འཕགས་པ་འཇམ་དཔལ་གནས་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད intro.9

intro.9

After Śāriputra praises Mañjuśrī on his eloquence in explaining the Dharma, Mañjuśrī proceeds to instruct the audience on the “non-decrease and non-increase” (anūnatvāpūrṇatva) of the realm of sentient beings and the realm of reality (). The topic of “non-decrease and non-increase” is an important theme in a number of Mahāyāna sūtras, such as The Perfection of Wisdom in Seven Hundred Lines (Toh 24), The Questions of Suvikrāntavikrāmin (Toh 14), and The Absorption That Encapsulates All Merit (),¹⁸ along with various sūtras of the Heap of Jewels (Ratnakuṭa) class¹⁹ and even the Heart Sūtra.²⁰ The Anūnatvāpūrṇatva­nirdeśa­parivarta, a discourse that bears the name of this topic and is preserved only in Chinese, connects this topic with the teaching of Buddha nature (tathāgata­garbha).²¹ The Dwelling Place of Mañjuśrī, however, equates the non-increasing and non-decreasing true nature with the realm of reality and the realm of sentient beings. The non-increase and non-decrease of the realm of sentient beings and the realm of reality is explained in The Questions of Suvikrāntavikrāmin ,²² where both realms are said to lack any intrinsic essence, are infinite, and are designated through conventional expressions. The Buddha explains to Suvikrāntavikrāmin that “non-decrease and non-increase” is a synonym for the vision of how things are in a nonconceptual manner.²³ The Dwelling Place of Mañjuśrī concurs with this understanding, where the text reads, “that which is uncurtailed in this way is awakening. Awakening is liberation. Liberation is nonconceptual. The nonconceptual is unfabricated and immutable. The unfabricated and immutable is wholly beyond suffering.” Because this nonconceptual nature, which is symbolized by Mañjuśrī himself, does not dwell anywhere, it is without a fixed dwelling place, in other words without any metaphysical foundation.