho-li-kifi, of an unknown author.
Next in time comes the Miao-fa lien-hua, by Kumārajīva, of the latter Tshin dynasty, A. D. 384-417. It agrees with the Tibetan version, and contains 28 chapters. Of one chapter (xxiv in the Nepalese MSS. and the English translation) Kumārajīva translated the prose only; the Gāthās were rendered by Gñānagupta, of the Northern Keu dynasty, A.D. 557-589.
The last translation in order of time, entitled Thien-phin-miāo-fa-lien-hwā-kiṅ, is from Gñānagupta and Dharmagupta, A.D. 601, of the Sui dynasty; in 27 chapters.
We see that the older translations—and, consequently, their originals—counted one chapter more than our MSS. The difference, however, does not affect the contents of the whole, because the matter divided over chapters 11 and 12 of the older translations is contained in chap. xi of our texts and the latest Chinese version. The order of the chapters is the same in all the texts, both original and translated, up to chap. xx (—21 older division); the discrepancies first begin at chap. xxi, on Dhārāṇis. The subjoined comparative table, to begin with the chapter on Dhārants, exhibits the order of the last seven chapters in the various texts. The first column refers to the Nepalese MSS. and the Chinese translation by Gñānagupta and Dharmagupta; the second to the oldest Chinese translation; the third to that of Kumārajīva.
| 1 | 4 | 5 |
| 2 | 1 | 2 |
| 3 | 2 | 3 |
| 4 | 3 | 4 |
| 5 | 5 | 6 |
| 6 | 6 | 7 |
| 7 | 7 | 1 |
A glance at this table will suffice to convince us that chapters xxi—xxvi (1—6) are of later growth, if we bear in mind that the order of the chapters down to the Dhārāṇis is the same in all sources. This result is quite in harmony with what we would have guessed upon internal grounds. The last chapter, entitled Dharmaparyāya, must, from its very nature, have been the close, the epilogue of the whole. In the Chinese translation of Kumārajīva it occurs, as the table shows, immediately after chap. xx, by itself a clear indication that xxi-xxvi are later additions. It is somewhat strange that in the older translation of Ku Fā-hu the Dharmaparyāya has already taken its place after the additional matter, but this may be explained on the supposition that Kumārajīva, though living in a later time, made use of ancient manuscripts. However that may be, I think that the following facts may be held to be established, both from internal and external evidence: 1. The more ancient text of the Saddharma-puṇḍarika contained 21 chapters and an epilogue, i.e. the matter of chaps. i-xx and of chap. xxvii; 2. The later additions, excepting probably some verses, had been connected with the work, in the way of Parisishtas or Addenda, about 250 A.D. or earlier. As the book, along with the Parisishtas, already existed some time before 250 A.D., we may safely conclude that the more ancient text in 21 chapters, the epilogue included, dates some centuries earlier. Greater precision is for the present impossible.
We know that a commentary on the Saddharma-puṇḍarika was composed by Vasubandhu. The date of that work, not yet recovered, it seems, must fall between 550 and 600 A.D., or at least not much earlier, for Vasubandhu’s pupil Guna Prabha became the Guru of the famous Sri Harsha, alias Silāditya, king of Kanauji, the friend of Hiouen Thsang. The latter often mentions Vasubandhu and some of that great doctor’s writings, as well as Guna Prabha. As both worthies at the time of Hiouen Thsang’s visiting India had already departed this life, and Vasubandhu must have been at least one generation older than Guna Prabha, we cannot be far amiss in assigning to Vasubandhu’s commentary the date above specified.
