6  The Buddha in Mahāyāna Buddhism

Some Further Sūtras: ‘Garland’ (Avataṃsaka), ‘Lotus’ (Saddharmapuṇḍarīka) and ‘Skill in Means’ (Upāyakauśalya)

Let me now introduce briefly some of the main ideas of two large Indian Mahāyāna sūtras that have become particularly important in East Asian Buddhism. These are the enormous and heterogeneous Avataṃsaka (‘Garland’)Sūtra (Chinese: Huayan; Hua-yen) and the famous Saddharmapuṇḍarīka (‘Lotus’)Sūtra. The Upāyakauśalya (‘Skill in Means’)Sūtra will serve as an additional sūtra source devoted entirely to one of the principal doctrines of the Lotus, the teaching of skill in means (upāya/upāyakauśalya).

The Avataṃsaka Sūtra is a composite sūtra some portions of which may well have been composed in Central Asia where perhaps the whole was also put together. Parts of this composite sūtra certainly circulated in India as independent sūtras in their own right. The most important of these are the sūtra on the ten stages of the bodhisattva path to Buddhahood, the Daśabhūmika Sūtra, and the climax of the Avataṃsaka, known as the Gaṇḍavyūha Sūtra. This is an extraordinary sūtra that takes up the Avataṃsaka theme of stretching language to try and portray what it must be like to see the world as a Buddha does. That vision is said to be ‘inconceivable; No sentient being can fathom it …’ (Cleary 1984, quoted in Williams 2009: 134). Inasmuch as it can be spoken of it is one of the presence of Buddhas and the realms of the Buddhas in each realm of the cosmos, and in each atom of existence. It is also one of infinite interpenetration: ‘They … perceive that the fields full of assemblies, the beings and aeons which are as many as all the dust particles, are all present in every particle of dust’ (trans. Gomez, in Williams 2009: 136). Yet in spite of infinite interpenetration things are not confused, each slightest thing keeps to its own place. Buddhas and also advanced bodhisattvas are forever engaging in innumerable deeds to help others, emanating innumerable further Buddhas and bodhisattvas whose only being is to help. Using a wonderful image, the word as seen by a Buddha is said to lack hard edges, it is a world of radiance without any shadows. On another level the universe itself is said to be the very body of the Buddha, or the Buddha is himself the ultimate truth – emptiness, or radiant nondual consciousness, as the case may be. The sūtra is not particularly concerned with the rigid distinctions of separate philosophical systems. The Buddha here is no longer spoken of as Śākyamuni but rather as Mahāvairocana, the Buddha of Great Radiance, Great Splendour of the Sun. In the world as seen by the great splendour of the sun how can there be any shadows? Nothing is unseen, and nothing is hidden. Things lack intrinsic existence, or they are all the play of pure, radiant consciousness. A world like this is, to use an expression Stephan Beyer applied to the Prajñāpāramitā, a world of ‘the vision and the dream: a universe of glittering and quicksilver change’ (Beyer 1977: 340). It is a universe of what are for us miracles precisely because we superimpose upon the real way of things a rigid and exclusive fixity. The Avataṃsaka Sūtra, particularly its Gaṇḍavyūha portion, delights in describing the supranormal – even hallucinogenic – experience of advanced mental transformation wherein ‘body and mind completely melt away’, ‘all thoughts depart away from consciousness’, and ‘there are no impediments, all intoxications vanish’. It also contains the ‘pilgrim’s progress’ story of Sudhana and his path to this astonishing Buddhahood, meeting along the way many great bodhisattvas including gods, goddesses and laypeople such as Vasumitrā the courtesan, who is said to teach the Doctrine through the use of embraces and kisses!

While the Lotus Sūtra is of crucial importance in East Asian Buddhism (in Japan many consider it to be the final and all-sufficient word of the Buddha) it is not totally clear how important this sūtra was in Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism. Commentaries on it and references to it in other Indian writings are not that common. Like so many others the sūtra appears to have grown over a number of centuries, and since it was translated into Chinese in the late third century CE its earliest version may perhaps date from sometime between the first century bce and the first century ce. The sūtra is primarily concerned with issues relating to the Buddha and Buddhahood. In it the Buddha is portrayed as employing a device known as upāya (‘means’) or upāyakauśalya (‘skill in means’, or ‘skilful means’ – cleverness in applying helpful strategems). According to this perspective, at least as it is presented in the Lotus Sūtra, the Buddha adapts his teaching to the level of his hearers. Out of his compassion he gives the teaching which is appropriate to their needs. Thus he may give one teaching at one time, and completely the opposite teaching at another.1 This is why given the vast and disparate nature of the textual corpus claiming to be the word of the Buddha there is so much diversity in it. The Buddha taught the non-Mahāyāna goals of arhat and pratyekabuddha to those to whom it was appropriate. Subsequently he taught the path of the bodhisattva that leads to perfect Buddhahood, a goal which, the sūtra itself reveals, is infinitely beyond the goal of an arhat or pratyekabuddha. Indeed in the Lotus Sūtra these inferior attainments are shown to be no real goals at all, but simply fabrications generated by the Buddha out of his skill in means for those who would otherwise be discouraged when told of the long, long career to Buddhahood. Thus in reality there is not at all three vehicles to liberation – the arhat-vehicle, the pratyekabuddha-vehicle, and the bodhisattva-vehicle to Buddhahood. Really there is only one vehicle, the Solitary Vehicle (ekayāna), the Supreme Buddha Vehicle. Those who think they have attained a goal called that of an ‘arhat’ are far from having really finished their spiritual careers. All (or perhaps most), including even great arhats like Śāriputra, will eventually become Perfect Buddhas. One of the most attractive features of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Sūtra is its use of several striking and famous parables to illustrate the skill in means of the Buddha. Thus we have the parable of the burning house, a metaphor for saṃsāra from which the Buddha as a loving father entices his children with the toys of arhatship and pratyekabuddhahood, before giving them the real treasure of Buddhahood. The sūtra illustrates the travelling of all in the One Buddha Vehicle by the parable of a poor man with a forgotten jewel (the future attainment of Buddhahood) sewn into his clothing.2

In a way, skill in means is the educational and ethical equivalence of emptiness in that both skill in means and emptiness are built on the idea of things being relative. Here, teachings are delivered relative to context. In time this was taken also to mean that the behaviour of enlightened beings too is relative to context. It will be underpinned certainly by the great compassion of the Buddha and bodhisattvas but it will not be necessarily predictable in advance or indeed even understandable by those whose vision does not encompass that of enlightenment.3 The actions of such spiritually advanced beings are all appropriate to context, solely for the benefit of the recipient. Just as contexts differ and in a sense are never exactly the same so those actions are quite unpredictable, or rather are predictable only in their truly compassionate motivation and the wisdom of their application.

