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The History of Buddhist Thought c23: Chapter XV. Popular Bodhisattva Doctrine

The History of Buddhist Thought c23

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Chapter XV. Popular Bodhisattva Doctrine

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THE bodhisattva’s career is one of long training, a progress rising in stages to Buddhahood. But in popular teaching its two prominent features are the enormous toils and sufferings that the aspirants have undergone, and the marvellous blessings that they confer on others. It is to these two qualities that the remaining chapters of the *Lotus* are devoted (ch. 22-6). Several bodhisattvas come before the two Buddhas in the stupa, but the outstanding one is Avalokiteśvara.¹ These chapters are probably later than the first part of the sūtra, and they show us another stage, but not the last, in the development of the religion of devotion or *bhakti* in Buddhism.

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¹ The difficulty in interpreting this name lies in *avalokita*. The whole may mean either “Lord of *avalokita*” or “the Lord who is *avalokita*”. The former is the more probable judging by similar compounds—*Dharmeśvara* “Lord of the doctrine”, *Dharaṇīśvara* “Lord of the earth”, and another title of Avalokiteśvara, *Lokeśvara* “Lord of the world”. *Avalokita* comes from the verb *avalokayati* “to look at, to survey”. It does not mean “to look down at” (herabschauen). The latest discussion is by H. Zimmer, *Z. f. Indologie u. Ir.*, 1922, 73 ff. There is no doubt that *avalokitam* can be used as a noun “Looking at or surveying.” Zimmer says that it is not likely that Av. was so named from the activity of looking in general. That is so, but he has taken no notice of the fact that the verb in Pāli is frequently used of Buddha in a very special sense. In the Pāli commentaries he looks at the world, or surveys it, twice a day in order to see what beings need his help (*mahākaruṇā-samāpattito vuṭṭhāya lokaṃ volokento*, rising from the attainment of great compassion and surveying the world, *Dīgha com.*, 673). It is also used in *Mvst.* in the two *Avalokita-sūtras*, where he makes the “surveys” before deciding where and when to be born. Śāntideva quotes one of them as *Avalokana-sūtra*. *Vilokitaṃ* is also used in the same sense (*Mvst.*, ii, 1; *Lal.*, 21; but *olokitāni*, *Mvst.*, i, 142). Avalokiteśvara, just like Buddha, surveys the world in his compassion for all beings, and in this sense is “Lord of the survey”. The *Lotus* itself explains that he is so called because he will help anyone who hears his name or bears it in mind, and again in the verse portion (p. 451) says: “He having seen beings afflicted with many hundred pains, and, as he possesses the power of pure knowledge, having beheld (*vilokiyā*) those distressed with many pains, is therefore the saviour in the world including the gods.” The same explanation was given by Burnouf (*Int.*, 226) on the authority of the *Guṇa-kāraṇḍavyūha*. It is probably the exigency of verse which has caused the compound with *vi-* rather than *ava-* to be used. Some of the Chinese translators read the name as *avalokita-svara*, and according to Giles (*Chin. Dict.*, 6363, 13,209) translated it as *kwan* “to gaze at”, “to view,” *yin* “sound”. This is as meaningless in the Chinese as the Sanskrit, but the translators had to make it mean something, so they interpreted it, according to Giles, as “the hear-prayer Bodhisattva”. Other Chinese translators read the word correctly, and translated it “on-looking sovereign”. Eitel, *Handbook of Chinese Buddhism*, s.v.

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Avalokiteśvara in Chapter 24 is praised by Buddha for the benefits that he confers on all his worshippers. He saves from all sorts of misfortunes merely by the utterance, “reverence, reverence to the giver of safety, Avalokiteśvara, the bodhisattva, the great being.” There is no reference to the six-syllabled spell. He saves from the passions of lust, hatred, and stupidity. He bestows offspring and other blessings. He assumes different forms in order to reach all beings, and appears as a Buddha or one of the Hindu gods, Brahma, Indra, Śiva. This is exactly the aspect under which he appears in the *Kāraṇḍavyūha*, a sūtra devoted expressly to him. This sūtra is still later than the *Lotus*, and shows bodhisattva worship at its height.¹

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¹ There is an elaboration of the sūtra in verse, *Guṇa-kāraṇḍavyūha*, which has been analysed by Burnouf, *Int.*, 220.