It appears from the above-mentioned preface to the Chinese translation of A.D. 601, that the text-differences in the MSS. current in those days were more important than such as we observe in the Nepalese MSS. from 1000 A.D. downward, with which the Tibetan closely agree. The Chinese preface is so interesting that it is worth while to copy a passage from it as quoted in the Catalogue of the Tripitaka:
‘The translations of Ku Fā-hu, No. 138, and Kumārajīva, No. 134, are most probably made from two different texts. In the repository of the Canon, I (the author of the preface) have seen two texts (or copies of the text, of the Saddharma-puṇḍarika); one is written on the palm leaves, and the other in the letters of Kwei-tsz’, or Kharakar, Kumārajīva’s maternal country. The former text exactly agrees with No. 138, and the latter with No. 134. No. 138 omits only the Gāthās of the Samantamukha-parivarta, chap. 24. But No. 134 omits half of the Oshadhiparivarta, chap. 5, the beginning of the Pañkabhikshusatavyâkarana-parivarta, chap. 8, and that of the Saddharmabhāṇaka-parivarta, chap. 10, and the Gāthās of the Devadatta-parivarta, chap. 12, and those of the Samantamukha-parivarta, chap. 25. Moreover, No. 134 puts the Dharmaparyāya-parivarta (the last chapter of the Sūtra) before the Bhaiṣajyarāja-parivarta, chap. 23. Nos. 138 and 134 both place the Dhārāṇi-parivarta next to the Samantamukha-parivarta, chaps. 24 and 25 respectively. Beside these, there are minor differences between the text and translation. The omission of the Gāthās in No. 134, chaps. 12 and 25, have since been filled in by some wise men, whose example I wish to follow. In the first year of the Zan-sheu period, A.D. 601, I, together with Gñānagupta and Dharmagupta, have examined the palm-leaf text, at the request of a Sramana, Shāṅ-hhiṅ, and found that the beginning of two chapters, 8th and 10th, are also wanting in the text (though No. 138 contains them). Nevertheless we have increased a half of the 5th chapter, and put the 12th chapter into the 11th, and restored the Dhārāṇi-parivarta and Dharmaparyāya-parivarta to their proper order, as chaps. 21 and 27. There are also some words and passages which have been altered (while the greater part of No. 134 is retained). The reader is requested not to have any suspicion about these differences.’
According to the opinion of an eminent Chinese scholar, the late Stanislas Julien, the translation of Kumārajīva widely differs from Burnoufs. He gives utterance to that opinion in a letter dated June 12, 1866, and addressed to Professor Max Müller, to whose obliging kindness it is due that I am able to publish a specimen of Kumārajīva’s version rendered into French by Stanislas Julien. The fragment answers to the stanzas 1-22 of chap. iii. As it is too long to be inserted here, I give it hereafter on page xl.
On comparing the fragment with the corresponding passages in Burnouf’s French translation and the English version in this volume, the reader cannot fail to perceive that the discrepancies between the two European versions are fewer and of less consequence than between each of them and Kumārajīva’s work. It is hardly to be supposed that the text used by Kumārajīva can have differed so much from ours, and it seems far more probable that he has taken the liberty, for clearness sake, to modify the construction of the verses, a literal rendering whereof, it must be owned, is impossible in any language. It is a pity that Stanislas Julien has chosen for his specimen a fragment exclusively consisting of Gāthās. A page in prose would have been far more useful as a test of the accuracy of the Chinese version. …
Proceeding to treat of the contents of our Sūtra, I begin by quoting the passage where Burnouf, in his usual masterly way, describes the general character of the book and the prominent features of the central figure in it. The illustrious French scholar writes.
‘ Lå, comme dans les Sūtras simples, c’est Gåkya qui est le plus important, le premier des étres ; et quoique l’imagination du compilateur l’ait doué de toutes les perfections de science et de vertu admises chez les Buddhistes; quoique Gåkya revéte déjå un caract&e mythologique, quand il déclare qu’il y a longtemps qu’il remplit les devoirs d’un Buddha, et qu’il doit les remplir longtemps encore, malgré sa mort prochaine, laquelle ne détruit pas son éternité ; quoiqu’enfin on le représente créant de son corps des Buddhas qui sont comme les images et les reproductions idéales de sa personne mortelle, nulle part Gåkyamuni n’est nommé Dieu ; nulle part il ne repit le titre d’Adibuddha.’
To this I have nothing to object, only something to add. It is perfectly true that Śākya does not receive the simple title of Deva; why? Because that title is far too poor for so exalted a personage who is the Devātideva, the paramount god of gods. So he is called in the Lotus, chap. vii, st. 31, and innumerable times in the whole range of Buddhist literature, both in Pāli and Sanskrit. It is further undeniable that the title of Adi-Buddha does not occur in the Lotus, but it is intimated that Śākya is identical with Adi-Buddha in the words: ‘From the very beginning have I roused, brought to maturity, fully developed them (the innumerable Bodhisattvas) to be fit for their Bodhisattva position.’ It is only by accommodation that he is called Adi-Buddha, he properly being anādi, i.e. existing from eternity, having no beginning. The Buddha most solemnly declares (chap. xv) that he reached Bodhi an immense time ago, not as people fancy, first at Gayā. From the whole manner in which Śākya speaks of his existence in former times, it is perfectly clear that the author wished to convey the meaning that the Lord had existed from eternity, or, what comes to the same, from the very beginning, from time immemorial, &c.