Not in the Lotus Sūtra itself, but in the Upāyakauśalya Sūtra, we find all the key actions of the traditional life of Śākyamuni explained with reference to their compassionate purpose in helping and teaching others. A spiritually advanced practitioner may not behave in what would normally be considered to be an appropriate manner. This is illustrated through recounting a tale in which the Buddha (as a bodhisattva in a previous life before he became a Buddha) was in a situation where the only way of saving the lives of five hundred other bodhisattvas was to kill a man who was plotting their deaths. He did indeed do so, recognising that to kill leads to a hellish rebirth. He was nevertheless willing to undergo such a rebirth in order to save not only the five hundred but also the potential murderer from the karmic results of carrying out his evil designs (trans. Chang 1983: 456–7). In another story we are told that the Buddha in a previous life as a bodhisattva was a celibate religious student who saved through sexual intercourse the life of a poor girl who had threatened to die out of love for him (op. cit.: 433).4

The other great teaching of the Lotus Sūtra concerns the revelation of the lifespan of the Buddha. The Buddha was actually enlightened aeons ago, and what is more although he now manifests the appearance of death he has not really died. He is really still around helping in myriads of compassionate ways. The Buddha’s demonstration during his life of seeking enlightenment, becoming enlightened and dying was also an example of skill in means in order to give various lessons that would help others (Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra, trans. Hurvitz 239). Conviction that the Buddha is still around is of course religiously transformative. It opens out the possibility of reciprocal relationships with the Buddha – petitionary prayer, visions, devotion and continuing revelation for example – as well as the possibility that all the infinite previous Buddhas throughout the universe also are still around helping sentient beings. In East Asian Buddhism (influenced by the work in China of Zhiyi (Chih-I; 538–97 CE) it is commonly held that the Buddha of the Lotus Sūtra is actually eternal, but I do not find this clearly stated in the sūtra itself. If a Buddha is eternal then it is difficult to see how anyone else could become a Buddha, short of combining the teaching of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka with that of the tathāgatagarbha (Buddha-nature) and claiming that we are actually already fully-enlightened Buddhas if we but knew it. This is exactly what Zhiyi did. It seems to me however there is no evidence that the Lotus Sūtra itself accepts a teaching of the tathāgatagarbha, and without it a literal acceptance of the Buddha as eternal would destroy the very possibility of attaining Buddhahood and with it the Mahāyāna path.5

Among other themes found in the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Sūtra which were to become one way or another so important in the development of Mahāyāna Buddhism are those of the immense significance of even small acts of devotion to the Buddhas and indeed devotion to the sūtra itself. There is the possibility that faith in the sūtra and the efficacy of its practices might save even great sinners from hell fires. The sūtra speaks of the immense salvific abilities also of bodhisattvas like Avalokiteśvara, who are so full of compassion and advanced on the path to Buddhahood that they are willing and able to employ miraculous powers in order to save those who call upon them. It recounts how even an eight year old princess from among the nāgas, snake-deities, could be an advanced bodhisattva and capable (with, it seems, change of gender) of enlightenment. Finally, perhaps most strange in a sūtra no stranger to things strange, the Lotus Sūtra explains at length the great virtues of burning oneself to death in honour of the Buddhas.6

The Buddha’s Multiple ‘Bodies’ (Kāya)

The English term ‘body’ bears much of the ambiguity of the Sanskrit kāya. This expression can refer to an actual physical body possessed by living beings, or a body similar but perhaps rather less obviously ‘physical’ (such as, perhaps, an ‘astral body’). It can also refer any collection of things classed together by some principle of classification, as in the case of a body of texts or a body of people. If this ambiguity of ‘body’/kāya is borne in mind then much of the initial mystification when looking at the case of the Buddha’s multiple bodies will disappear.

According to what Paul Griffiths (1994) has called the Mahāyāna ‘classical doctrine’ a Buddha is said to have three types of ‘body’.7 These bodies consist of the dharmakāya (or svabhāvakāya) – the final ‘real body’ – the sambhogakāya – the ‘body of communal enjoyment’ – and the nirmāṇakāya – the ‘body of magical transformation’.8 Although variations on it have become standard in later Indian Buddhism and Buddhism outside India, it took some time for this classical doctrine to develop. In an important paper Paul Harrison (1992) has argued that in early and even relatively late Mahāyāna sūtra literature in India, such as the Prajñāpāramitā and the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, the idea of the dharmakāya was not one of any kind of metaphysical or cosmic ultimate. It was not a ‘unitary cosmic principle’. It rather preserved a notion well known in non-Mahāyāna sources of this body – according to texts the highest and most important body of the Buddha – as either the ‘body of the doctrine’ (Dharma) or the ‘body of dharmas’. In the latter sense, found also in Sarvāstivāda, the dharmakāya refers to those factors (dharmas) the possession of which serves to distinguish a Buddha from one who is not a Buddha.9 Commonly in these sources, Harrison argues, it is stressed that truly, really, the Buddha is possessed of a body of Dharma, his teachings, or perhaps a body of dharmas, his Buddha-qualities. Thus it is possible to contrast the actual physical body of the Buddha – which has now passed away and anyway always was just a physical body with all its physical frailties – with the Buddha’s true body. This true body is either his teachings (Dharma, his Doctrine), that remain and lead to enlightenment, or the qualities the possession of which to their fullest degree made him a Buddha and that can still be attained by his followers. These are the true body of the Buddha. The Buddha’s true body has not passed away but remains.10

