P. 33, 1. 30 (III, 50 c). If we read api n&ma sakto, the translation should run, ‘ would that he might not be able to forsake us, even though he remained attached to us only through the restlessness of the senses.’
P. 60, 1. 31 (V, 80 d). This might be rendered ‘planting his footsteps without alarm,’ but I have taken ^akita as meaning ‘ hurrying ’ from the ^akitagate^ of the next rioka.
P. 83 (VIII, 31 d), add to note 2, ‘there is a similar confusion of vig&dha and viga<z%a in the MSS. in VIII, 76.’
BUDDHIST MAHAYANA TEXTS PART II THE LARGER SUKHAvATJ-VYOhA THE SMALLER SUKHAVATI-VyChA THE VASRAA'ATYEDIKA THE LARGER THE SMALLER TRANSLATED BY F. MAX MULLER the amitAyur-dhyAna-sOtra TRANSLATED BY J. TAKAKUSU AT THE CLARENDON PRESS CONTENTS TO PART II.
PAGE Introduction. v Translated by F. Max Muller.
Index of Words. 77 Index of Subjects. 85 2. The Smaller SukhavatI-vyu ha. 87 Index of Names and Subjects. 105 Index of Sanskrit Words. 107 4. The Larger PragaA-pAramita-hr/daya-siItra...145 5. The Smaller Pragaa-pAramita-h-r/daya-sOtra...151 Index of Names and Subjects. 155 Index of Sanskrit Words. 157 Translated by J. Takakusu.
Index of Names and Subjects. 203 Transliteration of Oriental Alphabets adopted for the Translations of the Sacred Books of the East. 205 INTRODUCTION.
THE LARGER SUKHAVATI-VYOhA.
According to the census of 1891 Japan has about forty millions of inhabitants, of whom more than thirty millions are Buddhists. Of these Buddhists the Shin-shiu sect claims about ten millions of followers, with 19,208 temples, and 11,958 preachers, with ten chief priests, and 3,593 students. The books on which the members of this sect chiefly found their faith are the two Sukhavati-vyuhas, the large and the small, and the Amit4yur-dhyina-sfitra. They are sometimes called the Large Sutra, the Small Sutra, and the Sutra of Meditation L According to the Buddhists of Japan, Buddha preached the Amitayur-dhyana-sbtra to queen Vaidehi in the city of R4^agf-fha. This was during the fifth period of his life; i. e. when he was between the age of seventy-one and seventy-nine.
The outline given of this Sfitra is as follows: ‘ Vaidehi, consort of king Bimbisara of Magadha, seeing the wicked actions of her son A^taratru, began to feel weary of this world Saha (here as elsewhere explained as the patient, much-enduring earth). Sakyamuni then taught her how to be born in the Pure Land Sukhavati, instructing her in the method of being born in that world, enumerating three kinds of good actions. The first is worldly goodness, which includes good actions in general, such as filial piety, respect 1 See Sukhavatt-vyftha, in Anecdota Oxoniensia, p. ix.
VI THE LARGER SUKHAVATi-VYlJHA.
for elders, loyalty, faithfulness, &c. The second is the goodness of.Site or morality, in which there are differences between the priesthood and the laity. In short, however, all who do not oppose the general rule of reproving wicked¬ ness and exhorting to the practice of virtue are included in this goodness. The third is the goodness of practice, which includes that of the four Satyas or truths, and the six Paramitas or perfections. Besides these, all other pure and good actions, such as the reading and recital of the Mahayana-shtras, persuading others to hear the Law, and thirteen kinds of goodness to be practised by fixed thought, are comprised in this. Towards the end of the Sutra, Buddha says: “ Let not one’s voice cease, but ten times complete the thought, and repeat the words Namo*mi- t&bMya Buddhaya, or adoration to Amitibha Buddha. This practice is the most excellent of all.”
‘ At seventy-eight years of age Buddha is said 1 to have composed the Samanta-bhadra-bodhisattva-Larya-dharma- sutra, in the city of Vauali. At the age of seventy-nine he is supposed to have ascended to the Trayastriwwa heaven in order to preach to his mother, and after descending on earth again, he only published two more Sutras, the Nirv4«a-sfitra and the Sukhavati-vyuha. Very soon after he died.’