Śākya has not only lived an infinite number of Æons in the past, he is to live forever. Common people fancy that he enters Nirvāṇa, but in reality he only makes a show of Nirvāṇa out of regard for the weakness of men. He, the Father of the world, the Self-born One, the Chief and Savior of creatures, produces a semblance of Nirvāṇa, whenever he sees them given to error and folly. In reality his being is not subject to complete Nirvāṇa ; it is only by a skillful device that he makes a show of it; and repeatedly he appears in the world of the living, though his real abode is on the summit of the Gṛdhrakūṭa. …
The Buddha is anthropomorphic, of course; what god is not? The Lotus, far from giving prominence to the unavoidable human traits, endeavors as much as possible to represent the Lord and his audience as superhuman beings. In chap. xiv there is a great pause, as in a drama, of no less than fifty intermediate kalpas, during which Śākyamuni and all his hearers keep silence. A second pause of 1000, or according to a various reading, 100,000 years is held in chap. xx. Now it is difficult to conceive that any author, willfully and ostentatiously, would mention such traits if he wished to impress the reader with the notion that the narrative refers to human beings.
It will not be necessary to multiply examples. There is, to my comprehension, not the slightest doubt that the Saddharma-puṇḍarika intends to represent Śākya as the supreme being, as the god of gods, almighty and all-wise. But what have we to understand by the words god and ‘god of gods?’ that is the question. To find the answer let us recall to memory the theosophic notions prevailing in ancient India at certain periods.
In general it may be said that the Upanishads recognize two supreme beings, which in a mystical way are somehow identified; one is the great illuminator of the macrocosm, and is sometimes called the Sun, at other times Ether; the other, the enlightener of the microcosm, is Mind or Reason. As soon as the Sun ceased to be considered an animate being or to be represented as such, he might continue, for worship’s sake, honoris causā, to be called the highest god; the really remaining deity was Reason, poetically termed the inward light. This idea is expressed by Nīlakaṇṭha in his commentary on Bhagavad-gita V, 14, in the following terms: Prabhus kidåtmå st rya ivåsmadådinåm prakasakah, the Lord (is) the intelligent Self that like a sun is the illuminator of ourselves and others. Now the same author, in his notes on Bhagavad-gita VI, 30, distinctly states that our inward consciousness, or as he puts it, the pratyagātman, the individual Self, otherwise called giva, is Nārāyaṇa, i.e. the supreme being. At I X, 28 he paraphrases Nārāyaṇa by sarveshām pratyagātman, the individual consciousness of all (sentient beings); at X Il, 14 he identifies Nārāyaṇa with nirgunam brahma. Just as here and there Nārāyaṇa is represented as clad in all the glory and majesty of a sovereign, as the illuminator, the vivifier of the world, in one word as the sun, so we find Śākyamuni invested with all the grandeur and all the resources of a ruler of nature. Philosophically, both Nārāyaṇa and his counterpart Śākyamuni are purushottama, paramātman, the highest brahman, Mind. Śākyamuni is, esoterically, the very same muni, the beholder of good and evil, the punyapāpekshitā muni that is spoken of in Manu V Ill, 91. It is acknowledged in Bhagavad-gita I X, 14 seqq. that the supreme being may be conceived and respected in different ways according to the degree of intelligence of creatures. Some pay their worship by leading a virtuous life, others by pious devotion, others by contemplation, others by confessing a strictly monistic philosophy, others by acknowledging a personal god. The Lord in the Saddharma-puṇḍarika admits of being viewed in all these various aspects. Whether the Buddha-theory, such as we find it developed in the Sūtra, not in plain words, indeed, but by circumlocutions and ambiguities, should be called atheistic or not, is a matter of comparatively slight importance, about which opinions may differ. This much, however, may be asserted, that the Lotus and the Bhagavad Gita are, in this respect, exactly on a par.