Reference to the dharmakāya in works reasonably attributed to Nāgārjuna is rare.11 However there is some interesting material in a collection of four hymns which have been attributed to the Master (Tola and Dragonetti 1995: Ch. 4; cf. Lindtner 1982). Particularly important in this context is the Niraupamyastava (the ‘Hymn to the Incomparable One’). Here (v. 16) Nāgārjuna speaks of the Buddha’s splendid physical body, a body which manifests in many apparently miraculous ways for the benefit of others and which accords with the behaviour of the world, although having no need to do so (cf. the Mahāsāṃghika lokottaravāda). But he also notes that the Buddha is seen actually not through a physical form that can be seen (with the eyes). It is when the Dharma is seen that he is properly seen. But the true nature of things itself (dharmatā) cannot be seen at all. Thus through understanding his teachings one sees the true body of the Buddha, yet the very point of those teachings is that emptiness is not something that can be seen at all in the normal way of seeing. And Nāgārjuna continues (v. 22) by singing of the Buddha’s body as eternal, unalterable, auspicious, made of Dharma. He thus remains even after his death (nirvṛti), although he demonstrates a death through his skill in means to help others. The Buddha’s true body is his teaching, and yet we also find a move here – admittedly still perhaps partly unconscious – towards the Buddha’s final true body as that which is demonstrated by the teaching, emptiness itself. For, as Nāgārjuna puts it in his Paramārthstava (‘Hymn to the Ultimate’), the Buddha himself has not been born, remains nowhere, neither existing nor nonexisting. This is actually the way of things (dharmatā), emptiness itself.12 Other later Mādhyamika sources also speak of the dharmakāya – the body which is the collection of ultimates (i.e. for Abhidharma, dharmas) – as emptiness. But of course while emptiness applies to everything, one specifically refers to the dharmakāya in the context of Buddhology. That is, the dharmakāya is spoken of in the context of uncovering the true nature of the Buddha, or what it really is to be a Buddha.

Let us turn now to the basic structure of the ‘classical doctrine’ associated with Yogācāra. The dharmakāya is said in the Mahāyānasaṃgraha (Ch. 10) to be equivalent to the actual true way of things (tathatā), the purified dependent nature.13 In other words, the dharmakāya is the intrinsically radiant consciousness of a Buddha. It is a gnosis completely empty of subject-object duality, beyond all conceivability or speculation, free of all cognitive and moral obscurations. It is the wisdom-body (jñānakāya) of the Buddha possessed of all the superior qualities intrinsic to the nature of a Buddha, eternal and in itself unchanging. It is said to serve as the support for the other bodies of the Buddha, which manifest out of infinite compassion in a form suited to help others. This dharmakāya is in fact what a Buddha is in himself, as it were from his (or her) own side.14 It is, to use Griffiths’ (1994) expression, ‘Buddha in eternity’. The dharmakāyas of the Buddhas are in many respects the same (in their aspirations and their types of actions, for example), and in themselves they do not have qualities which could differentiate them. Nevertheless they are not literally the same, since many other beings become Buddhas and not just one being. The ‘revolution of the basis’ from unenlightened egotism to enlightened altruism is not in history something that occurs only once to only one person.

The sambhogakāya, the ‘body of communal enjoyment’, and the nirmāṇakāya, the ‘body of magical transformation’, are both wonderful ‘form-bodies’ (rūpakāya). That is, they appear as if physical bodies, based upon the dharmakāya and manifested by Buddhas spontaneously for the benefit of others. They manifest as automatic ways of fulfilling the Buddhas’ great aspirations to help others made throughout their long career as bodhisattvas. The body of communal enjoyment is Griffiths’ ‘Buddha in heaven’. Strictly speaking, however, the body of communal enjoyment is paradigmatically the classic appearance of a Buddha according to the needs of sentient beings in a glorified body ornamented with the 112 marks of a Buddha (often seen on statues, such as long ears, cranial bump etc.). He appears seated on a lotus throne not in a heaven (svarga) but in a Pure Land. The Pure Land where a sambhogakāya form of a Buddha appears is on another plane, a ‘Buddha Domain’ said to include ‘ponds of nectar, wish-granting trees and the like’ (trans. in Griffiths 1994: 145). There he teaches the Doctrine to an assembly made up mainly or entirely of advanced bodhisattvas. There is of course an infinite number of bodies of communal enjoyment, since in infinite time infinite beings have become Buddhas. As a sambhogakāya teaches only the Mahāyāna it is possible for Mahāyāna to claim that its own teachings are truly those of the Buddha manifesting in a superior sambhogakāya form. This contrasts with the lower nirmāṇakāya manifestation that includes Śākyamuni Buddha appearing in India in history, teaching as a preliminary to the higher doctrine the non-Mahāyāna teachings. To have direct access to the body of communal enjoyment it is necessary to have spiritual attainments that will allow one, either in this life or in another, to reach the relevant Pure Land.

A Buddha, however, wishes to help everyone. To benefit even those of lowly attainments, or the wicked, Buddhas emanate nirmāṇakāyas. The ‘body of magical transformation’ – ‘Buddha in the world’ (Griffiths) – is frequently described on the model of Śākyamuni Buddha and the great deeds of his life. Later sources make it clear, however, that a body of magical transformation can appear in any form that will benefit others and is not limited to appearing in accordance with the classic model of the life of the Buddha. Thus the historical figure of Śākyamuni Buddha and the events of his life, as a body of magical transformation, were simply emanations. In effect they were a magical show teaching out of compassion, manifested by a sambhogakāya Buddha but ultimately, as it were, the spontaneous compassionate ‘overflow’ of the dharmakāya.15

How to Become a Buddha

Mahāyāna sources are quite clear that the path to full Buddhahood takes a long time. It is often said to take three incalculable aeons. The reason for following it is compassion. As we saw above when considering the three motivations for religious practice outlined by Atiśa, having the motivation of wishing to attain freedom of suffering for all, and from that motivation embracing the long path to Buddhahood, is definitive of the Mahāyāna practitioner. The ‘vehicle’ which makes that possible is definitively the Mahāyāna.

