Copyright

by

Tu-Uyen Ngoc Nguyen

2020

The Report Committee for Tu-Uyen Ngoc Nguyen Certifies that this is the approved version of the following Report:

“A Career in Self-Sacrifice: The Medicine King’s Self-Immolation in the Sanskrit Lotus Sūtra”

APPROVED BY SUPERVISING COMMITTEE:

Oliver Freiberger, Supervisor

Donald R. Davis, Jr.

“A Career in Self-Sacrifice: The Medicine King’s Self-Immolation in the Sanskrit Lotus Sūtra”

by

Tu-Uyen Ngoc Nguyen

Report Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of

The University of Texas at Austin

in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements

for the Degree of

Master of Arts

The University of Texas at Austin August 2020

Abstract

“A Career in Self-Sacrifice: The Medicine King’s Self-Immolation in the Sanskrit Lotus Sūtra”

Tu-Uyen Ngoc Nguyen, M.A.

The University of Texas at Austin, 2020

Supervisor: Oliver Freiberger

Modern self-immolation as political protest finds its roots in religious textual precedence in the ancient Buddhist Sanskrit Lotus Sūtra, a Mahāyāna scripture composed in central Asia some time between the first century B.C.E. and the third century C.E. Although ancient Indian sects rejected this marginal teaching, the Lotus Sūtra found fertile ground across eastern lands and seas. I argue that the Sanskrit Lotus Sūtra reveals important insights into the spiritual power and efficacy of self-immolation found throughout the multi-lifetime career of the bodhisattva and bhāṇaka Medicine King Bhaiṣajyarāja, self- immolator par excellence. As an intermediary to the Buddha and an expounder of his dharma, I examine how this bodhisattva’s individual self-sacrifice embodies exemplary worship, and thus access to the Buddha’s power through the perfections of giving, teaching, and service. His six chapters throughout the Lotus Sūtra may indicate an authorial commitment to the bodhisattva ideal during an early stage of the Mahāyāna tradition’s doctrinal and practical development. Using the editions of Kern and Nanjio with Watanabe, I examine Sanskrit passages based on the Lotus Sūtra’ main manuscript recensions from Kashgar, Nepal, and Gilgit. I employ textual analysis to investigate the message and messaging of self-sacrifice through self-immolation and self-mutilation.

iv Table of Contents

Chapter One: Introduction ...... 1

The Lotus Sūtra and the Medicine King ...... 1

The Medicine King as Bodhisattva, Bhāṇaka, and Perfecter of Giving ...... 4

Chapter Two: The Medicine King’s “Current Life” ...... 9

In Chapter 1 ...... 9

In Chapter 10 ...... 16

“Known as the Buddha Himself” ...... 17

Giving, Endurance, and Emptiness ...... 19

Luminous Body, Clarion Call ...... 20

In Chapter 12 ...... 21

In Chapter 21 ...... 24

The Medicine King and “the Rakṣā Movement” ...... 26

Dhāraṇī and the Lotus Sūtra Community ...... 27

Chapter Three: The Past Lives of the Medicine King ...... 30

In Chapter 22 ...... 30

Part 1 - Episode 1: The Self-Immolation ...... 30

Scene 1 - Resolution ...... 30

Scene 2 - Preparation ...... 32

Scene 3 - Enactment...... 33

Scene 4 - Verdict ...... 34

Scene 5 - Endurance...... 38

Part 2 - Episode 2: Rebirth ...... 40 v Scene 1 - Rebirth ...... 40

Scene 2 - Filial Piety ...... 44

Scene 3 - Special Responsibility ...... 47

Scene 4 - Leadership ...... 52

Scene 5 - Teaching ...... 55

Part 3 - Śakyamuni Buddha’s Teaching...... 59

In Chapter 25 ...... 60

Chapter Four: Conclusion ...... 65

References ...... 69

Critical Sanskrit Editions ...... 69

Translations from Sanskrit ...... 69

General Bibliography ...... 70

vi Chapter One: Introduction

THE LOTUS SŪTRA AND THE MEDICINE KING In the Saddharmapuṇḍarikasūtra, more commonly known as the Lotus Sūtra, the bodhisattva Bhaiṣajyarāja, more commonly known as the Medicine King, represents a textual embodiment of self-immolation as a powerful form of religious worship. The Medicine King appears in six of the Sanskrit text’s twenty-seven chapters which show how he realizes the Buddha’s ultimate teaching of the bodhisattva path within the Mahāyāna tradition: dharma-bhāṇaka, dharma-expounder or preacher. These chapters are named in the following list by Hendrik Kern in his 1884 English translation from the Sanskrit. I also provide (if applicable) the chapters titles referenced by Donald Lopez, Jr. and Jacqueline Stone in their study of the Lotus Sūtra in the eyes of Nichiren, the medieval Japanese commentator. Lopez and Stone draw from Tsugunari Kubo and Akira Yuyama’s 2007 Japanese-to-English translation based on Kumārajīva’s Chinese translation. 1 – “Introductory,” 10 – “The Preacher” (“Expounder of the Dharma”), 12 – “Exertion” (13 - “Perseverance”), 21 – “Spells” (26, “Dhārāṇī”), 22 – “Ancient Devotion of Bhaiṣajyarāja,” and 25 – “Ancient Devotion” (27 – “Ancient Accounts of King Śubhavyūha”).1

My study focuses on the Sanskrit versions of the chapters instead of the Chinese or Japanese.2 Scholars date the timeframe of the Lotus Sūtra’s composition between 100-50 B.C.E. and 220 C.E.3 Chapter 22 is the locus classicus for the practice of self-immolation in the Mahāyāna tradition.4 The Lotus Sūtra contains the story of the bodhisattva

1 Hendrik Kern, trans., The Saddharma-Puṇḍarīka or, The Lotus of the True Law. The Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XXI (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1884). Henceforth I will refer to this citation by its English title, The Lotus of the True Law to avoid confusion with his Sanskrit edition that co-edited with Nanjio in 1908- 12. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. and Jacqueline I. Stone., Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side: A Guide to the Lotus Sūtra (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019) xii-xiii. 2 For an overview of the extensive array of scholarship on the Lotus Sūtra, see Lopez and Stone, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, 2. 3 Donald S. Lopez, Jr., The Lotus Sūtra: A Biography (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016) 21-22. 4 Christoph Kleine, “’The Epitome of the Religious Life’: The Controversy over Self-Mortification and Ritual Suicide as Ascetic Practices in East Asian Buddhism,” In Asceticism and Its Critics: Historical 1 Sarvasattvapriyadarśana as the future-now-present-Medicine King who immolates himself as an act of devotion to the Buddha. I will use both names Sarvasattvapriyadarśana and Bhaiṣajyarāja throughout this report because they are both one and the same as the Buddha will clarify at the end of Chapter 22. Taking the extremely long way to Buddhahood, bodhisattvas like the Medicine King are unlike pratyekabuddhas (“solitary enlightened ones”) because they aim to liberate as many beings as they can from suffering and rebirth, not just themselves.5 Bodhisattvas thus desire to perfect themselves over “many billions of lifetimes” so that over multiple millennia of lifetimes, they can instruct as many people as possible about the previous Buddha’s teachings.6 Their task is especially crucial during times when these rather sacred teachings have “faded entirely into oblivion,” so that their collective delay in reaching final liberation is even more noteworthy because these bodhisattvas help ensure the teachings persist even during unenlightened eons to come.7 The Medicine King is thus one of these ideal bodhisattvas and he appears in a total of six chapters of the Lotus Sūtra. After his first appearances in the second stage in chapters 1 and 10, appears in chapters 12, 21, 22, and 25, the third compilation stage. The Medicine King’s various appearances may convey the authors’ interest in him and his role as one of several ideal bodhisattvas. As the sūtra was being developed, individual bodhisattvas like Bhaiṣajyarāja and his cult must have been popular (at least with the authors) until the Medicine Buddha cult took off, if they were ever separate to begin with, or coexisted all along.8