The same three books, that is, the two Sukhavati-vyuhas and the Amitdyur-dhyfina-sutra, form also the chief authority of the Lodoshiu sect, the sect of the Pure Land. The followers of this sect state2 that in the year 25a A. D. Sanghavarman, an Indian student of theTripiVaka, came to China and translated the great AmitfiyuA-sutra, i. e. the Larger Sukhavati-vyuha, in two volumes. This is the first and largest of their sacred books.
In the year 400 A. D. another teacher, Kumara^nva, came from India to China, and produced a translation of the 1 These are the statements of the Buddhists in Japan as recorded by Bunyiu Nanjio in ‘ Short History of the Twelve Japanese Buddhist Sects,’ Tokyo, 1886, p. xviii.
INTRODUCTION.
VII small Amitayu^-sutra, or Smaller Sukhavati-vyuha, in one volume. This is the smallest of the three sacred books.
In 424 A. D. KHayaras arrived in China from India, and translated the Amitayur-dhyana-sutra in one volume.
Chinese translations of these texts were known to exist not only in China, but also in Japan, and there were in several cases more than one translation of the same text. But it was not known, nor even suspected, that the Sanskrit originals of some of them had been preserved in the temples and monasteries of that distant island.
In the year 1880 I read a paper before the Royal Asiatic Society in London, * On Sanskrit Texts discovered in Japan ’ (Selected Essays, vol. ii, pp. 213-271), and in it and in the preface to my edition of the Sanskrit texts of the Sukhavati- vyftha in the Anecdota Oxoniensia, 1883, I explained how I discovered the existence and came into the possession of Sanskrit MSS. and copies of Sanskrit MSS. from the Buddhist monasteries in Japan.
I had long suspected the existence of old Sanskrit MSS. in China, and had asked my friends there to search for them, and as it was well known from the works of Siebold and others that there were short invocations in Sanskrit of Buddha hung up in the Buddhist temples of Japan or written on their walls, I entertained a hope that in Japan also some real and ancient MSS. might still be discovered. The alphabet in which these short invocations are written was known by the name of Shidda, the Sanskrit Siddha1. It may be seen in Siebold’s works and in an article published in 1880 in the Annales du Musee Guimet, vol. i, pp. 322-336, by MM. Ymaizoumi and Yamata. What was not known, however, was that there had been a period in 1 Siddham, lit. what is successfully achieved, seems to have been used by Buddhists like siddhi^, success, as an auspicious invocation at the beginning of literary works. Thus we see that the alphabet on the HSriuzhi palm-leaves begins with siddham, and this siddham may afterwards have become the name of the alphabet itself. In Siddhanta, meaning dogma, grammar, siddha conveys the sense of settled; in Siddhartha, a name of Buddha, it means fulfilled, i. e. he whose desires have all been fulfilled, the perfect man, free from desires and passions.
the history of Japan when Sanskrit was studied systemati¬ cally by native priests, nay, that some of the MSS. which had travelled from India to China, and from China to Japan were still in existence there. Of these MSS. I gave an account in 1884 in the Anecdota Oxoniensia, ‘ The Ancient Palm-Leaves.’ Though hitherto no new discoveries of Sanskrit MSS. have been made, it is most desirable that the search for them should not be given up in China, in Japan, and in Corea also. But even thus a new and important chapter has been added to the history of Buddhism, and the fact been established once for all that Buddhist litera¬ ture found a home in Japan, and was studied there for many generations not only in Chinese translations, but in the original Sanskrit also. Let us hope that through the efforts of my pupils, such as Bunyiu Nanjio,Kenjiu Kasawara (died 1883), and others, a new school of Sanskrit students has been planted in Japan which will enable the followers of Buddha there to derive their knowledge of his doctrine from the original and undefiled source of the ancient T ripi/aka.