Details of the path of the bodhisattva to Buddhahood differ between Indian Buddhist sources, not to mention sources from outside India. Indeed there is no single agreed path-structure in Mahāyāna Buddhism. I shall base my outline of the path mainly on the great Bodhicaryāvatāra (‘Introduction to the Conduct which leads to Enlightenment’) of Śāntideva, together with the Bhāvanākramas (‘Stages of Cultivation’) of Kāmalaśīla (both from the eighth century), and Atiśa’s Bodhipathapradīpa (‘Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment’). The latter has a commentary attributed to Atiśa himself.16

The proper commencement of the path of the bodhisattva is not thought to be just some vague sense of care, but an actual revolutionary event which occurs in the trainee bodhisattva’s mind, an event which is a fundamental switch in orientation from self-concern to concern for others, to compassion. This event is called the ‘arising of the Awakening Mind (bodhicitta)’. The incredible implications of such a thing occurring – in effect the real deep wish and intention to be kind in every way to all without discrimination – and the importance of preserving it are hymned by Śāntideva in the opening chapters of his poem:

It satisfies with every happiness those starved of happiness, and cuts away oppressions from those oppressed in many ways.

It also drives off delusion. How could there be a holy man its equal, how such a friend, or how such merit?

(1: 29–30, trans. Crosby and Skilton 1995)

But just as there is a distinction between really wishing to travel somewhere and actually undertaking the journey, Śāntideva notes, so too we can distinguish two types of Awakening Mind, the ‘Mind resolved on Awakening’ and the ‘Mind proceeding towards Awakening’ (1: 15–16).

Later Tibetan traditions have isolated two analytic meditation patterns from the Indian sources which it is thought will facilitate the occurrence – give compelling reasons for the generation – of this revolutionary mind. The first meditation pattern, called ‘equalising self and others and exchanging self and others’, can be traced to the eighth chapter of Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra. It is taken for granted by Śāntideva that if we are talking about morality then we require no special pleading. We must be completely objective. Now, all are equal in wanting happiness and the avoidance of suffering (8: 95–6). As regards the need therefore to treat everyone equally that is all there is to it. Viewed objectively there is nothing special about me such that I strive for just my own happiness and the avoidance of my own suffering:

I should dispel the suffering of others because it is suffering like my own suffering. I should help others too because of their nature as beings, which is like my own being.

(Op. cit.: 8: 94)

First one sees all as of equal weight. Then one actually ‘exchanges self and others’ by seeing all the problems that arise from cherishing oneself and the benefits that accrue from cherishing others. One meditates that:

All those who suffer in the world do so because of the desire for their own happiness. All those happy in the world are so because of their desire for the happiness of others.

Why say more? Observe this distinction: between the fool who longs for his own advantage and the sage who acts for the advantage of others.

(Op. cit.: 8: 129–30)

The result is an imperative to always put others first.17

The other meditation pattern can be traced in the second Bhāvanākrama of Kāmalaśīla and in the commentary to Atiśa’s Bodhipathapradīpa. As with Śāntideva’s reasoning above it is based upon a sense of equality, since all are equal in wishing for happiness and the avoidance of suffering. Moreover if we take cognisance of previous lives then throughout the infinite series of previous lives all sentient beings have been one’s friends many times. Indeed, as Atiśa notes, all sentient beings have been one’s mother in previous lives and from this reflection arises the wish to rūpay their kindness. That is called ‘love’ (maitrī) and from that in turn arises compassion (karuṇā) for one’s ‘mother sentient beings’ that are suffering so much. For his part Kāmalaśīla meditates systematically on these sufferings. From all this, Atiśa hopes, comes the Awakening Mind, a wish and a path to help them in all possible ways but ultimately through attaining full Buddhahood for their welfare (see Sherburne (trans.) 1983: 42–3).

In actually following the journey which has been vowed, to perfect Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings without distinction, the bodhisattva practises in particular the six (or ten) perfections (pāramitā) and traverses the five paths (mārga) and the ten stages (bhūmi). According to developed versions of this model when the Awakening Mind has arisen one has nevertheless not yet technically entered the first of the bodhisattva stages. It is necessary to cultivate ‘means’ (upāya) – that is, the first five perfections of giving (dāna), morality (śīla), endurance (or ‘patience’; kṣānti), effort (vīrya) and meditative concentration (dhyāna) – as well as the sixth perfection of wisdom (prajñā), without neglecting either.18 At the true arising of the Awakening Mind the new bodhisattva begins the first of the five paths, the path of accumulation (sambhāramārga), accumulating the ‘twin accumulations’ of merit (through the ‘means’) and wisdom. The bodhisattva then attains the path of prūparation (prayogamārga), which develops in four stages a deepening direct realisation of emptiness.19 When direct nonconceptual awareness of emptiness first occurs in meditation, the bodhisattva attains the path of seeing (darśanamārga). He or she is no longer an ordinary person, but becomes a fully-fledged ārya bodhisattva. With this, Kāmalaśīla says, the bodhisattva attains the first of the ten bodhisattva stages, the stage called that of ‘Joyous’. This stage is associated with the particular (although by no means exclusive) cultivation of the perfection of giving. It follows that actually to attain to the full degree the perfections of giving and so on it is necessary to have had direct nonconceptual awareness of emptiness. They are not truly perfections unless they are underpinned with a direct realisation that e.g. the giver, recipient and gift all lack intrinsic existence. Giving is explained as being of three types: (i) material goods, (ii) fearlessness, and (iii) the Doctrine (Dharma).20

The other nine bodhisattva stages all occur on the fourth of the five paths, the path of cultivation (bhāvanāmārga). It should be noted, incidentally, that at each of these stages the bodhisattva is said to employ twelve particular abilities such as the ability to see Buddhas, visit Pure Lands, live for aeons, shake and illuminate worlds, and emanate or otherwise manifest versions of his or her body. At the first bodhisattva stage this applies to sets of one hundred and can be attained in one instant (see in one instant one hundred Buddhas, visit one hundred Pure Lands and so on). The number is multiplied by ten at the next stage (i.e. in one instant see 1000 etc.), one hundred at the stage after that (i.e. in one instant see 100,000 etc.), and so on. By the time the bodhisattva reaches the tenth stage the figure is said to be inexpressible (see Madhyamakāvatāra Ch. 11, cf. Lopez 1988b: 203).