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In the *Kāraṇḍavyūha* there are no polemics against the śrāvakas. The “disciples” had probably lost any importance as rivals, and they are not mentioned as being present, but there are long lists of bodhisattvas, different classes of gods and goddesses, and many hundred thousands of laymen, laywomen, wanderers, and even Jains (*nirgranthas*). One curious feature is that although it is reckoned a late sūtra, it preserves some passages from Sarvāstivādin works, even preserving the arhat doctrine and a mention of their Scriptures, evidently when recording old legends. But all references to doctrine are quite perfunctory, except belief in the merits of Avalokiteśvara and the blessings that result from worshipping him.

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Buddha was at Śrāvastī, and rays issued from Avīcī, the lowest hell, adorning and turning to gold the whole city. Buddha explained that it was due to the majesty of Avalokiteśvara, who had entered this hell. On his entrance the place became cool, the tortured beings were relieved, and Yama, king of the Dharma, praised him in a long eulogy. He then went to the city of ghosts (pretas). Water flowed from the pores of his skin, and the ghosts were freed from hunger and thirst. He then taught them this sūtra, their heresy of belief in a permanent entity² was destroyed, they attained the happy world Sukhāvatī and became bodhisattvas.

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² *Satkāyadṛṣṭi* or *ātmātmīyagrāha*. This is belief in a self and not peculiar to Mahāyāna.

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Buddha then told of Avalokiteśvara’s former merits.

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In the time of Vipaśvin Buddha he created the world. “ From his eyes arose the moon and sun, from his forehead Maheśvara (Śiva), from his shoulders Brahmā and others, from his heart Nārāyaṇa (Viṣṇu), from his teeth Sarasvatī, from his mouth the Wind, from his feet the Earth (dharaṇī), and from his belly Varuṇa. Then he said to Maheśvara, thou shalt be Maheśvara when the Kali age arises. Thou shalt be called the primal god (ādideva), creator and maker.”

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In the time of Śikhin Buddha he came with a message of greeting to Śikhin from Amitābha, the Buddha of Sukhāvatī, the Happy Land, in the western quarter. It is Avalokiteśvara’s special function to take his worshippers there. “ Robed in pure white, flying with the speed of the wind, they go to the region of Sukhāvatī to hear face to face the doctrine of Amitābha, and having heard the doctrine the pain of transmigration no longer torments their bodies, nor old age and death with lust, hate, and stupidity, nor the pain of hunger and thirst. They abide in that region as long as the firm promise of Avalokiteśvara is not fulfilled, until all beings are released from all pains, as long as they are not set in supreme perfect enlightenment,” that is to say, until all become Buddhas. Even in this school the final end remains the same, the winning of Nirvāṇa.

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He further teaches beings according to whatever discipline they follow. More catholic than in the Lotus, he assumes the form of a Buddha, a Pratyekabuddha, or an arhat in order to teach, and even takes the forms of the Hindu gods, Maheśvara, etc., and preaches according to the doctrine of each. In the time of Viśvabhū Buddha he went to the realm of the rebel gods, the asuras, and consoled and converted them, and then to the dark land of the monsters, the yakshas and rākshasas. At his preaching “ some reached the fruit of Entering the Stream, some the fruit of Once-returner, some arhatship, some supreme enlightenment ”. Then he went to the gods of the Pure Abode in the form of a brahmin, where, after working a miracle, he declared, “ I am no god, but a man, and have become a bodhisattva, having compassion on the abandoned and wretched, and a teacher of the way of enlightenment.”