The conclusion arrived at is that the Śākyamuni of the Lotus is an ideal, a personification, and not a person. Traits borrowed, or rather surviving, from an older cosmological mythology, and traces of ancient nature-worship abound both in the Lotus and the Bhagavad-gita, but in the highest sense of the word, Paramārthas, the Purushottama in both is the center of mental life. It is just possible that the ancient doctors of the Mahāyāna have believed that such an ideal once walked in the flesh here on earth, but the impression left by the spirit and the letter of the whole work does not favor that supposition. In later times fervent adherents of the Mahāyāna really held that belief, as we know from the example of the pious Hiouen Thsang, who was evidently as earnest in his belief that the Lord once trod the soil of India as he was convinced of Mañjuśrī, Maitreya, and Avalokiteśvara existing as animated beings. Whether the system of the Lotus can be said to agree with what is supposed to be ‘genuine’ Buddhism, it is not here the place to discuss. So far as the Northern Church is concerned, the book must be acknowledged as the very cream of orthodoxy; it is the last, the supreme, the most sublime of the Sūtras exposed by the Lord; it is, so to say, the siromani, the crown jewel, of all Sūtras.
The contents of the separate chapters into which the Sūtra is divided may be described, summarily, as follows:
1. Prologue.
2. Awakening of the Lord from his mystic trance; display of his transcendent skillfulness, proved by the apparent trinity of vehicles, whereas in reality there is but one vehicle.
3. Prophecy of the Lord regarding the future destiny of Śāriputra, his eldest son. Second turn of the wheel of the law on that occasion, with incidental commemoration of the first turn near Benares. Parable of the burning house, to exemplify the skill of the good father in saving his children from the burning pains of mundane existence.
4. Another parable, exemplifying the skill of the wise father in leading a child that has gone astray and lost all self-respect back to a feeling of his innate nobility and to happiness.
5. Parable of the plants and the rain, to exemplify the impartiality and equal care of the Lord for all creatures. Parable of the blind man, to intimate that the phenomena have but an apparent reality, and that the ultimate goal of all endeavors must be to reach all-knowingness, which in fact is identical with complete nescience.
6. Sundry predictions as proofs of the power of the Sugata to look into the future.
7. He has an equal knowledge of the remotest past; his remembrance of the turning of the wheel by the Tathāgata Mahābhigñāgñānābhibhū. Edifying history of the sixteen sons of the said Tathāgata.
8. Prophecy regarding five hundred Arhats
9. Prophecy concerning Ananda, Rāhula, and the two thousand monks.
10. The Lord teaches how pious preachers of the law, who will come in after-times, ought to be duly honored, and promises that he will always protect the ministers of religion.
11. Display of the miraculous power of Śākyamuni shown in the appearance of a Stūpa, which, being opened by him, discloses to sight the frame of the expired Tathāgata Prabhūtaratna, who is desirous of hearing the exposition of the Lotus of the True Law. How Śākyamuni in a former birth strove to acquire the Lotus. His great obligations to Devadatta. Episode of the wise daughter of the Ocean and her change of sex.
12. Prediction to Gautamī, Yaśodharā, and the nuns in their train. Promise of the host of disciples and Bodhisattvas to take up the difficult task of preaching the holy word in days to come, after the Lord’s Nirvana.
13. Vocation of the ministers of religion, and practical rules for their conduct in and out of society. Parable of the king who rewards his valiant warriors; in the same manner the Buddha will reward those who struggle for his sake, by bestowing upon them all kinds of favors, at last the most valuable of his boons—eternal rest.
14. Splendid phantasmagory of innumerable Bodhisattvas evoked by the creative power of the Lord. Long pause, during which the Tathāgata and the four classes of hearers are silent. Perplexity of Maitreya on hearing that the innumerable Bodhisattvas have all been the pupils of the Lord.
15. The Buddha explains the fact by revealing the immense duration of his lifetime, in the past and the future.
16. Meritoriousness of the belief in the immense duration of the Tathāgatas and all those who have once become Buddhas.
17. The Lord details the great merit attending a ready acceptance of the preaching of the law.
18. Exposition of the advantages, worldly and spiritual, enjoyed by the ministers of religion.
19. Story of Sadāparibhūta, exemplifying the superiority of simple-mindedness and pure-heartedness to worldly wisdom and skepticism.
20. Grand show exhibited by the two Tathāgatas Śākyamuni and Prabhūtaratna conjointly. Pause after the performance. After the pause a great stir amongst gods, celestial and infernal beings, men, &c. The Tathāgata extols the Sūtra of the Lotus in which ‘all Buddha-laws are succinctly taught,’ as well as the keepers of this most eminent of Sūtras.