The second bodhisattva stage is called the ‘Pure’ (‘Stainless’, vimalā). At this stage the bodhisattva attains the very perfection of morality. Morality remains perfectly pure even in his or her dreams. At the third stage, the ‘Luminous’, the bodhisattva perfects the virtue of endurance. Endurance does not quarrel with others, and also it is capable of putting up with any misery. Then the bodhisattva attains the fourth stage, that called the ‘Radiant’, on which the bodhisattva acquires the perfection of effort that counteracts on heroic scale all laziness and faintheartedness. The fifth stage is ‘Difficult to Conquer’, and the bodhisattva attains the perfection of meditative concentration. Then comes the crucial sixth stage, that of ‘Approaching’, in which the bodhisattva finally achieves the perfection of wisdom, understanding dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda) in all its implications.21 We have now reached the end of the six perfections. But the bodhisattva continues for a very long time yet, attaining the seventh to tenth stages and according to sources like the Daśabhūmika Sūtra a further series of four additional perfections. Thus at the seventh stage, the ‘Gone Afar’, the bodhisattva attains the perfection of skill in means and completes the eradication forever of the obscuration of moral taints (kleśāvaraṇa). The bodhisattva is thus free from rebirth (Madhyamakāvatāra). Were he or she not a bodhisattva with the bodhisattva vows to attain perfect Buddhahood for the benefit of others, it would have been possible to attain the final peace of the arhat. The remaining three stages are thus called the pure stages, and bring about the final eradication of the other fundamental obscuration often spoken of in Buddhist doctrinal texts, that of the knowable (jñeyāvaraṇa). The process of dissolving the obscuration of the knowable is the process of attaining the unique omniscience of a Buddha. At the eighth stage, the ‘Immovable’, the bodhisattva begins to see the world in a completely different way, even when not meditating, ‘like a person awaking from a dream’.22 From this stage all the activities of a bodhisattva have become instinctive (‘spontaneous’), the natural overflow of his or her great vows of compassion. There is no more striving. The perfection is called that of the ‘vow’. The ninth stage is ‘Good Intelligence’, the perfection ‘power’ or ‘strength’ (bala). The tenth and last stage is the ‘Cloud of Doctrine’, the perfection that of gnosis (jñāna). The bodhisattva appears on a special jewelled lotus seat, surrounded by other bodhisattvas. Light rays pervade the universe, many sufferings are eradicated, and all the Buddhas appear and consecrate the hero to full Buddhahood. As the Daśabhūmika Sūtra makes clear, the powers of the bodhisattva already are such that he or she can even put an entire world region into an atom of dust, or infinite sentient beings into a pore of his or her skin, without any harm occurring. The tenth stage bodhisattva can emanate innumerable and any forms in order to help others, even the forms of Hindu gods like Śiva. Yet this is nothing, a miniscule droplet, compared with the powers of a fully enlightened Buddha. Buddhahood is attained with the final complete eradication of the obscuration of the knowable, that is, with the attainment of omniscience. With this the bodhisattva transcends the ten bodhisattva stages and, of course, ceases to be a bodhisattva. In attaining Buddhahood he or she also attains the fifth of the five paths, that of ‘no more learning’ (aśaikṣamārga). It is a path to nowhere, for now the bodhisattva is a Buddha – and the Buddha is everywhere.

Buddha and Bodhisattva Cults in Indian Mahāyāna

We know from the work of Paul Harrison (1987) that the earliest Mahāyāna appears not to have thought of the bodhisattvas as people to prostrate and pray to (the ‘celestial’ bodhisattvas) but rather as a group to join. The bodhisattva is a model for one’s own spiritual career. If one is capable of it then one should oneself out of compassion become, or aspire to become, a bodhisattva and eventually a Buddha. But as we have also seen, early Mahāyāna may well have embraced a number of separate cults centred on particular sūtras and their teachings. Some sūtras which were relatively early were concerned almost entirely with a description of the nature and delights of the Pure Land (a ‘Buddha Domain’, or ‘Buddha Field’; buddhakṣetra) of the particular favoured Buddha and how to be reborn in that Pure Land. Examples might be the Akṣobhyavyūha Sūtra or the Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra. With time particular advanced bodhisattvas also became associated with Pure Lands and the focus of cults which seek to involve their beneficial activities.

Indian Mahāyāna Buddha and bodhisattva cults appear to be concerned first and foremost with techniques of access. That is, they concern techniques for reaching a Pure Land and its attendant Buddha and bodhisattvas, through meditation and rebirth, and bringing into play in this very life the beneficial qualities of those Buddhas and bodhisattvas. The concept of the Buddha Domain perhaps was connected originally with consideration of Śākyamuni’s range of influence and authority, his domain or field of awareness, and also the actual geographical context of his activities (Rowell 1935). This was combined with the development of the idea – found also in non-Mahāyāna sources – of a multiplicity of world-systems throughout the infinity of space, in some of which at least there must surely be other Buddhas. Thus a Buddha’s range of awareness (and compassion) is infinite, but the actual range of his direct spiritual influence is finite although vast, and in the case of Śākyamuni he was actually born and had immediate influence in a very limited historical and geographical context. Throughout infinite space there are however infinite Buddhas, each located in a particular place, each with infinite awareness and compassion, and each with a vast but finite direct spiritual influence. Their location, and the range of their direct influence, is their Buddha Domain. The Buddha Domain exists in order to help sentient beings that can be helped by that Buddha Domain.