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He also went to Ceylon. Here we find several legends that belong to the older schools, and they have been inserted in the sūtra so mechanically that the older teaching has been preserved. Ceylon was formerly inhabited by female rākshasas, monsters who feed on human flesh. He changed himself into the lovely form of the god of Love. The monsters asked him to be their husband, and he promised, if they would do what he ordered. So he expounded to them the Noble Eightfold Path, the ten rules of good action, and taught them the four Āgamas. Some attained the fruit of Entering the Stream, or the fruit of Once-returner, of Non-returner, some arhatship, some Pratyekabuddhahoood. This is the so-called Hīnayāna teaching as it probably stood in a sūtra used by the compiler of this work.

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From Ceylon he went to Benares, where there were many thousands of worms. Taking the form of a bee he hummed the invocation to Buddha, the Doctrine, and the Order, which revived in them the memory of Buddha, so that they all reached Sukhāvatī and became bodhisattvas.

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Thence he went to Magadha, where a famine had lasted for twenty years, and brought down showers of rain and food. An old man there explained to the astonished people that this could only be due to the virtues of Avalokiteśvara.

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Buddha then tells of the innumerable samādhis attained by Avalokiteśvara (nearly seventy are named), and of his coming to save some shipwrecked merchants from the female rākshasas of Ceylon by appearing as a horse and taking them back to India.¹

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¹ This is the well-known Rākshasī-sūtra (so called in Divy., 524) given in full in Mvst., iii, 67; cf. Divy., 120; Rom. Leg., 332, and a mutilated version in Jāt., 196. In the earlier form of the story the horse was Buddha, but here Avalokiteśvara takes his place, and saves the caravan leader, who is Buddha in a previous birth.

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In each of the hair-pores of Avalokiteśvara is a world in which those dwell who know his six-syllabled spell, oṃ maṇipadme hūṃ, and they never again wander in transmigration.² Buddha himself after enormous toils obtained the spell from Padmottama Buddha, who had obtained it from Amitābha. Buddha, however, sends the bodhisattva who has asked him for it to a reciter of the Dharma at Benares to receive it. The bodhisattva does so, and when he asks for it; a voice from the sky orders the reciter to give it. The bodhisattva looks up and sees Avalokiteśvara with a lotus in his hand. He returns to Buddha and 770,000,000 Buddhas

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² Rahder quotes from Vimalakīrtinirdeśa, “a bodhisattva can manifest in a single pore of his skin all the lands in all the ten quarters, even the sun, moon, and stars.”

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BUDDHA'S FIRST SERMON

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PRESENTATION OF OM MANIPADME HŪM

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14:1–2 The Plot to Kill Jesus

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The Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were only two days away, and the chief priests and the teachers of the law were looking for some sly way to arrest Jesus and kill him. “But not during the Feast,” they said, “or the people may riot.”

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The narrative of the Passion begins with a scene of conspiracy. The religious authorities—the chief priests and the scribes—are actively seeking a way to eliminate Jesus. The mention of the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread provides the temporal setting for the events that follow. These were major Jewish festivals, drawing large crowds to Jerusalem, which heightened the authorities' anxiety about public disorder. Their concern that "the people may riot" underscores the popularity Jesus enjoyed among the masses, making a public arrest dangerous. This tension between the authorities' desire to remove Jesus and their fear of the crowd sets the stage for the betrayal by Judas, which will provide the opportunity they need to act in secret. The juxtaposition of the holy festival with the murderous intent of the religious leaders highlights the irony and the gravity of the situation.

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assemble and utter the spell, *oṃ cale cule cunye svāhā*. The acquiring of the great spell is a much greater matter than it might seem, as it should be inscribed in a circle (*maṇḍala*) made of certain substances with appropriate divisions and figures.

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It is unnecessary to follow the sūtra quite to the end. Avalokiteśvara himself visits Buddha. Maheśvara (Śiva) comes with his consort Umā and asks for a prophecy. Avalokiteśvara prophesies that he will become the Buddha Bhasmeśvara,¹ and that Umā will change her sex and become the Buddha Umeśvara. This is one of the instances in this sūtra that show a connection with Śiva-worship, but there is no clear trace as yet of the development of the sexual symbolism and practices known as tantric, which came to infect both Śaivism and Buddhism.

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¹ “Lord of ashes”; Śiva is known as *Bhasmaśuddhikara* “performing purification with ashes”, and similar epithets.