Accounts and Comparative Perspectives, edited by Oliver Freiberger, 153–177 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). 5 Lopez and Stone Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, 10-11; 37. Here I use Lopez and Stone’s translation for pratyekabuddha. 6 Lopez and Stone, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, 37-38. 7 Lopez and Stone, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, 38. 8 For more on the Medicine Buddha Bhaiṣajyaguru, see Robert. E. Buswell, Jr. and Donald S. Lopez, Jr., The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014) 108-109. For the sūtra about the Medicine Buddha, see Buswell and Lopez, Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 109. For the brother bodhisattvas as the two main figures within the Medicine Buddha’s group of seven acolytes, see Buswell and Lopez, Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 109. For more on Bhaiṣajyaguru, see also pp. 234- 237 from Paul Williams’ chapter “Trust, Self-Abandonment and Devotion: The Cults of Buddhas and 2 Lopez further explains that the Lotus Sūtra’s “simple fact of its survival” attests to the text’s importance, especially in the proliferation of non-Sanskrit translations. Scholars have mitigated the limited knowledge of this sūtra’s development in India, as well as that of Indian Buddhism before its disappearance in the 14th century, by relying on the tradition’s diasporic successes in China, Japan, and Tibet.9 The most famous and popular of the Lotus Sūtra’s six Chinese translations is that of Kumārajīva in 406 C.E. which depends on the Nepali-Kashmiri recension.10 The Tibetan translation of the Lotus was completed in the early 800s C.E.11 The oldest Chinese-to-Japanese translation that survives is dated to 1330, and the earliest Korean version dates to 1463.12 To my knowledge, no work has been done yet in English concerning the first Lotus Sūtra in Vietnamese – the Diệu Pháp Liên Hoa Kinh, but I hope to begin alleviating this lacuna after the completion of this report.13 Turning to the Sanskrit texts, I now refer to the critical editions and their editors and commentators. Each of the five critical editions of the Lotus Sūtra (1908-1912; 1934, 1953, 1960, 1975) establish a text with a critical apparatus of varying utility, in which variant readings from various manuscripts are listed.14 Only four editions list variants whereas

Bodhisattvas,” in Mahāyāna Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, {1989} 2009) 209-266. 9 Donald S. Lopez Jr., The Lotus Sūtra: A Biography (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016) 22-23. 10 The first was by Dharmarakṣa in 286 C.E. and of the six, only three survive. Lopez, The Lotus Sūtra: A Biography, 44. On Saddharmapundarikasūtra, see Buswell and Lopez, Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 729-730. 11 On Saddharmapundarikasūtra, see Buswell and Lopez, Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 729-730. 12 See Jonathan A. Silk, Oskar Von Hinüber, and Vincent Eltschinger, Lotus Sūtra in Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhism (Leiden: Brill, 2015) 146. 13 The earliest edition I have found is by Trung Còn Đoàn, trans., Diệu-Pháp Liên-Hoa Kinh. Vol. 2. Phật Học 11. (Saigon, VN: Editions Đoàn-Trung-Còn, 1936). See the Bibliography for other Vietnamese editions. 14 Hendrik Kern and Bunyiu Nanjio, eds., Saddharmapuṇḍarīka. Bibliotheca Buddhica, X (St.-Pétersbourg: Imprimerie de l'Académie Impériale des Sciences, 1908-1912). Akira Yuyama and Hirofumi Toda, eds., The Huntington Fragment F of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra. Studia Philologica Buddhica, Occasional Paper Series, 2 (Tokyo: The Reiyukai Library, (1977) 1980). Lokesh Chandra, ed., Saddharma-Pundarika- Sutra, Kashgar Manuscript. Delhi: International Academy of Indian Culture, 1976). Hirofumi Toda, ed., Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra - Central Asian Manuscripts, Romanized Text. Tripitaka, Sutrapitaka (Tokushima, Kyoiku Shuppan Center, 1981). Klaus Wille, ed., Fragments of a Manuscript of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra from Khādaliq. Lotus Sutra Manuscript Series, 3 (Tokyo: Soka Gakkai, 2000). 3 the last one is a special case. Shōkō Watanabe's 1975 edition include addenda and corrigenda to Hendrik Kern and Bunyiu Nanjio's 1908-12 editio princeps of the Lotus Sūtra.15 I use Kern and Nanjio’s edition as the main text for my analysis, henceforth cited as SP following Franklin Edgerton’s Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary.16 I will also refer to the other editions for alternate readings, clarifying sandhi breaks, and correcting textual errors. I rely on Kern’s English translation for most of my analysis but translate a few select passages as well. I turn to the scholarship that informs my investigation of the Medicine King as bodhisattva, an effective intermediary to the Buddha, and celebrated preacher of the Buddha’s dharma.

THE MEDICINE KING AS BODHISATTVA, BHĀṆAKA, AND PERFECTER OF GIVING

My report uses the framework that the Medicine King as bodhisattva exercises the spiritual office of dharma-expounder (dharma-bhāṇaka). I first draw from Reiko Ohnuma’s work on stories where bodhisattvas give away their body across the vast corpus of Indian Buddhist literature.17 Ohnuma first explains that the Buddha himself gave up his dharma-body to “enact a physical salvation of beings” where giving up his spiritual body logically instantiates the spiritual salvation of his followers.18 By transcending the mundane physical realm and body, the Buddha’s preaching of the dharma in the Lotus Sūtra comes after this giving up of his dharma-body. Although the Medicine King is not liberating beings as the Buddha has done through his giving of the dharma-body, he does serve as an exemplary bodhisattva and dharma-bhāṇaka in chapters 10, 12, and 21 who compassionately helps the other assembly members in various ways. These episodes all lead up to the peak of his career of self-sacrifice as we shall see in chapter 22. By immolating himself, Sarvasattvapriyadarśana offers the

15 Shōkō Watanabe, ed., Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Manuscripts Found in Gilgit (Tokyo: The Reiyukai, 1975). 16 Franklin Edgerton, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary, Vols. I-II. William Dwight Whitney Linguistic Series (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, {1953} 1993). 17 Reiko Ohnuma, Head, Eyes, Flesh, and Blood: Giving Away the Body in Indian Buddhist Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007). 18 Ohnuma, Head, Eyes, Flesh, and Blood, 20 4 Buddha the highest form of devotion, an offering of his own body, as the Buddha has done often in the Jātakas, his birth stories.19 Before his self-sacrifice however, the authors first establish the Medicine King’s role as bhāṇaka in chapter 10 as well as chapter 12. I refer to Andrew Nance’s analysis of the Mahāyāna bhāṇaka system before and after the introduction of writing of scripture.20 Nance explores the bhāṇaka system in the 4th century B.C.E. throughout Indian dialects, which includes the Sanskrit Lotus Sūtra. Nance explains that bhāṇakas were first known to be oral transmitters of the Buddhist tradition’s six different sections.21 Drawing from the works of K.R. Norman, Sodo Mori, Steven Collins, and G. Dreyfus, Nance dates the change in the bhāṇaka system to have occurred around the late 4th century into the early 5th century C.E.22 Nance explains that this shift meant that bhāṇakas no longer had to memorize “the whole of a particular textual collection” as they had to before. Perhaps this change of emphasis in memorization relates to the independent circulation of the later chapters of the Lotus Sūtra, namely chapters 21, 22, and 25, which feature the Medicine King whose role as bhāṇaka is fleshed out further. Thus, bhāṇakas both in the community and in the Lotus Sūtra may have continued adapting to embody the Mahāyāna bodhisattva ideal in enacting compassion for as many beings as possible. For chapter 21 as an example of this compassion to others, I examine the Medicine King’s dhāraṇī in light of Richard Overbey’s work on the sixth century C.E. Mahāyāna text The Great Lamp of the Dharma Dhāraṇī Scripture.23 Dhāraṇī is a complex multivalent term whose meaning ranges from "spells" or "talismanic words," to