A bodhisattva on his or her path to Buddhahood is said to ‘purify’ his or her Buddha Domain, which is the result of their great acts of compassion. Thus the Buddha Domain of a Buddha is thought in some sense to be brought into existence by his or her great deeds on the bodhisattva path. Not all Buddha Domains are fully-fledged Pure Lands however. Since Śākyamuni Buddha was born in Ancient India his Buddha Domain would appear to have been extremely impure. Some Mahāyāna texts refer to three types of Buddha Domain: pure, impure and mixed. One response to the apparent impurity of Śākyamuni’s Buddha Domain was that of the Karuṇāpuṇḍarīka Sūtra (‘the “Lotus of Compassion” Discourse’), which claimed that Śākyamuni was a superior type of Buddha precisely because his compassion was so great that he appeared in such an impure place. Another response was to suggest, with the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa Sūtra (the ‘Discourse concerning the Teaching of Vimalakīrti’), that purity and impurity are matters of the mind. For a person who sees correctly, the ‘impure’ sphere of Śākyamuni is indeed itself a full Pure Land.

A bodhisattva can be born in the Buddha Domain of a Buddha, or it may be possible to visit a Buddha Domain in meditation. It is quite possible that the very idea of the Pure Land – and indeed the ‘continuing revelation’ which is represented by the Mahāyāna sūtras – had some connection with the experiences of visions seen in meditation. Central here is the practice of ‘recollection of the Buddha’ (buddhānusmṛti). Indeed it may even be possible to associate geographically some of the developments in buddhānusmṛti practice which contributed to the rise of Pure Land cults with the region of Kashmir and associated areas of Central Asia during the first few centuries CE (Demiéville 1954).23 Kashmir at this time was renowned for its meditation masters, and for meditation practices in which elements often thought of separately as Mahāyāna and non-Mahāyāna were mixed. It was renowned particularly for buddhānusmṛti practices. Especially important to the Kashmiri meditators of the period was the bodhisattva Maitreya, the only current bodhisattva completely acceptable in both Mahāyāna and non-Mahāyāna contexts.

Broadly speaking recollection of the Buddha involves recollecting systematically and with a concentrated mind the great qualities of the (or ‘a’) Buddha. We know from quite early Pāli sources that among the results of such a practice is that ‘it is possible … to see him with [the] mind as clearly as with [the] eyes, in night as well as day’ (Sutta Nipāta, trans. Saddhatissa 1985: v. 1142). Through recollection of the Buddha, the Theravāda scholar Buddhaghosa observes, one can conquer fear and come to feel as if one were actually living in the Master’s presence, and ‘[one’s] mind tends towards the plane of the Buddhas’ (Visuddhimagga, trans. Bhikkhu 1975: 230). It seems very likely that one spur to the cultivation of such practices was regret at living in an age after the life of the Buddha has passed.24 But there is clearly a paradox in the popularity of practices that lead to feeling as if one is in the presence of a Buddha when the Buddha is held to be dead and gone, and quite inaccessible. This is particularly the case when certain texts not specifically Mahāyāna speak of the possibility of nirvāṇa through buddhānusmṛti (Harrison 1978: 38). For their part relatively early Mahāyāna sūtras like the Pratyutpanna Sūtra25 describe austere and rigorous visualisation practices which lead to a vision (or a dream) of a Buddha, in this case the Buddha Amitāyus in his Pure Land of Sukhāvatī in the West. Amitāyus is seen not with the [psychic] ‘divine eye’ but with one’s present fleshly eyes. The meditator receives teachings directly from Buddha Amitāyus, and transmits those teachings to humankind. Thus in this Mahāyāna context through practice of recollection of the Buddha it is held to be possible to reach a Buddha who is still present albeit elsewhere, and to receive teachings – including new teachings – from that Buddha. If compassionate Buddhas are present throughout space ‘in the ten directions’ (up, down, the four cardinal points, and the four intermediate points) then it must be possible to come into contact with them and draw on their compassion. All that needs to be added is that it must be possible also, through use of the correct techniques, to bring about rebirth in their presence – not through any selfish reason but in order, of course, to further one’s spiritual path under the best possible circumstances. It ought to be possible to become enlightened if taught directly by a Buddha, as we know so many became enlightened at the time of Śākyamuni Buddha. Thus while it may take a very long time to become enlightened under present circumstances, if one can bring about rebirth in the Pure Land of a Buddha then the path will be very much shortened.

Buddhas

As we have seen, Gregory Schopen suggested (1975) that early Mahāyāna may have involved a series of largely independent (though presumably in some as yet unclear sense linked) ‘book cults’ centred on particular sūtras and their teachings. The point in general is quite plausible. If true, then some of these book cults appear to have involved sūtras which set out to teach how in meditation and rebirth the Pure Land of a chosen Buddha can be reached.26 It is possible that the earliest Pure Land Buddha cult was centred on the Buddha Akṣobhya and his Buddha Domain in the East. This cult is reflected in the Akṣobhyavyūha Sūtra, a sūtra which was translated into Chinese as early as the second century CE and which may well have been written originally in Gāndhārī, the language of Northwest India (including Kashmir) at that time. The Pure Land of Akṣobhya is modelled rather on a heavenly realm. It is the ideal realm, the world as it ought to be, a world in which Māra (the ‘Devil’) does not interfere, a world without mountains, a world of flowers, gentle breezes, and music. There is no ugliness, no menstruation, no gross physical sexuality, and gestation and birth is gentle and pleasant. All is clean, and all are interested in practising the Doctrine. This Pure Land is so wonderful as a direct result of the merit deriving from great vows of morality made by Akṣobhya when engaged in the bodhisattva path. Rebirth in this wonderful Pure Land comes from following oneself the bodhisattva path and vowing to be reborn in Akṣobhya’s Pure Land (Abhirati). One should also dedicate all merit to being reborn there in order to become fully enlightened in the presence of Akṣobhya, and visualise the Pure Land with Akṣobhya within it teaching the Doctrine, while wishing to be like him (Chang 1983: 315 ff.).27

A further Buddha Domain cult seems to have been associated with the Buddha Bhaiṣajyaguru, the Medicine Buddha, and indeed it is possible that this cult originated outside the country and was subsequently introduced into India (Birnbaum 1980). But by far the most well-known of the Pure Land cults is that of Buddha Amitābha – sometimes known as Amitāyus and sometimes perhaps as Amita – and his Pure Land of Sukhāvatī in the West.28 The significance of the Pure Land cult of Amitābha is largely due to its considerable importance in China and particularly Japan. There is surprisingly little evidence for its widespread importance in Indian Buddhism.29 The specific cult of Amitābha, assuming there was such an identifiable cult in India and abstracting from the data contained in the key sūtras of the East Asian Amitābha tradition, is centred on two, or possibly three, sūtras. Principal among them is the longer Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra, first translated into Chinese during the second century CE and like the Akṣobhyavyūha perhaps written originally in Gāndhārī. Again, rather as with the Akṣobhyavyūha, the Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra tells of a previous time many years ago when the bodhisattva Dharmākara, having visualised the most perfect Buddha Domain possible, made (in the Sanskrit version) 46 vows. These vows are expressed in a series of conditions through in the formula ‘If this is not fulfilled, may I not become a fully enlightened Buddha’.