I thought it best for the sake of completeness, and in compliance with the wishes of my friends in Japan, to give in this volume the translation both of the Larger and the Smaller Sukhavatx-vyhha. They differ from each other on several smaller points. The Larger Sukhavati-vyuha is represented as having been preached on the Grfdhrakftte hill near Rl^agrfha, the Smaller Sukhavati-vyuha in the Ceta-grove near.Sravasti. In the former the chief inter¬ locutors are the Bhagavat, i. e. the Buddha -Sakyamuni, Ananda, and A^ita; in the latter the Bhagavat and Sari- putra. There is one point, however, which is of great importance in the eyes of the followers of the Shin-shiu sect, on which the two treatises differ.
The Smaller Sukhavati-vyuha lays great stress on the fact that people can be saved or can be born in the Land of Bliss, if only they remember and repeat the name of Buddha Amitabha two, three, four, five, six or more nights before their death, and it distinctly denies that people are born in the Paradise of Amitabha as a reward or necessary result of good works performed in the present life. This INTRODUCTION.
IX INTRODUCTION.
IX would seem to take away one of the fundamental doctrines of Buddhism, namely the doctrine of k arm an, or of the continuous working of our deeds whether good or bad. Instead of the old doctrine, As a man soweth, so he shall reap, a new and easier way of salvation is here preached, viz. As a man prayeth, so he shall be saved. It is what is known to us as salvation by faith rather than by works. The Larger Sukhavati-vyhha lays likewise great stress on prayer and faith in Amitabha, but it never neglects ‘the stock of merit ’ as essential for salvation. It would almost seem as if this popular and easy doctrine had secured to itself the name of Mahayana, as meaning the Broad Way, in opposition to the Narrow Way, the Hinayana.
The historical relation between the Hinayana and the Mahayana schools of Buddhism is to me as great a puzzle as ever. But that the teaching of Nikyamuni as represented in the Hinayana comes first in time seems to be shown by the Mahayana-sutras themselves. Even in our Sukhavati-vyuha the teacher, the Bhagavat, is Nakyamuni, whom we know as the son of the Lord of Kapilavastu,the husband of Y arodhard, the father of Rahula. We begin with a dialogue between this Buddha and his famous disciple Ananda. Ananda observes that Buddha is in a state of spiritual exaltation and asks him what he is seeing or thinking. Thereupon Buddha relates how there was a line of eighty-one Tathagatas or Buddhas beginning with Dipankara and ending with Lokervarara^a. During the period of this Tathagata Lokervarara^a, a Bhikshu or Buddhist mendicant of the name of Dharma- kara formed the intention of becoming a Buddha. He there¬ fore went to the Tathagata Lokervararaga, praised him in several verses, and then asked him to become his teacher and to describe to him what a Buddha and a Buddha country ought to be. After having received instruction, Dharma- kara comprehended all the best qualities of all the Buddha countries, and prayed that they should all be concentrated in his own country when he himself had become a Buddha. After long meditations Dharmakara returns to Buddha Lokervararag'a and tells him in a long prayer what he X THE LARGER SUKHAVATf-VYfjHA.
wishes and wills his own Buddha country to be. This prayer forms really the nucleus of the S ukhavati-vyuha; it is in fact, under the form of a prayer, a kind of prophecy of what, according to Dharmakara’ s ideas, Sukhavati or the Land of Bliss ought to be. Dharmakara then became a Bodhisattva, a candidate for Buddhahood, and lastly a real Buddha (§ 9). All this is related by Buddha Sakyamuni to Ananda, as a kind of vision of what happened ten kalpas ago (§ 14, s. f.). When Ananda asks Sakyamuni what has become of this Bodhisattva Dharmakara, Buddha answers that this original mendicant is now reigning in Sukh&vati as the Buddha Amitabha. He then proceeds to describe Sukhavati where Amitabha dwells, and his description of Amitibha’s country is very much the fulfilment of all that Dharmikara has prayed for. Once (§17) Ananda is reproved by Buddha for not implicitly believing all he says about the marvels of Sukhavati, but afterwards the praises of Sukhavati and of its inhabitants are continued till nearly the end. In some verses recited by Buddha Sakyamuni, Amitabha himself, when questioned by the Buddha-son Avalokitervara, explains that Sukhavati is what it is in fulfilment of his prayers, when he was as yet living on earth (§§ 31, 13; 17). At last Ananda expresses a wish to see Amitabha, whereupon that Buddha sends a ray of light from the palm of his hand so that the whole world was inundated by its light, and not only Ananda, but every living being could see Amitftbha and his retinue of Bodhisattvas in the Land of Bliss, while they in Sukhavati could see Sakyamuni and the whole world Saha. Then begins the conversation between Sakyamuni and A/fita (instead of Ananda). Buddha explains to him how some of the blessed spirits in Sukhavati sit cross-legged in lotus-flowers, while others dwell shut up in the calyx of these flowers, the former being the firm believers in Amitabha, the latter those who have entertained some doubt, and who have therefore to wait for five hundred years inside the calyx before they become full-blown, being debarred during all that time from seeing and hearing the Buddha.