19 Ohnuma, Head, Eyes, Flesh, and Blood, 2; 26ff. 20 Nance, Speaking for Buddhas, 48. 21 Nance, Speaking for Buddhas, 46-47. 22 Nance, Speaking for Buddhas, 46-47. K.R. Norman, Pāli Literature (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1983). Sodo Mori, “The Origin and the History of the Bhāṇaka Tradition,” in Ānanda: Papers on Buddhism and Indology, edited by Y. Karunadasa (Colombo: Felicitation Volume Editorial Committee, 1990). Steven Collins, “Some Oral Aspects of Pali Literature,” Indo-Iranian Journal 35 (2-3), pp. 121-135. G. Dreyfus, The Sound of Two Hands Clapping: The Education of a Tibetan Buddhist Monk (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003). 23 Ryan Richard Overbey, “Memory, Rhetoric, and Education in the Great Lamp of the Dharma Dhāraṇī Scripture,” (Doctoral diss., Harvard University, 2010) iii-xiii; 1-435. 5 a “mnemonic device,” to even an “encapsulation” of a sūtra’s teaching.24 Overbey argues that dhāraṇī in the Great Lamp “bridges the gap between an eternal unspecifiable Buddha and the all-too fragile Buddhist society.”25 Overbey shows us how this later text shows how expounders and preachers use dhāraṇī to connect the lay community with the Buddha himself. I see here a spiritual infrastructure which positions the bodhisattva as an intermediary to the Buddha and his dharma, his power. Overbey also shows us that dhāraṇī pre-figure tantric texts, where the Lotus Sūtra fits in with the Lamp Scripture. I believe that the Medicine King also uses his preaching throughout the various Lotus Sūtra chapters to serve “as an act of evocation in which the preacher instantiates the presence of the Buddha.”26 Although Overbey examines the bodhisattva’s dhāraṇī in later Chinese and Tibetan texts, the Medicine King as bhāṇaka also figures in the Lotus Sūtra as the Great Lamp does, where “the text integrates abstruse Buddhist doctrines and ritual technologies into a curriculum of practice.”27 In relation to the influence of writing to the bhāṇaka tradition, Richard Gombrich’s investigation of Buddhist writing also applies to the Medicine King as an innovative figure. Perhaps the Medicine King represents a new source of canonical material and thus a new source to access the power of the Buddha’s dharma. Gombrich links the rise of Mahāyāna in the 2nd-1st centuries B.C.E. to the “new availability of writing, which preserved doctrinally innovative texts that an oral age would simply have vanished.”28 With Heinz Bechert’s portrayal of Buddhism “at the border” of the 3rd century C.E. northeast Indian subcontinent to be innovative as well,29 the Medicine King

24 See Ronald M. Davidson, "Studies in Dhāraṇī Literature I: Revisiting the Meaning of the Term Dhāraṇī,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 37.2 (April 2009) 97-147. 25 Overbey, “Memory, Rhetoric, and Education,” 14. For an exhaustive overview of dhāraṇī’s three major uses, see pp. 5-13. I will discuss this topic further in Chapter Two. 26 Overbey, “Memory, Rhetoric, and Education,” 509. 27 Overbey, “Memory, Rhetoric, and Education,” 509. 28 Richard Gombrich, “When the Mahāyāna Began.” In the Buddhist Form, edited by Tadeusz Skorupski, vol. 1, Seminar Papers 1987-88 (New Delhi: Heritage Publishers, 1990) 82n19. 29 Heinz Bechert, “Foreword,” in Saddharma-Pundarika-Sutra, Kashgar Manuscript, edited by Lokesh Chandra (New Delhi, International Academy of Indian Culture, 1976) 6. Bechert goes on to say that “his development complies with the general trend that areas of cultural ‘colonisation’ and borderlands of great cultural areas are more conservative than those which are closer to the great cultural areas.” 6 chapters as later additions to the sūtra may represent the effort by authors to adapt to the obvious popularity of the Buddha’s self-sacrifice stories. This theme of self-sacrifice also contextualizes the Medicine King as one of the text’s prominent bodhisattvas as self- immolator number one. Ohnuma has also examined the following concepts regarding bodhisattva body- giving texts that also apply to my analysis of the Medicine King’s status and identity. As both bodhisattva and dharma-bhāṇaka, the “bodhisattva’s gift of his body” as dāna- pāramitā (perfection of giving) serves multiple capacities: “as assertion of self,” “as defining feature of bodhisattva-hood,” and “as an end of bodhisattva path.”30 Ohnuma explains that these body-giving stories appear to represent a “minor obsession” in the corpus because the same stories reappear constantly across the diverse story collections and traditions.31 The Medicine King’s self-sacrifice in Chapter 22 as the perfection of giving also features in Christoph Kleine’s discussion on the controversies of self- mutilation and ritual suicide in east Asian Buddhist practice and the Lotus Sūtra in Chinese. 32 I also depend on Kleine’s position regarding “The Shift to Mahāyāna Ethics” evident in the Medicine King’s self-immolation in Chapter 22 as both “ultimate patience” (kṣānti-pāramitā) and “ultimate charity” (dāna-pāramitā).33 My report shifts attention back to the Sanskrit text for the expression of this ontological value of giving one’s body for his character development as a bodhisattva and dharma-expounder. Kleine’s study also refers to a later text, the seventh century Prajñākaramati’s commentary to Śāntideva Bodhicāryāvatāra on “the three supreme qualities of a bodhisattva:” “skill in means

30 For more on each of these topics in order of mention, See Ohnuma Head, Eyes, Flesh, and Blood, 266- 272; 124ff; 168; 227-228. In addition to these, Ohnuma discusses the bodhisattva’s gift of his body “as sacrifice” as well as with Vedic sacrifice in pages 249-256, 270-271; 249-253. 31 Ohnuma Head, Eyes, Flesh, and Blood, 21. 32 Kleine, “’The Epitome of the Religious Life,’” 157. 33 Kleine, “’The Epitome of the Religious Life,’” 159. In this section, Kleine also recalls the Sanskrit term for asceticism, tapas, and the interpretation that self-sacrifice is “an internalization of the Vedic fire ritual.” 7 (upāya-kauśalya),” “insight (prajñā),” and “compassion (karuṇā).34 Although these ideals are expressly listed out in a later text, the Medicine King embodies these virtues throughout the Lotus by the third century C.E. The bodhisattva’s self-immolation also applies to Kleine’s discussion of “suicide as an expression of Compassion and Benevolence,” karuṇā and maitrī, respectively.35 In the spirit of the bodhisattva ideal, the Medicine King successfully teaches the Buddha’s dharma through self-sacrifice by both immolation and mutilation. In the following sections, I examine the Medicine King’s “current life” as himself, Bhaiṣajyarāja in chapters 1, 10, 12, and 21 of the Lotus. I then go back to his “past lives” in chapters 22 and 25 to explore how and why the Medicine King is indeed a king of medicine, at least among the ranks of the Buddha’s bodhisattvas in the Lotus Sūtra.

34 Louis de La Vallée Poussin, ed. Prajñākaramati's Commentary to the Bodhicaryāvatāra of C̜ āntideva (Calcutta: Asiatic Society, 1901-14). Kleine cites Damien Keown, The Nature of Buddhist Ethnics (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992) 151f. See Kleine, “’The Epitome of the Religious Life,’” 162n33, 171. 35 Kleine, “’The Epitome of the Religious Life,’” 160. 8 Chapter Two: The Medicine King’s “Current Life”

In this chapter, I will explore the Medicine King’s “current life” as portrayed in chapters 1, 10, 12, and 21 of the Lotus Sūtra. Each chapter contributes to our understanding of the Medicine King as an advanced bodhisattva and dharma-bhāṇaka in this lifetime, which will help us understand the importance of his past lifetimes in chapters 22 and 25 in the next section of the report.

IN CHAPTER 1

In the first chapter of the Lotus Sūtra, the Bhaiṣajyarāja “Medicine King” is one of many audience members attending the Buddha’s ultimate discourse at Vulture Peak, Gṛdhrakūṭa.36 He is one of twenty-five bodhisattvas who are named out of the 80,000 bodhisattvas in his cohort. In this section, I analyze the Sanskrit excerpt that names the Bhaiṣajyarāja, contextualize the Buddha’s role in the chapter, and highlight the major aspects of the remaining part of the chapter. Although the Medicine King is not a major character in this introductory chapter to the sūtra, Maitreya speaks two verses to Mañjuśrī that foreshadow the Medicine King’s self-immolation in chapter 22. Among the larger- than-life convention of audience members,37 I now turn to the Medicine King Bhaiṣajyarāja to contextualize his first appearance in the sūtra. As the eighth of a list of twenty-five (or eighteen) bodhisattvas, the narrator names Bhaiṣajyarāja out of the 80,000 bodhisattvas who make up the second group of

36 Lopez and Stone, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, 36. Vulture Peak, Gṛdhrakūṭa, is a small place near Rājagṛha city of the Magadha kingdom, a common place for the teaching of many sūtras. The other standard venues for Buddhist sūtras include Jetavana grove in Śrāvastī and “The Gabled Hall in the Great Wood” located by Vaiśālī. For more on the Lotus Sūtra in the Indian subcontinent, see Lopez and Stone, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, 10-13 as well as Lopez’s second chapter from his book The Lotus Sutra: A Biography (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016) 21-42. 37 The audience at Gṛdhrakūṭa includes four different groups of beings who Lopez and Stone describe as “an audience that grows even further as one reads on, with all manner of gods and demigods arriving from their various heavens, each with hundreds of thousands of attendants.” Lopez and Stone, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, 39. 9 attendees out of four cohorts total.38 The sheer number of bodhisattvas in this text is a stark contrast to the fact that mainstream Theravāda Buddhism only recognizes one bodhisattva in the present age, Maitreya, who is penultimately named in this particular list.39 The following excerpt describes what exactly these bodhisattvas, including the Medicine King, had already achieved since they are so spectacular, successful, and exemplify bodhisattva-hood.