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It will be noticed that there is practically nothing of Mahāyāna doctrine proper beyond bodhisattva worship in these sūtras, but there are still other aspects of the belief to be considered. The happy land, Sukhāvatī, is merely one of the heavens of the Buddhas of the ten points of space, which has become important as being the heaven specially associated with Avalokiteśvara, the bodhisattva attendant on Amitābha. There are two sūtras called *Sukhāvatī-vyūha*, which lavish all their powers of description in portraying a heaven surpassing in bliss any of those of rival religions or even of rival Buddhas.

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The longer *Sukhāvatī-vyūha* is in form much like the *Lotus*. It is chiefly the qualities of Tathāgatas that are eulogized. Buddha gives a list of eighty-one Buddhas, the last of whom was Lokeśvararāja. This Buddha described to his disciple Dharmākara the perfections of innumerable Buddha fields. The disciple took all these Buddha fields and conceived a field eighty-one times more excellent than all those which had been described. He vowed to become its Buddha, and now he dwells in it, the Happy Land Sukhāvatī, as Amitābha, the Buddha of immeasurable light and of immeasurable life (Amitāyus). The two chief bodhisattvas there are Avalokiteśvara and Mahāsthāmaprāpta. This is the only mention in the sūtra of Avalokiteśvara’s importance. In the shorter *Sukhāvatīvyūha* he is not mentioned at all.

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Both here and in the *Lotus* the chief interest is confined to the nature of Tathāgatas and their worship. The great growth of bodhisattva worship appears to be later. This growth was a natural development in a country where *bhakti*, devotion to a personal god like Krishna and Śiva, had assumed such dimensions. Attempts have been made to explain the bodhisattvas as transformations of Hindu gods, but this appears to be a needless complication in stating the problem. There is no need to seek the personalities of the bodhisattvas in another religion. They already existed in great numbers as the product of free invention, and their worship was only an extension of Buddha worship, which was older even than the Mahāyāna movement. Bodhisattva worship was a rival movement rather than an imitation of Hindu forms of devotion. When a few of them had become popular, like Avalokiteśvara, Mañjuśrī, and Vajrapāṇi, it is not surprising if they took over some of the characteristic features of the rival deities. Avalokiteśvara has some of the features of Śiva. In the *Kāraṇḍavyūha* he even has the same title, Maheśvara. Yet he is quite distinct, and when the god Maheśvara is introduced it is as a disciple and worshipper of the great Lord Avalokiteśvara. Another bodhisattva in these sūtras is Mañjuśrī. He is here a great being, but not essentially different from the others. Later he becomes of very different significance, but we can see how he has developed from a simple bodhisattva. His origin needs no explaining, but once he existed and became popular, more and more virtues and powers could be claimed for him which, in the eyes of his worshippers, would make him outrival the gods of the other religions.

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A very different way of considering Bodhisattvahood is that taken by the actual individuals who entered upon the career. This aspect, so far as it belongs to Mahāyāna, is still practically free from metaphysical questions. It is seen at its best in the works of Śāntideva, a poet and bodhisattva of the seventh century A.D. According to the Tibetan author, Tāranātha, he was born as a king’s son in Surat. When he was to be chosen crown prince, he was persuaded by Mañjuśrī and Tārā in a dream to renounce the throne. Tāranātha also records his later life and seven of his miracles, which do not appear very credible.

