འཕགས་པ་ཆས་ཀྱ་ཕང་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད intro.5

intro.5

In spite of such calls for a broad audience, this approach is likely to have resonated most clearly with male monastics, as it represents a Buddhist perspective that runs right from the institutional androcentrism of early monastic Buddhism to the valorization of ascetic discipline in the early Mahāyāna.⁸ The theme common to the present text and those studied by Boucher and Nattier suggests that we might also locate this sūtra among the earlier strata of Mahāyāna sūtras that emerged in the first centuries ce. An interesting difference, however, is The Sections of Dharma’s explicit usage of prajñāpāramitā themes in its discussion of such concepts as the absence of birth and cessation with regard to phenomena; such themes are absent from the texts studied by Boucher and Nattier. The Sections of Dharma therefore seems to belong to a different stream of early Mahāyāna texts: one still centered on monastics, rather than lay bodhisattvas, yet simultaneously inspired by prajñāpāramitā themes. This thematic duality is also reflected in the fact that the early imperial catalogs categorized this scripture as a Mahāyāna sūtra, yet the translation colophon in the Stok Palace Kangyur notes that it belongs to the first turning of the wheel of Dharma (bka’ ’khor lo dang por gtogs pa’o). Indeed, though it does broach prajñāpāramitā concepts, the sūtra is still very much set in the hearers’ monastic context, exemplified by the fact that the Buddha teaches in the presence of worthy ones (arhants), and not bodhisattvas. The sūtra’s concluding verse, which states that the Buddha did not expound this teaching to spiritual practitioners, but only to those who still indulged in desires, moreover suggests that the main body of the text is a teaching of provisional meaning, which is meant for beginners on the path and later to be superseded by more advanced teachings. Teachings of provisional meaning are contextual and adapted to the spiritual capacities of their audiences. Since they do not literally expound the ultimate view, they require interpretation.