80,000 bodhisattvas, pledged to this unique order of beings, were also with them, all of whom were not turning away from the path which was supreme and perfect enlightenment. These bodhisattvas had learned all the right incantations. Rooted in immense clarity, they were promoting the wheel of the Buddha’s law that can never be turned back. They had attended personally to many hundreds of thousands of Buddhas. Many hundreds of thousands of Buddhas had helped them cultivate the groundwork for their own righteous action. Hundreds of thousands of Buddhas had come to closely cherish them. The bodies and minds of these bodhisattvas were completely imbued with the feeling of benevolence. They were known for their righteous conduct in helping others comprehend the knowledge of the Buddhas. They had great transcendental wisdom because they had reached the state of perfected intelligence. They were celebrated far and wide in many hundreds of thousands of world systems. To many hundreds of thousands of millions of billions of beings, these bodhisattvas were saviors.40

These bodhisattvas have all personally become devoted crusaders promoting the Buddha’s ultimate teaching of the dharma. The repeated mention of so many hundreds of thousands of Buddhas (bahu-buddha-śata-sahasra) helping these bodhisattvas achieve

38 In this group, Kern’s translation lists twenty-five bodhisattvas while Lopez and Stone report eighteen. See Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 3-4; Lopez and Stone, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, 38. While Kern was working from several Nepali mss. in Sanskrit from Cambridge, Lopez and Stone quote Tsugunari Kubo and Akira Yuyama’s English translation which is based on the Chinese version produced by Kumārajīva in 406 C.E. See Kern, Lotus of the True Law, xxxvii; Lopez and Stone, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, xi. 39 Lopez and Stone, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, 38. 40 My translation here. Aśītyā ca bodhisattvasahasraiḥ sārdhaṃ sarvair avaivartikair ekajātipratibaddhair yadutānuttarāyāṃ samyaksaṃbodhau dhāraṇīpratilabdhair mahāpratibhānapratiṣṭhitair avaivartyadharmacakrapravartakair bahubuddhaśatasahasraparyupāsitair bahubuddhaśatasahasrāvaropitakuśalamūlair bahubuddhaśatasahasrasaṃstutair maitrīparibhāvitakāyacittais tathāgatajñānāvatāraṇakuśalair mahāprajñaiḥ prajñāpāramitāgatiṃgatair bahulokadhātuśatasahasraviśrutair bahuprāṇikoṭīnayutaśatasahasrasaṃtārakaiḥ । SP 2.10–3.3. The compound ekajātipratibaddha in SP 2.10 deserves further investigation. 10 various badges of righteous merit convey a sense of a supportive “community” setting transcending time and space. For example, bahu-buddha-śata-sahasra-avaropita-kuśala- mūla, which I have translated into the active sense as “many hundreds of thousands of Buddhas had helped them cultivate the groundwork for their own righteous action,” where I use “groundwork” for what is literally “roots” (mūla) and “righteous merit” for (kuśala), a synonym for puṇya.41 Another important epithet to me is maitrī-paribhāvita- kāya-citta, which I have also translated into an active sense as “the bodies and minds of these bodhisattvas were completely imbued with the feeling of benevolence.” The word choice for body and mind here deserve emphasis in my study because I am thinking ahead to the Medicine King’s self-immolation in chapter, he offers his ātmabhāva, his body, as a devotional sacrifice to the Buddha.42 As a part of this cohort, it is not surprising to me that the Medicine King has this mind and body-referencing epithet because he is known for his spectacular self- immolation in devotion to the Buddha later in chapter 22. His later self-immolation can also be read along with an earlier pair of epithets in this list, mahā-pratibhāna-pratiṣṭhita avaivartya-dharma-cakra-pravartaka, which I have translated as “rooted in immense clarity, they were promoting the wheel of the Buddha’s law that can never be turned back.” The bodhisattvas have attained great clarity (mahā-pratibhāna), such as the practitioners can aspire to, but also these bodhisattvas are actively cultivating the Buddha’s redemptive message of the dharma and are in fact bound to it (pratibaddha). Along with immense clarity, these bodhisattvas also have great knowledge or transcendental wisdom (mahā-prajña) because they reached (gata) the state (gati) of “perfected intelligence” (prajñā-pāramitā), of the six, ten, five, or seven perfections.43 The final epithet in this introductory section before the list of attendees’ names resumes is bahu-prāṇi-koṭī-nayuta-śata-sahasra-saṃtāraka, which I have translated as “to many hundreds of thousands of millions of billions of beings, these bodhisattvas were saviors.”

41 Edgerton, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary, Vol. II, 188. 42 Edgerton, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary, Vol. II, 92. Edgerton notes that ātmabhāva (masculine) is a synonym for the neuter noun śarīra. 43 Edgerton, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary, Vol. II, 341. 11 This epithet within the Mahāyāna Buddhist context is important because the bodhisattva ideal entails altruistic responsibility to vast populations of other beings on a spiritual and religious level. It is apparent that these bodhisattvas have perhaps surpassed supernatural limits and are approaching superhuman status, aspiring to but not yet attaining Buddhahood which would make them mahāpuruṣa like the Buddha is now. Since the text has provided sufficient background to the superb bodhisattvas in question, it is now time to name a few of them for the audience’s sake. Following their grand introduction and spiritual resume, the text then names twenty-five bodhisattvas, a small sample of their cohort of 80,000.

Among them were Mañjuśrī (“Radiant Charm”), still a young man, the great being bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (“Master of the Visible Realm”), Mahāsthāmaprāpta (“Wielder of Great Power”), Sarvārthanāman (“Essence of All Things”), Nityodyukta (“Perpetually Zealous”), Anikṣiptadhura (“Chief Preserver”), Ratnapāṇi (“Gem Hand”), Bhaiṣajyarāja (“Medicine King”), Bhaiṣajyasamudgata (“Advent of Medicine”), Vyūharāja (“King of the Masses”), Pradānaśūra (“Giving Champion”), Ratnacandra (“Moon Gem”), Ratnaprabha (“Gem Radiance”), Pūrṇacandra (“Full Moon”), Mahāvikrāmin (“Great March”), Anantavikrāmin (“Endless March”), Trailokyavikrāmin (“Triple World March”), Mahāpratibhāna (“Great Clarity”), Satatasamitābhiyukta (“Ever Prepared Diligence”), Dharaṇīṃdhara (“Earth Bearer”), Akṣayamati (“Sustainer of Religious Knowledge”), Padmaśrī (“Radiant Lotus”), Nakṣatrarāja (“Star King”), the great being bodhisattva Maitreya (“The Benevolent”), and the great being bodhisattva Siṃha (“The Lion”).44