This Dharmākara is now the Buddha Amitābha. All therefore is as he vowed. Thus in accordance with the vows all those who are born in this Pure Land of his will never return to the lower realms, and they will be firmly established in a state set on enlightenment. Those who having heard his name meditate on Amitābha will be taken by him to Sukhāvatī at the time of death. Those who have directed their ‘roots of merit’ to be reborn in Sukhāvatī will do so. This will occur even if they have generated the thought of Amitābha only ten times, always providing they have not committed one of the five great crimes of murdering father or mother, or an arhat, harming a Buddha, or causing schism in the Sangha.30 Thus all those who wish to be reborn in the Pure Land of Amitābha should generate the Awakening Mind, hear the name of Amitābha, think of him and meditate on him. They should make vows to be reborn in Sukhāvatī and turn over their stock of merit in order that this should come about.

A further description of Sukhāvatīis given in the shorter Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra. There is some uncertainty among scholars as to the chronological priority between the two Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtras. The shorter sūtra particularly stresses that Sukhāvatī is a Pure Land and not a heavenly realm or a sensual paradise. Even the birds of Sukhāvatī sing the Doctrine. The proper way to be reborn there is undistracted holding of the name of Amitāyus for up to seven days. The Pratyutpanna Sūtra is also another important Amitāyus text, describing by way of contrast how it is possible to have a vision of Amitāyus in this very life itself. But the East Asian tradition always classes along with the two Sukhāvatīvyūha sūtras not the Pratyutpanna Sūtra but another sūtra available only in Chinese and known by its Chinese title as the Guanwuliangshoufojing (Kuan-wu-liang-shou-fo Ching). It has become normal to translate this title into Sanskrit as the *Amitāyurdhyāna Sūtra, but if appropriate to translate it into Sanskrit at all perhaps a better translation would be the significant *Amitāyurbuddhānusmṛti Sūtra. There has been some doubt however as to whether in fact this sūtra was originally written in India. Some scholars consider it a Chinese ‘forgery’, although it could have been composed in the Indian cultural areas of Central Asia. Julian Pas (1977) sees the sūtra as one of a number of visualisation sūtras composed in the area around Kashmir or associated areas of Central Asia, with a series of significant Chinese interpolations. Also included among these visualisation sūtras is one that involves rebirth in the Tuṣita heaven if one calls on the name of its most famous resident, Maitreya, and practises buddhānusmṛti (op. cit.: 201). Seeking rebirth in Tuṣita in the presence of Maitreya was and is a practice perfectly acceptable within the non-Mahāyāna tradition. The only significantly different factor with Amitābha, therefore, is that Amitābha is a Buddha who exists presently in a Pure Land. Here, perhaps, we see the results of visionary encounter plus the possibility that if there are past and future Buddhas so there surely must also be other contemporary Buddhas somewhere in the cosmos.

Although it is not homogeneous, let us take the *Amitāyurbuddhānusmṛti Sūtra as an Indic text. The sūtra teaches a series of 13 visualisations in which one builds up an elaborate scene of Sukhāvatī with Amitāyus seated on his lotus throne, flanked by his two bodhisattvas Avalokiteśvara and Mahāst-hāmaprāpta.31 The meditator prays for rebirth in Sukhāvatī and visualises him- or herself indeed reborn there within a lotus. There are different levels of rebirth in the Pure Land (apparently reflecting Chinese social categories). Nevertheless, as it stands the sūtra suggests that even someone who has committed the five worst crimes may be reborn in Sukhāvatī as a result of calling on the name of Amitāyus before death even as few as ten times. They are born inside a closed lotus in Sukhāvatī. After 12 aeons the lotus opens and they behold the two bodhisattvas preaching the Doctrine. Thus they generate the Awakening Mind and eventually they too become enlightened.32

Bodhisattvas

Mahāyāna bodhisattva cults can perhaps be contrasted with those devoted to Buddhas. The contrast, such as there is, is that while Buddha cults appear primarily (perhaps with the exception of Bhaiṣajyaguru) to be concerned with visions, teachings, and rebirth, bodhisattva cults have a certain tendency to want to bring into play the bodhisattva’s compassion and power for direct tangible ‘this worldly’ benefits.33 We have noted already the importance of Maitreya, who is Śākyamuni’s successor, and is held by both Mahāyāna and non-Mahāyāna traditions to be the next Buddha in this world. The idea that Śākyamuni Buddha was not the only Buddha but was the latest of a long line of Buddhas – and therefore there will also be Buddhas in the future – developed fairly early in the history of Buddhism. It was thought reasonable to assume, therefore, that the next Buddha can be named and is already in the final stages of his bodhisattva path. The Maitreyavyākaraṇa (‘Prediction of Maitreya’) is a text that describes the tempting wonders of the ‘millennium’, the world may years hence when Maitreya finally arrives and in becoming a Buddha completes his bodhisattva path. Maitreya appears to have been almost a ‘patron saint’ of the Kashmiri meditation schools and his cult was carried to Central Asia (also as the subject of a number of enormous statues) where it was extremely important, and thence to China.34