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Śāntideva has been called the Thomas à Kempis of Buddhism. He was evidently a character who had a true vocation for the bodhisattva’s ideal—the saving of all creatures. He might, like Abou ben Adhem, have said, “write me as one who loves his fellow-men.” His *Śikṣāsamuccaya* (collection of the rules of instruction) is a poem of twenty-seven verses, to which he has added a long commentary consisting chiefly of extracts from the Mahāyāna Scriptures. It is a book of moral rules for the bodhisattva who has made the vow and is beginning the training, and it forms a bodhisattva Vinaya, as it calls itself. He begins by emphasizing the importance of the thought of winning enlightenment. It is more important even than true doctrine, for the bodhisattva can still develop the qualities of a Buddha. All beings like himself shun dangers and pain, and there is no reason why he should preserve himself rather than others. He should make his vow of moral restraint in the presence of a Buddha or spiritual teacher, for in thinking of them he will be the less likely to break it. He must avoid evil ways, evil and frivolous company, and the special sins that beset the bodhisattva when he begins his career (*ādikarmika*). Of these there are eight: (1) discouraging hearers by preaching the doctrine in a way unsuited to their disposition, (2) persuading them to follow the Career of disciples or Pratyekabuddhas on the ground that the Perfections are too high for them, (3) teaching that the study of Mahāyāna makes it unnecessary to keep the Prātimoksha or the moral rules, (4) disparaging the Career of disciples, (5) speaking grudgingly of others and exalting oneself, (6) boasting of one’s attainments for the sake of gain and glory, (7) when in the state of a king’s priest or minister robbing and injuring the Order, (8) when in the state of a king causing corruption amongst the monks.

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Śāntideva is throughout chiefly interested in the moral training of the bodhisattva, and has very little to say about the higher attainments. He gives the ten great vows according to the *Daśabhūmika-sūtra* (below, p. 206) and discusses the Causal Formula, but ends by saying “well, we know indeed that the compounded is very bad and evil, and we will make a cutting off of this combination and assemblage, but for the sake of the ripening of beings we will not proceed to a complete cessation of all compounded things”.

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What Śāntideva tells us in this work is expressed chiefly in extracts from Mahāyāna sūtras, and from these we gain a much more favourable impression of Mahāyāna literature than is afforded by such works as the Lotus. Śāntideva was no doubt an exceptional character, but the fact that such a man and such teaching could appear in the seventh century, and could obtain recognition as one of the most prominent teachers, shows that Buddhism was not in a general state of moral decadence. The degeneration which appeared affected certain schools, according as they suffered from the corruptions to which ascetic movements are always exposed, or as they adopted beliefs and practices foreign to Buddhism.

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Śāntideva’s *Bodhicaryāvatāra*, “entrance into training for enlightenment,” has been called the finest poem in Buddhism. It is remarkable not merely as literature, but most of all in its personal aspect of the revelation of a deeply religious mind. He is filled with the thought that he must strive through unnumbered births to acquire the virtues through which in the presence of the Buddhas he prays to become a tranquillizer of all the pains of all beings. There is a system of worship for bodhisattvas on which his prayers seem to be based ¹: (1) Praise of the Buddhas, (2) acts of worship, (3) confession of sin, (4) praise of virtue, (5) exhorting Buddhas to preach and asking them to delay their Nirvāṇa, (6) rise of the thought of enlightenment, (7) transference of his own merits for the benefit of other beings. His confession thus begins:

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¹ Dhs., 14; cf. La Vallée Poussin, *Bouddhisme, études et mat.*, p. 106.

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Whatever sin I have done or caused to be done in numberless births or in this, whatever through my delusion I have approved to my hurt, that I confess as misdeed, and now am tortured by remorse.

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Whatever sin I have committed against the three Jewels, against mother and father, or against teachers and others, in deed, word, and thought, with many vices and offences, O Guides, all that grievous sin I confess.

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And how may I escape it? I am ever afflicted, O Guides, let not death come too soon upon me, ere my sin is destroyed.

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His thought of enlightenment thus finds expression:

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Thus through all the good done by me may I become a tranquillizer of all the pains of all beings.

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May I become medicine for the sick and their physician, their support until sickness comes not again.

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Their pains of hunger and thirst may I quench with showers of food and drink; in the famines at the end of an age may I become drink and nourishment.

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May I become an unfailing store for the wretched, and be first to supply them with the manifold things of their need. My own self and my pleasures, all my righteousness, past, present, and future, I sacrifice without regard, in order to achieve the welfare of all beings.

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For himself he has one consolation, the knowledge of the two truths, which he will one day reach in its perfection with the Perfection of Wisdom.

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When to them that are burnt in the fire of pain shall I bring peace through my favours born from the rain-clouds of my merit? When shall I in reverence teach the Void to them that look upon things as real?

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