44 My translation here. Tadyathā । mañjuśriyā 1 ca kumārabhūtena bodhisattvena mahāsattvenāvalokiteśvareṇa 2 ca mahāsthāmaprāptena 3 ca sarvārthanāmnā 4 ca nityodyuktena 5 cānikṣiptadhureṇa 6 ca ratnapāṇinā 7 ca bhaiṣajyarājena 8 ca bhaiṣajyasamudgatena 9 ca vyūharājena 10 ca pradānaśūreṇa 11 ca ratnacandreṇa 12 ca ratnaprabheṇa 13 ca pūrṇacandreṇa 14 ca mahāvikrāmiṇā 15 cānantavikrāmiṇā 16 ca trailokyavikrāmiṇā 17 ca mahāpratibhānena 18 ca satatasamitābhiyuktena 19 ca dharaṇīṃdhareṇa 20 cākṣayamatinā 21 ca padmaśriyā 22 ca nakṣatrarājena 23 ca maitreyeṇa 24 ca bodhisattvena mahāsattvena siṃhena 25 ca bodhisattvena mahāsattvena । (SP 3.3–10). Watanabe's versions of this chapter from the Gilgit mss. groups A and B. This section is not found in the Gilgit group B mss. Kern and Nanjio's text has a number (#s 1-25, not in parentheses) following every bodhisattva's name in this particular list so the reader is sure that there are indeed 25 named bodhisattvas in this particular group. Watanabe's edition does not include these numbers, so it is possible that they were originally written in the mss., or Kern and Nanjio added these numbers for the sake of clarity. It would be interesting to find out whether practitioners recite these numbers as they say their names since there are four cohorts total and a slew of representatives are named for each one. It has come to my attention that Buddhist sūtras tend to "enjoy" these aggrandizing details and that long-windedness as a stylistic feature. 12 The central bodhisattvas to the chapter Mañjuśrī and Maitreya feature at the beginning and in the penultimate position of the list (respectively), while Bhaiṣajyarāja and a similarly named Bhaiṣajyasamudgata are in the middle. While the first two will be the main speakers to close out the chapter after the Buddha’s first “act,” the last two have an interesting relationship that will be discussed in chapter 25. Mañjuśrī and Avalokiteśvara also become the most famous bodhisattvas in the “Mahāyāna pantheon.”45 Avalokiteśvara is normally first in such lists of bodhisattvas being normally popular and celebrated but here he is second.46 Before Maitreya near the end, Nakṣatrarāja is likely the same bodhisattva who asks the Buddha about Bhaiṣajyarāja’s past life in chapter 22. The important fact is that there is more than one bodhisattva in this era (80,000) in contrast to mainstream Theravāda Buddhist tradition where there is just Maitreya.47 Lopez and Stone explain that “a reader familiar with the canon would have been comforted by the familiar opening phrase and the familiar setting, only to be dumbfounded, and perhaps confounded, by the size and composition of the audience.”48 The authors may have wanted to impress this imagined reader so that they could see (or hear) for themselves how superior this teaching is to the mainstream teaching, which did not happen in India when it was composed. Most Indian Buddhist schools considered the Lotus to be “spurious” and did not universally accept its “famous doctrine of a single vehicle.”49 In any case, it is time to move onto the Buddha’s action to the plot which leads to the conversation between two of these named bodhisattvas, Mañjuśrī and Maitreya. After enumerating the audience, the Buddha teaches a mahānirdeśa, “great teaching,” which is not described any further than that.50 He then enters samādhi, a deep meditation state called “abode of immeasurable meanings” because there are different

45 Lopez and Stone, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, 38. 46 Edgerton, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Dictionary, 74. 47 Lopez and Stone, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, 38. 48 Lopez and Stone, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, 38-39. 49 Lopez and Stone, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, 12-13. 50 Lopez and Stone, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, 39. 13 types of deep meditation states.51 Then the sky rains mañjūṣaka and mandārava flowers which impresses the audience immensely. The Buddha being a superman, (mahāpuruṣa), has an ūrṇā, “a small tuft of white hair between his eyebrows,” from which a beam of light shoots out as he is often want to do in Mahāyāna sūtras.52 Lopez and Stone explain that this special light “illuminates eighteen thousand worlds in the east, extending as far up as Akaniṣṭha, the highest heaven of the Realm of Form, and extending as far down as Avīci, the lowest and most horrific of the many Buddhist hells.”53 The light shows the audience all the different entities that live in these realms, along with teaching buddhas, as well as the people who are practicing these teachings, namely monks, nuns, as well as both male and female disciples.54 Amazed and curious, Maitreya begins to ask Mañjuśrī why the Buddha has performed this feat, which alludes to the Medicine King as we shall see. Mañjuśrī responds with an expansive story about the time when he saw this same feat before, performed by a former Buddha named Candrasūryapradīpa who lived innumerable eons (kalpa) in a bygone time.55 In verse, Maitreya describes some of the scenes he sees in the Buddha’s hair tuft light beam: visions of Buddhists mutilating and sacrificing themselves for the Buddha. dadanti putrāṃś ca tathaiva putrīḥ priyāṇi māṃsāni dadanti kecit । hastāṃś ca pādāṃs ca dadanti yācitāḥ paryeṣamāṇā imam agrabodhim ॥ 18 ॥ śirāṃsi kecin nayanāni kecid dadanti kecit pravarātmabhāvān । dattvā ca dānāni prasannacittāḥ prārthenti jñānaṃ hi tathāgatānām ॥ 19 ॥ (SP 11.5–8).

Already some are giving up their sons and daughters, while others are giving up their own precious flesh. After being required to do so, some are giving up their hands and feet because they deeply yearn for this preeminent enlightenment (18).

51 Kubo and Yuyama’s translation. Lopez and Stone, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, 40. 52 Lopez and Stone, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, 40. 53 Lopez and Stone, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, 40. 54 Lopez and Stone, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, 40. 55 Lopez and Stone, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, 43. 14 Some are giving up their heads, while some are giving up their eyes, and others their own countless bodies. Some, in giving up their gifts, are faithfully asking for the knowledge of the Buddhas (19).56

In contrast to Kern’s English translation which uses the simple present “give” for dadanti, I use the present progressive “they are giving” to convey Maitreya’s current viewing of the light beam coming from the Buddha’s white hair tuft illuminating the various realms.57 Instead of daughters, some mss. read bhāryā, so that some people give their wives instead of daughters as in Kern and Nanjio’s reading, but they could also be giving up their wives in addition to the daughters subsumed under sons (putrān). In any case, Buddhists in these realms are giving what they can which include their own flesh and blood, both metaphorically and literally. These unnamed Buddhists are giving up their various family members and their own body parts (hands, feet, heads, and eyes) for the sake of imam agrabodhi, “this preeminent enlightenment,” namely the enlightenment espoused in this particular sūtra rather than others.58 Kern translates yācitāḥ “when bidden,” which I follow with “after being required to do so” to get a sense of the being “begged, borrowed, solicited, importuned, entreated, and necessary.”59 Who exactly is asking, or even, demanding that they give up their hands and feet for the sake of enlightenment?60 Edgerton’s definition for yācita is also telling because he explains that as a borrowed item, yācita is a “as symbol of the undependable and impermanent,” exactly what we expect the body to be in Buddhist literature, thus its being available for donation.61

56 My translation here. 57 Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 12. 58 See Ohnuma, Head, Eyes, Flesh, and Blood: Giving Away the Body in Indian Buddhist Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007). I would also explore Mary Storm’s book which includes analysis of images that feature decapitation in Indian sacrifice, Head and the Heart: Valour and Self-Sacrifice in the Art of India (London: Routledge-Taylor and Francis, 2013). 59 Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 12. Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary, 850. 60 I would begin to answer this question with Lopez and Stone’s discussion of the literary device mise en abyme in which the Lotus Sūtra “constantly refers to itself, placing it not at the abyss, but at the very origin of enlightenment.” See Lopez and Stone, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, 46. 61 Edgerton, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary, Vol. II, 446. 15 In verse 19, the word ātmabhāva for the “body” is the same in chapter 22 later.62 I take pravara as Edgerton does, “a high number,” essentially “countless.” The description of one’s own body being “countless” may refer to the steep number of rebirths one endures on the bodhisattva vehicle. The body as pravara can also be related to fire and thereby foreshadowing the Medicine King’s self-immolation later to come. Pravara can be “an invocation of agni at the beginning of a sacrifice, a series of ancestors (so called because Agni is invited to bear the oblations to the gods as he did for the sacrificer's progenitors.)”63 Pravara-ātmabhāva could be taken as “bodies that are invocations at the beginning of a sacrifice,” resonating with the figure of agni in Indian cultural and ritual contexts.64 Maitreya’s two verses on self-mutilating and self-sacrificing Buddhists foreshadow the Medicine King’s biographical chapter later in the sūtra. While the verses do not explicitly convey self-immolation per se, it is possible that some of the vocabulary points to using the body as an invocation at the beginning of a sacrifice. Perhaps while the Bhaiṣajyarāja was listening to these two verses out of the 100 total between Maitreya and Mañjuśrī, we can imagine that he must have had a twinkle in his eye remembering one of his many past lives where he became worthy enough to join this esteemed audience in the first place. As first and foremost a bodhisattva, we will also see the Medicine King in his bhāṇaka role in the next section regarding chapter 10.