In conclusion Buddha Sakyamuni exhorts A^ita to teach INTRODUCTION.
XI this treatise, the Sukhavati-vyuha, to all beings, and promises great rewards to all who will learn it, copy it, teach and explain it.
I need not repeat here what I have said in the preface to my edition of the Sanskrit text of the Sukhavati-vyuha about the difficulties of translating a text which in many places is corrupt and imperfect. But I may point out another difficulty, namely how almost impossible it is to find in English a sufficient number of nouns and adjectives to render the superabundant diction of this Description of the Land of Bliss. An exact rendering of all the words of its gushing eloquence is out of the question. Often I should have liked to shorten some turgid sentence, but I was afraid of exposing myself once more to the frivolous charge of re¬ presenting the Sacred Books of the East as more beautiful, as more free from blemishes, than they really are. No more unfounded charge could have been brought against these translations of the Sacred Books of the East. What¬ ever else they may be or not be, they are certainly faithful, as faithful as an English translation of an Oriental original can possibly be. That they are free from mistakes, I should not venture to say, and no Oriental scholar would expect it. Those who venture to translate Oriental texts that have never been translated before are few in number, and they have to do the work of pioneers. Those who follow in their track find it very easy, no doubt, to do over again what has been done before, and even to point out here and there what they consider and represent as mistakes; nay, they evidently imagine that because they can discover a mistake, they themselves could have done the pioneer’s work as well or much better. If only they would try for once to find their way through the jungle and the brushwood of an unexplored forest they would become more just to their predecessors, and more humble in judging of their own performances. Nay, they might possibly find that often when they differ from the translation of others, they themselves may be wrong, and their precursors right.
This at all events I may say in my own name and in the name of my fellow-workers, that the idea of representing XU THE SMALLER SUKHAVAtLvyIjHA.
the Sacred Books of the East as better, purer, and more beautiful than they are, could never enter into the head of a scholar, and has never proved even a temptation to the translators of the Sacred Books of the East.
THE SMALLER SUKHAvATI-VYOHA.
The translation of the Smaller Sukhavati-vyuha has been published by me before in my Selected Essays, vol. ii, p. 348, where a fuller account may be found of the dis¬ covery of Sanskrit MSS. in Japan, and of the way by which they travelled from India to China, and from China to Japan. I have made a few corrections in my translation, and have added some notes and omitted others.
THE VASRAATsYYEDIKA.
In order to make this collection of Mahayana works more complete and useful to students in Japan I have added a translation of the Va^ra^Mediki, which is much studied in Japan, and the Sanskrit text of which was published by mein an editio princeps — in the Anecdota Oxoniensia, The Va^ra^Mediki, or the Diamond-cutter, is one of the most widely read and most highly valued metaphysical treatises in Buddhist literature. In Japan the V agxakkhe- dika and the Pra^zaparamita-hAdaya are read chiefly by the followers of the Shin-gon sect, founded by K6-B0, the great disciple of the famous Hiouen-thsang, in 81 6 a. D. The temples of this sect in Japan amount to 12,943. Written originally in Sanskrit, it has been translated into Chinese, Tibetan, Mongol, and Mandshu. Its full title is Vagrakkhe- dika Pra^a-paramita, i.e. the Diamond -cutter, the perfection of wisdom, or, as it has sometimes been rendered,! the INTRODUCTION.