(Immediately after this chapter may have followed, in the oldest version, the epilogue entitled ‘Period of the Law; ‘ the reasons for this opinion have been already stated above. The supposed additional chapters contain the following topics, briefly indicated.)
21. Efficacy of talismanic spells (Dhārāṇis).
22. Self-sacrifice of the Bodhisattva Sarvasattvapriyadarsana, otherwise called Bhaiṣajyarāja. Glorification of the Lotus as the most eminent of Sūtras.
23. Visit of the Bodhisattva Gadgadasvara to the Sahā-world. Extraordinary qualities and achievements of this worthy, incidentally narrated by the Tathāgata. Return of the Bodhisattva to whence he came.
24. Grandeur and ubiquitousness of Avalokiteśvara.
25. Wonderful and edifying story of the conversion of the king Śubhavyūha through the instrumentality of his two sons Vimalagarbha and Vimalanetra, al. Bhaiṣajyarāja and Bhaiṣajyarājasamudgata.
26. The Bodhisattva Samantabhadra charges himself with the task of being a protector to the preachers of religion in after-times after the Lord’s Nirvana.
27. The epilogue entitled ‘Period of the Law;
This summary, however meagre, will be sufficient to show that there is no lack of variety in our Sūtra. We may, indeed, be satisfied that the compilers of it intended giving an exposition of the principal truths of their religion in general, and of the peculiar tenets of their own system in particular, the whole with anxious care arranged in such a form that the Sūtra admitted of an exoterical and esoterical interpretation. It contains a revelation of the state of things in the present, as well as in the past and the future, a revelation derived from a virtually eternal source, so that the doctrine taught in it must be deemed valid not only for a certain spiritual brotherhood or church, but for the human race at large. The highest authority to whom the doctrine is referred, is not a certain individual having lived a short span of time somewhere in India, but the sublime being who has his constant abode on the Gṛdhrakūṭa, i.e. he who is the terminology of other Indian creeds is called Kūṭastha.
As a general rule it may be said that in such works of ancient Indian literature as are anonymous, we must distinguish between the authority and the author. In the Lotus we meet after the invocation in some MSS. the following distich:
Vaipulyasūtrarājam paramārthanayāvatāranirdeçam Saddharmapundarīkam sattvāya mahāpatham vaksye
I.e., ‘I shall proclaim the king of the Vaipulya-Sūtras, that teacheth how one arrives at the (right) method of attaining the highest truth; the Saddharma-puṇḍarika, the great road (leading) to substantiality (being in abstracto).’ The person here speaking is not the Buddha, who is neither the author nor the writer of the work. Have we then to ascribe the distich to one of the ancient copyists? Burnouf decidedly thinks so, and his opinion is corroborated by the fact that the verses do not occur in all MSS. I must confess that I am not so sure of it. As the Sūtra, like other compositions of the kind, begins with the solemn ‘Thus have I heard, &c.,’ it is at least possible that the distich belongs to the compiler. I am not aware that the scribes were in the habit of using such expressions as vak or synonymous terms instead of likh, to write; and as we find in the Mahāvastu similar futures as vakshye, viz. udīrayishyam̃ and upavarnayishyāmi, where they can hardly be imputed to the scribe, it is safer to leave the question, whether the opening distich of the Lotus is the work of a compiler or of a copyist, undecided, the more so because the parallel phrase athāto-vyākhyāsyāmah, frequently found immediately after the invocation, in non-Buddhistic writings, must be held to refer to the author or authors, compilers.