IN CHAPTER 10

As mentioned before, the Medicine King does not appear in chapters 2-9 which constitute the earliest stage of the Lotus Sūtra’s composition. Just as in chapter 1, the Medicine King is in the Buddha’s assembly gathered at Gṛdhakūṭa, Vulture Peak. This

62 Edgerton, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary, Vol. II, 385. 63 Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit-English Dictionary, 690. 64 See Ellison Banks Findly, "Agni." In Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd ed., edited by Lindsay Jones, 178- 179. Vol. 1 (Detroit, MI: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005). 16 chapter shows us the first time the Medicine King speaks in the entire Lotus Sūtra.65 He is first to respond to the Buddha’s question regarding the audience, the Lotus Sūtra community.66 The Buddha addresses the Medicine King by name 44 times in the chapter while he teaches this particular lesson about expounding the dharma, the responsibilities and privileges of the preachers, and that the sūtra is a means of reaching him again so that he is omnipresent despite final extinction. The Buddha predicts that those who propagate the book in various ways (recited, written, printed, published, etc.) will attain perfect enlightenment.67 In chapter 10 the Buddha teaches the Medicine King, and all the other assembly-members that Every dharma-expounder is a “deputy” of the Buddha. These deputies all have theoretical access to the Buddha’s transcendent presence eternally, and therefore they all have actual access to the Buddha’s comprehensibility while teaching his dharma. Although the term bhāṇaka does not feature explicitly in Chapter 10, the highlighted passages show that the chapter prepares the practitioner for the Medicine King’s subsequent role in Chapter 12.

“Known as the Buddha Himself” Chapter 10 is at first somewhat startling because Kern’s translation shows us that the Buddha himself says that a dharma-bhāṇaka is to be considered (veditavya) like the tathāgata himself in the Lotus: “For, Bhaiṣajyarāja, such a young man or young lady of good family must be considered to be a Tathāgata, and by the whole world, including the gods, honour

65 Āha । paśyāmi bhagavan paśyāmi sugata | SP 224.4–5. He said, “I do see, oh holy one, I do see, O Enlightened One. 66 Atha khalu bhagavān bhaiṣajyarājaṃ bodhisattvaṃ mahāsattvam ārabhya tāny aśītiṃ bodhisattva- sahasrāṇy āmantrayate sma । SP 224.1–2. “The Lord then addressed the eighty thousand Bodhisattva mahāsattvas by turning to Bhaiṣajyarāja as their representative.” Translation by Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 213. 67 Ya ito dharma-paryāyād antaś ca eka-gāthām api dhārayiṣyanti vācayiṣyanti prakāśayiṣyanti saṃgrāhayiṣyanti likhiṣyanti likhitvā cānusmariṣyanti kālena ca kālaṃ vyavalokayiṣyanti । tasmiṃś ca pustake tathagata-gauravam utpādayiṣyanti śāstṛ-gauraveṇa sat-kariṣyanti guru-kariṣyanti mānayiṣyanti pūjayiṣyanti । SP 225.3–7. “Those who shall take, read, make known, recite, copy, and after copying always keep in memory and from time to time regard were it but a single stanza of this Dharma-paryāya; who by that book shall feel veneration for the Tathāgatas, treat them with the respect due to Masters, honour, revere, worship them.” Translation by Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 214. 17 should be done to such a Tathāgata who keeps were it but a single stanza of this Dharmaparyāya, and far more, of course, to one who grasps, keeps, comprehends, makes known, copies, and after copying always retains in his memory this Dharmaparyāya entirely and completely, and who honours that book with flowers, incense, perfumed garlands, ointment, powder, clothes, umbrellas, flags, banners, music, joined hands, reverential bows and salutations.”68

Does this mean that the Buddha is giving people permission to consider people who have accomplished exemplary worship of the dharma to be equal to a buddha? For the spiritual status of a bodhisattva as an intermediary to the Buddha, I agree with Kern reading’s reading of tathāgata-dūta that contrasts with his original translation tathāgata-bhūta, “in the predicament of the tathāgata.”69 Then the corresponding verse 9 portrays the dharma- bhāṇaka as one who “does what must be done for the buddhas” (karaṇīya): tathāgatānāṃ karaṇīya kurvate mayā ca so preṣitu mānuṣaṃ bhavam । yaḥ sūtram etac carim asmi kāle likheya dhāreya śruṇeya vāpi ॥ 9 ॥ (SP 229.5–6).

“9. He performs the task of the Tathāgatas and has been sent by me to the world of men, he who in the last days shall copy, keep, or hear this Sūtra.”70

68 Translation by Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 215. This excerpt also contains a stock reference to incense and ointment, accoutrements of proper worship of the Buddha for lay practitioners presumably. Sa hi bhaiṣajyarāja kulaputro vā kuladuhitā vā tathāgato veditavyaḥ sad eva kena lokena tasya ca tathāgatasyaivaṃ satkāraṃ kartavyo yaḥ khalv asmād dharma-paryāyādattaś ca eka-gāthām api dhārayet kaḥ punar vādo ya imaṃ dharma-paryāyaṃ sakala-samāptam udgṛhṇīyād cārayed vā vācayed vā parya vā pnuyād vā prakāśayed vā likhed vā likhāpayed vā likhitvā cānusmarettatra ca pustake satkāraṃ kuryād guru-kāraṃ kuryān mānanāṃ pūjanām arcanām apacāyanāṃ puṣpa-dhūpa-gandha-mālya-vilepana- cūrṇa-cīvaracchattra-dhvaja-patākāvādy-āñjali-namas-kāraiḥ praṇāmaiḥ । SP 226.1–6. 69 Yaḥ svayam udāraṃ dharmābhisaṃskāram udārāṃ ca buddhakṣetropapattiṃ sthāpayittvāsya dharma- paryāyasya saṃprakāśana-hetor mayi parinirvṛte sattvānāṃ hitārtham anukampārthaṃ cehopapanno veditavyas tathagata-dūtaḥ sa bhaiṣajyarāja kulaputro vā kuladuhitā vo vaditavya । SP 226.9–227.1. “Whosever, after leaving his own lofty conception of the law and the lofty Buddha-field occupied by him, in order to make generally known this Dharmaparyāya, after my complete Nirvāṇa, may be deemed to have appeared in the predicament of at Tathāgata, such a one, Bhaiṣajyarāja, be it a young man or a young lady of good family, must be held to perform the function of the Tathāgata, to be a deputy of the Tathāgata.” Translation by Kern Lotus of the True Law, 215-216. On his translation “leaving,” Kern notes that sthāpayitvā normally means “apart from, barring.” Kern Lotus of the True Law, 215n1. Kern notes that the Nepali manuscript he has at hand for the 1884 translation reads tathāgata-bhūta and he chooses -dūta as the Buddha’s “messenger” or “deputy.” Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 216n2. 70 Translation by Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 218. 18 Kern’s translation more explicitly shows the dharma-expounders actively serving the buddhas personally rather than just simply doing their labor in some abstract sense. Next, we have the reinforcement of the bodhisattva as the Buddha’s deputy, whose qualities of giving, endurance, and insight help us understand the Medicine King’s status.

Giving, Endurance, and Emptiness

The Buddha references three perfections that the dharma-preacher in verse 15 uses to teach the Buddha’s dharma:

maitrī-balaṃ ca layanaṃ kṣānti-sauratya cīvaram । śūnyatā cāsanaṃ mahnamatra sthitvā hi deśayet ॥ 24 ॥ (SP 236.9–10).

“24. The strength of charity (or kindness) is my abode; the apparel of forbearance is my robe; and voidness (or complete abstraction is my seat; let (the preacher) take his stand on this and preach.”71

With the individual bodhisattva as bhāṇaka so empowered by the Buddha’s all- encompassing dharma, the Buddha himself also draws attention to the nature of his own eternal body in relation to his intermediaries. The Buddha himself allots the bodhisattva’s duties, so the Blessed One as a spiritual king of kings has the power within his dharma- body to teach bodhisattvas, who are already predicted buddhas themselves.72 Verse 26 shows us the important term for the Buddha’s self ātmabhāva which is consistent throughout the Lotus, as we shall see later with the Medicine King in chapter 22. kṣetra-koṭī-sahasreṣu ātmabhāvo dṛḍho mama । deśobhi dharma sattvānāṃ kalpa-koṭīr acintiyāḥ ॥ 26 ॥ (SP 236.13–14).

“26. My body has existed entire in thousands of koṭis of regions; during a number of koṭis of Æons beyond comprehension I teach the laws to creatures.”73

71 Translation by Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 224. Kern’s translation shows us that there is a strong resemblance in the language of “abode, robe, and seat” to the Upaniṣads as ritual texts, namely the BĀU. 72 In their analysis of chapter 12 coming up, Lopez and Stone also refer to chapter 1 this first comes up. The Buddha himself predicts that all present assembly members, including the Medicine King, etc., are will become buddhas themselves. Lopez and Stone, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, 161. 73 Translation by Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 224-225. 19

I take this verse to be the Buddha describing his own enduring spiritual body (dharma- kāya). Through his power, the Buddha offers the assembly members and any devotee, an opportunity to receive a special vision from the Buddha himself.