Xlll Transcendent Wisdom.’ Mr. Bunyiu Nanjio in his Cata¬ logue of the Tripi/aka, p. i, has shown that it forms the ninth section of the Mahapra^a-paramitfl-sutra, and that it agrees with the Tibetan translation of the text in 300 jlokas.
An account of the Tibetan translation was given as far back as 1836 by Csoma Korosi in his Analysis of the Sher- chiu, the second division of the Kanjur, published in the Asiatic Researches, vol. xx, p. 393 seq. Our text is there described as the Diamond-cutter or the Sutra of wonderful effects, in which S'Akya in a colloquial manner instructs Subhuti, one of his principal disciples, in the true meaning of the Pra^z^-paramita. The Tibetans, we are told, pay great respect to this Sutra, and copies of it are found in consequence in great abundance x.
The first Chinese translation1 2 is ascribed to Kuma- ra^iva of the latter Tsin dynasty (A. D. 384-417). An English translation of this Chinese translation was published by the Rev. S. Beal in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1864-5.
There are several more Chinese translations, one by Bodhiru/fd (a. d. 509), one by Paramartha (a. d. 56a), one by Hiouen-thsang (a. D. 648), one by I-tsing (A. D. 703), one by Dharmagupta of the Sui dynasty (a. D. 589-618).
The text and German translation of the Tibetan transla¬ tion were published in 1837 by M. Schmidt in the Mdmoires de l’Acaddmie de St. Pdtersbourg, tom. iv, The Mongolian translation was presented by the Baron Schiling de Canstadt to the Library of the Institut de France.
The Mandshu translation is in the possession of M. de Harlez, who with the help of the Tibetan, Mandshu, and Chinese versions has published a valuable French transla¬ tion of the Sanskrit text of the Va^ra^Mediki in the Journal Asiatique, 189a.
1 See also L. Feerin Annales duMusee Guimet, vol. ii, p. 201.
2 See preface to my edition of the Xa.gra.kkhe&\)<&. Anecd. Oxon., 1881.
XIV THE VAGRAXiTHEDIKA.
At first sight it may seem as if this metaphysical treatise hardly deserved the world-wide reputation which it has attained. Translated literally into English it must often strike the Western reader as sheer nonsense, and hollow repetition. Nor can anything be said in defence of the form or style adopted in this treatise by the Buddhist philosophers who wished to convince their hearers of the truth of their philosophy. This philosophy, or, at least, its underlying doctrine, is not unknown to us in the history of Western philosophy. It is simply the denial of the reality of the phenomenal world. Considering how firmly a belief in phenomenal objects is established in the ordinary mind, it might well have seemed that such a belief could not be eradicated except by determined repetition. But that the theory had been fully reasoned out before it was stated in this practical, but by no means attractive form, may be gathered from the technical terminology which pervades our treatise. There are two words, in particular, which are of great importance for a right apprehension of its teach¬ ing, dharma and sa tugrik. Dharma, in the ordinary Buddhist phraseology, may be correctly rendered by law. Thus the whole teaching of Buddha is called the Good Law, Saddharma. But in our treatise dharma is generally used in a different sense. It means form ( elbos ), and likewise what is possessed of form, what is therefore different from other things, what is individual, in fact, what we mean by a thing or an object. This meaning has escaped most of the trans¬ lators, both Eastern and Western, but if we were always to translate dharma by law, it seems to me that the whole drift of our treatise would become unintelligible. What our treatise wishes to teach is that all objects, differing one from the other by their dharmas, are illusive, or, as we should say, phenomenal and subjective, that they are in fact of our own making, the products of our own mind. When we say that something is large or small, sweet or bitter, these dharmas or qualities are subjective, and cannot be further defined. What is large to me, may be small to another. A mile may seem short or long, according to the state of our muscles, and no one can determine the point where INTRODUCTION.