The Lotus being one of the standard works of the Mahāyāna, the study of it cannot but be useful for the right appreciation of that remarkable system. A perusal of the book will convince the reader that a statement of Professor Wassiljew’s can only be accepted with some restrictions, when this scholar, so profoundly versed in the history and development of Northern Buddhism, says that the Buddha of the Mahāyāna is ‘neither the creator nor the ruler of the world; he remains the same cold, indifferent egoist, absorbed in Nothingness.’ The Tathāgata of the Lotus is passionless, indeed, but that does not involve his being an egoist. In general, it may be said that the spirit of the Mahāyāna is more universal, its ideal less monastical than the Hinayāna. According to Professor Rhys Davids we must not seek the superior vital power which enabled the Great Vehicle to outlive the earlier teaching in certain metaphysical subtleties, but in the idea of a desire to save all living creatures; ‘the idea,’ to quote his own words, ‘as summarized in the theory of Bodisatship, is the key-note of the later school, just as Arahatship is the key-note of early Buddhism.’ The Mahāyāna doctors said in effect: ‘We grant you all you say about the bliss of attaining Nirvana in this life. But it produces advantage only to yourselves; and according to your own theory there will be a necessity for Buddhas in the future as much as there has been for Buddhas in the past. Greater, better, nobler then, than the attainment of Arahatship must be the attainment of Bodisatship from a desire to save all living creatures in the ages that will come.’ The teaching of the Lotus, however, is different, and comes to this, that everyone should try to become a Buddha. It admits that from a practical point of view one may distinguish three means, so-called Vehicles, yānas, to attain the summum bonum, Nirvana, although in a higher sense there is only one Vehicle. These means are, in plain language, piety, philosophy or rather Yogism, and striving for the enlightenment and weal of our fellow-creatures; these means are designated by the terms of Vehicle of (obedient) hearers or disciples, of Pratyekabuddhas, and of Bodhisattvas. Higher than piety is true and self-acquired knowledge of the eternal laws; higher than knowledge is devoting oneself to the spiritual weal of others. The higher unity embracing the three separate Vehicles is the Buddha-vehicle.
The title of Bodhisattva is not always used in the same acceptation. Apart from a broad distinction we can draw between human and superhuman Bodhisattvas—the latter are here left out of account—we find sometimes the word applied to those persons who in the passage of our Sūtra alluded to are styled Śrāvakas, hearers, learners. This appears to be the case at least in Nepal, as we know from the following passage: ‘ The Buddha is the adept in the wisdom of Buddhism (Bodhijnāna), whose first duty, so long as he remains on earth, is to communicate his wisdom to those who are willing to receive it. These willing learners are the “Bodhisattvas,” so called from their hearts being inclined to the wisdom of Buddhism, and “Sanghas,” from their companionship with one another, and with their Buddha or teacher, in the vihāras or cænobitical establishments. The Bodhisattva or Sangha continues to be such until he has surmounted the very last grade of that vast and laborious ascent by which he is instructed that he can “scale the heavens,” and pluck immortal wisdom from its resplendent source: which achievement performed, he becomes a Buddha, that is, an Omniscient Being.’
Here the Bodhisattvas are plainly distinguished from the cænobitical monks; they are so likewise in the Lotus, in which we find them also in the function of learned or wise men (Panditas), of preachers or ministers of religion. Wassiljew l.c. remarks about the Bodhisattva—the terrestrial one of course—that ‘from one side, he seems to be the substitute of the ancient Bhikshu; ‘ from which we ought not to infer that the mendicant monks, as such, ceased to exist, for that is notoriously not the case, but that the Bodhisattvas were charged with the office of preaching. They are persons who deserve to be honored both by mendicant monks and lay devotees, and formed, it would seem, a kind of learned clergy, not to be confounded, however, with the modern Vagra-Ākāryas or married clergymen in Nepal. There is reason to suppose that one of the honorific titles given to the preachers or interpreters of the law was ‘wise’ or ‘ learned man,’ Pandita, for the word is so often applied to them that it looks more like a title than a common epithet. Tāranātha knows Pandita to be a title, and considers it to be the equivalent of the older Mahābhadanta; he distinguishes ‘Bodhisattvas’ from ‘common Panditas’ and ‘Arhats.’ How does this agree with the data in the Lotus? As it has been intimated in a foregoing note, the three-Vehicles are imitations of three Asramas or stages in the model life of an Arya, in the first place of a Brahman. The stages are that of a student, of a hermit living in the forest, and of a Sannyasin, Yati, or Mukta, who has wholly given up the world. The second stage, that of a householder, does not exist, of course, for those who vow themselves to a monastic life. Our Sūtra does not prescribe that the three stages must be gone through by the same persons, no more than the Bhagavadgita l.c. requires that one should pass the stages of study, knowledge, and meditation before resolving upon complete renunciation (tyāga); what follows from the context is only this, that the Vehicle of Bodhisattvas, alias those who strive for the weal of all creatures, is superior to the two preceding Vehicles. The Vehicle of the Bodhisattvas being the loftiest of the three, they themselves must be considered as occupying the highest rank. Now Tāranātha places the Arhats above them, and with the Nepalese also the first class of the monastic order is that of Arhat. The question is, how are we to judge of the relation between Arhats and Bodhisattvas in the Lotus? As far as I am able to see, the compiler of the Sūtra describes facts, or supposed facts, which he knew from oral or literary tradition, as having occurred in the past, whereas the actual state of things in his own time and shortly before is represented as that of the future. His Arhats are sages of the past, canonized saints; his human Bodhisattvas are sages, wise men of the present, most reverend worthies who should live a saintly life and generally do so, but who, however sanctimonious, are not acknowledged saints. Of an antagonism between Arhats and Bodhisattvas there is no trace in the book; the Arhats being dead, they cannot be active; the Bodhisattvas as living persons, can. In a certain respect, then, the remark of Professor Rhys Davids holds good; the Bodhisattvas represent the ideal of spiritual activity, the Arhats of inactivity. It must be admitted that the Lotus, as a whole, breathes a less monastic and ascetic spirit; it does not go the length to speak of ascetism and mortification in such scornful terms as the Bhagavadgita does, but at the same time it never extols it. There are in the book many indications that the art of preaching was made much of and highly developed, and it may be supposed that a greater proficiency in hermeneutics combined with superior mental activity has enabled the Mahāyāna to supplant its rival, the Hinayāna, and to extend its spiritual conquests once from the snows of Siberia to the luxuriant islands of the Indian Archipelago.
After having touched upon such points in the text of the Saddharma-puṇḍarika as seemed to require more special notice, it behooves me to say a few words about the translation and its resources. In the first place, I must declare that I cannot speak in too warm terms of the benefit I have derived from the French translation by the illustrious Burnouf. I have taken that work throughout for my model, without having been able to reach its excellency. The material discrepancies between his translation are partly due to my having followed other MSS., partly to another interpretation, especially of frequently corrupt and difficult Gāthās. If some reader not acquainted with the peculiar difficulties of those Gāthās should wonder at the occurrence of numerous discrepancies, I would repeat the words of the preface to the Chinese version from A.D. 601, and request him ‘not to have any suspicion about these differences.’ Let him compare the fragment from Kumārajīva’s rendering on page xl with the corresponding passages in the French and English translations, and he will observe that the difference between the work of the learned Buddhist of the fourth century and the two European versions is far more considerable than between the latter.
The base of my translation has been an old manuscript on palm leaves, belonging to Dr. D. Wright’s collection, in the University Library of Cambridge. The manuscript is dated Newar, era 159 (A.D. 1039), and was written in the reign of the king Kāmadeva (?), in the bright half of the month Vaisakha, on a Thursday. It is one of the most ancient Sanskrit MSS. existing in Europe, and therefore I thought that it was advisable to follow its readings as much as possible, except in such passages as were evidently corrupt. A second MS., unfortunately incomplete, from the same collection, is of unknown date, since the latter part of the codex is lost; from the form of the characters it may be inferred that it is not much more modern than the other codex. The difference between both is not very great; yet there can be no doubt that the second MS. belongs to another family. The varietas lectionis is strikingly similar in kind to what we find in the different texts of the Vagrakkhedikā, edited by Professor Max Müller.
The former manuscript has much in common with the London codices, from which Burnouf in the notes on his translation has derived numerous various readings; it stands farther off from the Paris MS. that has formed the base of Burnoufs version, but not so far as the second Cambridge MS., which shows the greatest number of peculiar readings. The text of chapter iv in Professor Foucaux’s edition of the Parabole de I ‘enfant égaré is comparatively modern and bad. In general it may be said that all the known copies of the Saddharma-puṇḍarika are written with a want of care little in harmony with the holy character of the book.
Before closing this preface I beg to offer my sincere thanks to Professors William Wright and E. B. Cowell, at Cambridge, for the generous way in which they have enabled me to use the MSS. I wanted for my translation. My thanks are due also to the Council of Cambridge University and Mr. H. Bradshaw, for their readily complying with my wishes. To Professor Max Müller I owe a debt of gratitude for his kindly assisting me in my task in more than one respect, a debt which I am glad here openly to acknowledge.
H. KERN. LEIDEN.
Chapter 1
Kern’s Introduction