Luminous Body, Clarion Call Verses 30-31 feature the Buddha promising to reveal his body of light to practitioners who study the Lotus alone and require assistance in retaining the teaching: yadāpi caiko viharansvādhyāyatto bhaviṣyati । narair virahite deśe aṭavyāṃ parvateṣu vā ॥ 30 ॥ tato 'sya ahaṃ darśiṣye ātmabhāva-prabhāsvaram । skhalitaṃ cāsya svādhyāyamuccāriṣye punaḥ punaḥ ॥ 31 ॥ (SP 237.7–10).

“30. And when he shall stay alone, engaged in study, in a lonely place, in the forest or the hills, 31. Then I will show him my luminous body and enable him to remember the lesson he forgot.”74

We can connect what Kern takes to be the Buddha’s “luminous body” (ātmabhāva- prabhāsvara) with Edgerton’s definition of prabhāsvara as “clear,” like the Buddha’s voice in Mahāvyutpati 451.75 There seems to be an extension of the metaphor of clarity of a shining body to that of a clarion voice. We also find this reference to the tradition of orally transmitting and teaching the Lotus Sūtra a few verses later. Verse 34 highlights how the Buddha himself empowers the dharma-expounder with “eloquence” (pratibhāna), what Kern translates as “readiness of speech.” pratibhāna tasya bhavatī asaṅga niruktidharmāṇa bahū prajānati । toṣeti so prāṇisahasrakoṭyaḥ yathāpi buddhena adhiṣṭhitatvāt ॥ 34 ॥ (SP 238.1– 2).

74 Translation by Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 225. Incidentally the following verse 32 features the Buddha promising to ensure that solitary studying practitioners will never be truly alone while studying the dharma: “While he is living lonely in the wilderness, I will send him gods and goblins in great number to keep him company.” Translation by Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 225. 75 Edgerton, “prabhāsvara” in Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary, Vol. II, 382. 20 “34. His readiness of speech knows no impediment; he understands the manifold requisites of exegesis; He satisfies thousands of koṭis of beings because he is, so to say, inspired (or blessed) by the Buddha.”76

I agree with Kern’s observation that “here the Buddha seems to be the personification of the faculty of memory, of mental light.”77 In this section, we have seen how the Buddha promises these devout individuals, whether bodhisattva or otherwise, three things: the status of deputy (dūta) for what would later be bhāṇaka, access to his spiritual body (ātmabhāva-prabhāsvara as a reference to dharma-kāya), and eloquence (pratibhāna) in preaching and teaching the Lotus Sūtra. Chapter 12 in the next section shows how the Medicine King once again serves as one of the Buddha’s interlocuters to help him teach the dharma to the assembly.

IN CHAPTER 12

In chapter 12, the Medicine King, and the bodhisattva Mahāpratibhāna with an entourage of 2,000 bodhisattvas, address the Buddha. They both reassure him with a single voice that once he dies during final extinction, they will take responsibility for spreading his teaching despite the challenges they know they will face. kiṃ cāpi bhagavan śaṭhakāḥ sattvās tasmin kāle bhaviṣyanti parīttakuśalamūlā adhimānikā lābhasatkārasaṃniśritā akuśalamūlapratipannā durdamā adhimuktivirahitā anadhimuktibahulāḥ । api tu khalu punar vayaṃ bhagavan kṣānti-balam upadarśayitvā tasmin kāla idaṃ sūtram uddekṣyāmo deśayiṣyāmo likhiṣyāmaḥ satkariṣyāmo gurukariṣyāmo mānayiṣyāmaḥ pūjayiṣyāmaḥ kāyajīvitaṃ ca vayaṃ bhagavann utsṛjyedaṃ sūtraṃ prakāśayiṣyāmaḥ । alpotsuko bhagavān bhavitv iti ॥ (SP 267. 6–9).78

76 Translation by Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 225. On p. 225n3 where Kern comments that Burnouf’s translation reads buddhaiḥ instead of buddhena, where the person is blessed by plural buddhas rather than the Buddha. 77 Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 225n2. 78 The Gilgit manuscript for chapter 12 comes from group C or Gc. Watanabe’s 1975 publication (the corrigenda and addenda to Kern and Nanjio’s 1908-12 editio princeps) provided access to three of the seven folios, numbers 4-6, originally housed at the British Museum. The first three were published by W. Baruch and the seventh by S. Levi. See Watanabe, Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Manuscripts Found in Gilgit, 297-307. 21

"Though we are aware, O Lord, that at that period there shall be malign beings, having few roots of goodness, conceited, fond of gain and honour, rooted in unholiness, difficult to tame, deprived of good will, and full of unwillingness. Nevertheless, O Lord, we will at that period read, keep, preach, write, honour, respect, venerate, worship this Sutra; with sacrifice of body and life, O Lord, we will divulge this Sutra. Let the Lord be at ease."79

The bodhisattvas in this passage use the future indicative (eight) here to express future intention, coloring into the subjunctive and imperative modes.80 Their polite imperative to the Buddha (bhavitu) brings the reciter, reader, and devotee in direct conversation with the Buddha. The bodhisattvas in verse 15 echo and solidify the hope found in this introductory prose section reads: anarthikā sma kāyena jīvitena ca nāyaka । arthikāś ca sma bodhīya tava nikṣepa-dhārakāḥ ॥ 15 ॥ (SP 273.11–12).

"I do not care for my body or life, O Lord, but as keepers of thine entrusted deposit we care for enlightenment."81

This is in fact the first time in the Medicine King chapters where he himself expresses his willingness and readiness to self-sacrifice. Anarthika literally refers to how the Medicine King does not consider his “body” (kāya) and “life” (jīvita) to be valuable. This description shows us that the bodhisattvas have already (sma) “abandoned” themselves, namely the concern for their own bodies, a feature we will see again later in chapter 22.

79 Translation by Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 255. SP 267.7n7-8 provide alternate readings for upadarśayitvā (pardeśya; padarśayaṃti sma) and uddekṣyāmo (mupade). For further alternate readings of SP 267.6–9 from the Gilgit manuscripts, see Watanabe’s text 247.6–10; Watanabe, Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Manuscripts Found in Gilgit, 247n10 notes that for pūja- for pūjayiṣyāmaḥ, Watanabe follows Kern and Nanjio’s reading. Watanabe 247n11 Gilgit ms reads imam for idam as found in Kern-Nanjio’s text which represents the Nepali-Kashgari composite recension. The Gilgit ms. adds textual diversity and shows evidence of the oral tradition or perhaps a vernacular preference for imam for idam, or the common Buddhist Sanskrit confusion of case and gender as Edgerton explains in his Buddhist Hybrid Dictionary and Grammar, Vol. I. Instead of prakāśayiṣyāmaḥ । alpotsuko… in Kern and Nanjio’s critical edition, the Gilgit ms. also reads prakāśayiṣyāmo ‘lpotsuko which seems like proper sandhi, as well as being easier to recite. Watanabe, Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Manuscripts Found in Gilgit, 247n12 suggests that we follow Kern and Nanjio’s reading. 80 Uddekṣyāmo deśayiṣyāmo likhiṣyāmaḥ satkariṣyāmo gurukariṣyāmo mānayiṣyāmaḥ pūjayiṣyāmaḥ … prakāśayiṣyāmaḥ | SP 267.7–9. 81 Translation by Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 260-1. 22 They do not desire the physical or worldly affects because they aim for enlightenment (bodhi). In this assembly, the followers of the bodhisattva vehicle (bodhisattva-yāna) are ready to preach the dharma for the Buddha after he is gone, as Bhaiṣajyarāja and Mahāpratibhāna have promised. To first clarify what Kern means by “keepers of thine entrusted deposit” (nikṣepa- dhāraka), I first refer to Edgerton for parsing the Buddhist term dhāraka, “one who retains in his mind or memory, with gen. of a sacred work.”82 For the term nikṣepa, Kern uses one of Monier-Williams’ definitions, “a deposit, pledge, trust” as found in legal, epic, and poetic texts such as Manu-Smṛti, the Mahābhārata, and kāvya in general.83 Referring to Kern’s translation, we can understand the bodhisattvas here as “retainers of a trust,” namely the dharma itself. The use of dhāraka to describe the bodhisattvas as dharma-bhāṇakas is telling here because as we shall see in chapter 21, bodhisattvas also employ dhāraṇīs. These bodhisattvas, starring Bhaiṣajyarāja and Mahāpratibhāna, thus as dharma- bhāṇakas, are also “desirers of enlightenment” (arthika bodhīya), “guides” (nāyaka), and “retainers of a trust” (nikṣepa-dhāraka), which is the dharma. They logically use the metaphor of self-sacrifice to convey their commitment to teaching the dharma. By promising to do it by any means necessary, it makes sense that they are also in a sense ready to risk life and limb, both metaphorically and in real life. Lopez and Stone’s analysis helps me affirm that both chapters 10 and 12 address the likely popularity of how dangerous it was to be a member of “the Lotus community.” 84 Facing both “ostracism” and “insult” from the public and mainstream Buddhist establishment, the text may address the marginalized Mahāyāna community’s lived experiences and thus offer