XV smallness ends and length begins. This applies to all things which we are supposed to know, that is, which we are able to name. And hence the Buddhist metaphysician tells us that all things are but names, %-a.mgnzs \ and that being names they are neither what they seem to be nor what they do not seem to be. This extreme Pyrrhonism is afterwards applied to everything. Dust is not dust, because we cannot draw a line between the smallest molecules, the smallest granules, the smallest dust, and the smallest gravel. There are no signs (no TeK^pia or o-ij/xeia) by which we can know or distinguish these objects. There are in fact no objects, independent of us; hence whoever speaks of things, of beings, of living beings, of persons, &c., uses names only, and the fact that they are names implies that the normal things are not what they seem to be. This, I believe, is the meaning of the constantly recurring phrase: What is spoken of as ‘ beings, beings indeed ’ that was preached or called by Buddha as no-beings; that is, every name and every concept is only a makeshift, if it is not altogether a failure; it is certainly not true. We may speak of a dog, but there is no such thing as a dog. It is always either a greyhound or a spaniel, this or that dog, but dog is only an abstraction, a name, a concept of our mind. The same applies to quadruped, animal, living being, and being; they are all names with nothing corresponding to them. This is what is meant by the highest perfect knowledge, in which nothing, not even the smallest thing, is known, or known to be known (par. 22). In that knowledge there is no difference, it is always the same and therefore perfect (par. 23). He who has attained this knowledge believes neither in the idea, i. e. the name of a thing, nor in the idea of a no-thing, and Buddha by using the expression, the idea, or name (sarngna.) of a thing, implies thereby that it is not the idea of a thing (par. 31). This metaphysical Agnosticism is represented as perfectly familiar even to children and ignorant persons (par. 30), and d harm a correspond in many respects to the Veddntic XVI THE VAGRAX-XffEDIKA.
and if it was meant to be so, the endless repetition of the same process of reasoning may find its explanation.
That this extreme scepticism or Pyrrhonism is really the popular view of the present followers of the Mah&yana Bud¬ dhism, was clearly stated at the Congress of Religions, held in Chicago, in September, 1893. A Deputy sent by the leading sects in Japan, submitted to the Congress an outline of the doctrines of the MaMyana Buddhists drawn up by Mr. S. Kuroda. This outline had been carefully examined and approved by scholars belonging to six of the Buddhist sects in Japan, and was published with authority at Tokyo in 1893. This is what he writes of the Mahayana metaphysics: ‘The distinction between pure and impure is made by the mind; so are also all the changes in all things around us. All things that are produced by causes and conditions, are inevitably destined to extinction. There is nothing that has any reality; when conditions come things begin to appear, when conditions cease these things likewise cease to exist. Like the foam of the water, like the lightning flash, and like the floating, swiftly vanishing clouds they are only of momentary duration h As all things have no constant nature of their own, so there is no actuality in pure and impure, rough and fine, large and small, far and near, knowable and unknowable, &c. On this account it is sometimes said that all things are nothing. The apparent phenomena around us are, however, produced by mental operations within us, and thus distinctions are established.
‘These distinctions produced by mental operations are, however, caused by fallacious reasoning nurtured by the habits of making distinctions between ego and non-ego, good and bad, and by ignorance of the fact that things have no constant nature of their own and are without distinctions (when things thought of have no corresponding reality, such thinking is called fallacious. It may be compared to the action of the ignorant monkey that tries to catch the image of the moon upon water). Owing to this fallacious reasoning, a variety of phenomena constantly INTRODUCTION.
XVII appear and disappear, good and bad actions are done, and the wanderings through the six ways or states of life are thus caused and maintained.
‘ All things are included under subject and object. The subject is an entity in which mental operations are awakened whenever there are objects, while the object consists of all things, visible and invisible, knowable and unknowable, &c. The subject is not something that occupies some space in the body alone, nor does the object exist outside of the subject. The innumerable phenomena of subject and object, of ego and non-ego, are originated by the influence of fallacious thinking, and consequently various principles, sciences, and theories are produced.