One of the earliest sources for the cult of Avalokiteśvara is the Lotus Sūtra. In the 24th chapter of that sūtra (Sanskrit version), which appears to have circulated sometimes as a separate text, the salvific activity and benefits of Avalokiteśvara are described in tempting detail. He is a truly useful bodhisattva, saving from fire, rivers and oceans, murder, execution, demons, ghosts, prison, bandits, and moral negativities like greed, hatred and delusion. He grants excellent offspring – sons or daughters – to those who wish for them.35 Avalokiteśvara is a bodhisattva who appears in whatever form is necessary to help others, be it as a follower of Mahāyāna, non-Mahāyāna, householder, monk, animal or god. Avalokiteśvara also acts as an assistant to Amitābha, and is thus associated with Amitābha and is sometimes portrayed in art with a small figure of Amitābha in his turban or hair.36 Particularly important in terms of the Avalokiteśvara cult is the Kāraṇḍavyūha Sūtra. This sūtra describes Avalokiteśvara’s activities for the benefit of others. It includes his descent into the hells in order to help the hell-dwellers, and his appearance in the form of a bee in order to hum the Doctrine to save thousands of worms. Avalokiteśvara even apparently placed the Hindu gods like Śiva in their appropriate ranks, ruling by his permission. It seems to be the Kāraṇḍavyūha Sūtra that is the source for the great mantra associated with Avalokiteśvara, oṃ maṇipadme hūṃ, perhaps modelled on the use of the Śaivite mantra oṃ namaḥ śivāya (Studholme 2002). In Indian art there is also some marked iconographic association of Avalokiteśvara with Śiva.37

A female bodhisattva that has become important in Tibetan Buddhism, frequently associated with Avalokiteśvara and taking over from him some of his salvific functions, is Tārā. It is not clear how important she was in Indian Buddhism (cf. Tārā as a figure in tantric Hinduism), although praises of her date from just possibly as early as the third century CE and the great missionary to Tibet Atiśa is said, at least by Tibetans, to have been a particular devotee of Tārā (Willson 1986). The fact that Tārā is held to be perpetually 16 years old, and yet the ‘Mother of all the Buddhas’ suggests some possible connection between her and the figure of Prajñāpāramitā – a female personification for ritual and meditation purposes of Wisdom itself – who is also described this way.

Another figure who is regularly described as 16 years old, and is often said to be the very incarnation of the Perfection of Wisdom, is Mañjuśrī, ‘the birthplace of all the Buddhas’. He is described – as wisdom should be – as both the progenitor of all the Buddhas and also their most excellent son (Williams 2009: 228). Indeed, in Tibetan art Mañjuśrī is commonly portrayed holding aloft the sword of gnosis which cuts aside the bonds of ignorance.38

In Indian Buddhism Mañjuśrī gains his significance mainly as the supremely wise interlocutor in a number of Mahāyāna sūtras, such as the Vimalak-īrtinirdeśa Sūtra. The importance of this sūtra in Chinese Buddhism may go some way towards explaining the possibility that a particular concern with Mañjuśrī could have originated in Chinese or perhaps Central Asian Buddhism. Anyway, in India Mañjuśrī appears in Indian art fairly late, and his association with the sacred mountain Wutai (Wu-t’ai) Shan in China seems to have been known in Ancient India itself. Mañjuśrī is sometimes spoken of in the sūtras as actually already a fully enlightened Buddha, and in these sūtras – such as the Mañjuśrībuddhakṣetraguṇavyūha and the Mañjuśrīparinirvāṇa (in Lamotte 1960) – the categories of tenth-stage bodhisattva and Buddha begin to break down or merge. Mañjuśrī has in the past appeared as a Buddha, manifested all the deeds of a Buddha, and apparently entered final nirvāṇa, although he remains acting tirelessly for the benefit of sentient beings. In fact he has done this many times, even leaving holy relics behind. In the Ajātaśatrukaukṛtyavinodana Sūtra Śākyamuni Buddha describes how in the past he was a disciple of Mañjuśrī and has indeed become a Buddha through Mañjuśrī (quoted in Lamotte 1960: 93–4). Such observations, whether for the believer true or not, may well indicate also the way in which sūtras establish the identity and prestige of their teachings in rivalry with traditions associated with other Buddhas and bodhisattvas, and perhaps also any associated cults.

In the final analysis are all these Buddhas and bodhisattvas considered by Mahāyāna Buddhists to be real or not? This question often becomes a question about whether ‘sophisticated’, ‘educated’, ‘brainy’ Mahāyāna Buddhists believe there really are such beings, or whether these are mere concessions to the masses, ‘popular Buddhism’, or perhaps ways of speaking symbolically of positive qualities like compassion and wisdom. The answer, at least from the point of view of traditional Mahāyāna as it has existed down the centuries, is that of course Buddhas and bodhisattvas – as actual beings with arms and legs – do not really, really exist. This is because from an ultimate point of view all is either empty of intrinsic existence, or merely nondual consciousness, or the Buddha-nature, or some other ultimate truth. But to think that this entails that they therefore do not exist, exist that is in the nonintrinsic etc. way that we all do – and are thus really symbols for, say, positive qualities – would be precisely to confuse ultimate negation with conventional negation. From a Mādhyamika point of view, for example, Mañjuśrī has as much reality as we do and is genuinely working for the benefit of all of us. We can indeed see Mañjuśrī, and enter into a reciprocal relationship with him. And we can indeed ourselves become bodhisattvas with just the same attainments as Mañjuśrī. The fact that he is in other contexts also spoken of as being actually wisdom itself personified is irrelevant. To say that Mañjuśrī, or Buddha Amitābha, are merely symbolic and do not really (in the everyday sense of ‘really’) exist would be to say that there are no advanced bodhisattvas with the qualities spoken of in the sūtras, or no Buddhas as understood by Mahāyāna. They do not exist, not in the ultimate sense in which all things do not exist (i.e. in Mādhyamika in the sense of having intrinsic existence), but they do not exist at all. This is certainly not entailed by the teachings of emptiness and so on. And it would probably be to destroy Mahāyāna Buddhism, and the great Mahāyāna aim of striving through pure altruism as a bodhisattva throughout innumerable existences in order to attain perfect Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings.

All conditioned things are impermanent, Mahāyāna Buddhism as well. But to hasten its end in this way would seem to us to be a pity.

Key Points to Chapter Six