82 Edgerton, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary, Vol. II, 294. 83 Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit-English Dictionary, 545. Edgerton suggests one possibility that nikṣepa means “working out mathematical problems,” which does not apply here. Edgerton’s observation that the term is usually found in “stock lists of arts” as in Divyāvadāna 3.19ff does not quite seem to apply here, but it may with further investigation. For nikṣepa, Edgerton refers to gaṇanāyāṃ mudrāyām uddhāre nyāse nikṣepe in Divy 3.19; 26.12; 58.17; 100.2; 441.28. Edgerton, Buddhist Hybrid Grammar and Dictionary, Vol. II, 294. 84 Lopez and Stone, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, 162. 23 solace and consolation through action. Lopez and Stone also discuss that we do not know for sure whether the text refers to actual events or just “beleaguered sensibilities” so that we do know if this passage was just rhetoric or a real reassurance from their scriptural leaders.85 In fact, Lopez and Stone explain that in response to all the bodhisattvas’ promises to uphold and defend the dharma with life and limb, including Bhaiṣajyarāja and Mahāpratibhāna, “all the famous monks and nuns of the tradition joyfully accepted this teaching.”86 The bodhisattvas already achieve a sense of success within the assembly because they help their fellow spiritual workers of the Buddha gain understanding the Buddha’s dharma. Looking at these “famous monks and nuns” from a bird’s eye view of Mahāyāna, Lopez and Stone explain that the Lotus Sūtra appropriated “all the major figures of the earlier tradition” so that they all became “passengers on the single vehicle.”87 Both Bhaiṣajyarāja and Mahāpratibhāna are with these monks and nuns, along with their entourage of 2,000 other bodhisattvas. In fact, Mahāpratibhāna happens to feature in chapter 11 of the Lotus, right in between the Medicine King’s appearances in the two chapters surrounding him, in both 10 and 12 here. While my study focuses on the Medicine King, further resonances between bodhisattvas are also apparent. In the next section we see an example the Medicine King as a bodhisattva-bhāṇaka whose individual giving, patience, and insight empower him to help the lay community, another fulfillment of his role as intermediary to the Buddha, the spiritual king of kings.

IN CHAPTER 21 The Medicine King opens the chapter up by humbly approaching the Buddha as one would a king, prostrating and acting out reverential gestures of his time.88 He asks the Buddha about how much pious merit can be earned by a young man or woman from a

85 Lopez and Stone, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, 162. 86 Lopez and Stone, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, 162. 87 Lopez and Stone, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, 162. 88 Presumably middle Indic of northeastern part of the South Asian subcontinent: Nepal, Eastern China in Kashgar, and Gilgit in Pakistan of the third century C.E. at the latest – that is, if it is appropriate to guess the ritual or cultural gestures of the following excerpt to reflect local indigenous practice. 24 good family who "keeps" this Lotus Sūtra "either in memory or in a book."89 He is the first speaker in this vast assembly, the same as in chapter one: “[He] rose from his seat, and having put his upper robe upon one shoulder and fixed the right knee upon the ground lifted his joined hands up to the Lord and said: ‘How great, O Lord, is the pious merit which will be produced by a young man of good family or a young lady who keeps this Dharmaparyāya of the Lotus of the True Law, either in memory or in a book?’”90

In this section, I will present the ways the Medicine King in chapter 21 uses dhāraṇī to realize the Mahāyāna bodhisattva ideal of dharma expounder. I will then connect his dhāraṇī in chapter 21 to the following section where he exemplifies worship of the Buddha through self-sacrifice in chapter 22. After his initial question to the Buddha, Bhaiṣajyarāja next proposes a list of various "spells" or incantations which will protect preachers of the sūtra from attack. With the purpose of helping only devotees who either know by heart (lit. “in the body,” kāya-gata) or simply read the Lotus Sūtra in its book form (pustaka-gata, SP 396.2–3), the Medicine King offers this dhāraṇī to the assembly of bodhisattvas: anye manye mane mamane citte carite same samitā viśānte mukte muktatame same aviṣame samasame jaye kṣaye kṣaye akṣaye akṣiṇe śānte samite dhāraṇi ālokabhāṣe pratyavekṣaṇi nidhiru abhyantaraniviṣṭe abhyantara-pāriśuddhi mutkule mutkule araḍe paraḍe sukāṅkṣi asama-same buddha-vilokite dharma- parīkṣite saṃgha nirdhāṣaṇi nirdhoṇi bhayābhaya viśodhani mantre mantrākṣayate rute ruta-kauśalye akṣaye akṣayav anatāye vakkule valoḍa amany anatāye svāhā । (SP 396.4–397.2).

Andrew Skilton notes that a dhāraṇī often “defies translation” so that an editor will “emend or conflate problematic passages.”91 As with mantras, we must leave the text untranslated. I will now discuss the Medicine King’s dhāraṇī within “the rakṣā movement” and his role as dharma-bhāṇaka.

89 Translation by Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 370. 90 Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 370. SP 395.1–5. 91 Andrew Skilton, "The Letter of the Law and the Lore of Letters: The Role of Textual Criticism in the Transmission of Buddhist Scripture," Contemporary Buddhism 1.1 (2000) 9-34, here: 23. 25 The Medicine King and “the Rakṣā Movement” Regarding his apotropaic and protective speech, the Buddha responds in affirmation of Bhaiṣajyarāja’s dhāraṇī and praises him in this way (sādhu kāram adāt, SP 397.5): sādhu sādhu bhaiṣajyarāja sattvānām arthaḥ kṛno dhāraṇī-padāni bhāṣitāni sattvānām anukampām upādāya | rakṣā-varaṇa-guptiḥ kṛtā || guptiṃ kṛtvā (SP 397.5–7).

“Very well, Bhaiṣajyarāja, by those talismanic words being pronounced out of compassion for creatures, the common weal of creatures is promoted; their guard, defence, and protection is secured.”92

The Medicine King is one of several individuals and groups who offer dhāraṇī of their own.93 The Buddha praises the Medicine King for enacting rakṣā (“protecting or guarding, protection, care, preservation, security”), varaṇa (“defense, keeping off, warding-away”), and gupti (“protection, preserving, protecting”).94 It was rather common for monks to be attacked while wandering as part of their holy mendicancy. Hence the Vinaya, the traditional Buddhist code of conduct, allowed Buddhist monks to have multiple cloaks in preparation for such exigencies.95 Therefore, I apply Peter Skilling’s phrase “the rakṣā movement,” “an integral part of mainstream Buddhism,” to the Medicine King’s dhāraṇī.96 Kern and Nanjio's 1908-12 critical edition based on both Nepali and Kashgar recensions cites dhāraṇī-mantra-padāni in this section of chapter 21 instead of simply dhāraṇī-padāni without any alternate readings. Matching the

92 Translation by Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 372. 93 Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 372. The other bodhisattva in the chapter to offer dhāraṇī is Pradānaśūra. In addition to the two bodhisattvas first mentioned in this chapter, the other providers of dhāraṇī are Vaiśravaṇa, Virūḍhaka, and rakṣasīs (“protectors, guardians”). Pradānaśūra’s dhāraṇī can be found at SP 397.7–398.2. 94 Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit-English Dictionary, 359. Both Monier-Williams’ and Edgerton’s entries on varaṇa do not seem applicable here, but Monier-Williams’ entry on varaṇa as “keeping off” as used by the Lexicographers. More research is needed. For gupti, it is the same use as in the Atharvaveda. 95 From Dr. Oliver Freiberger’s course Radical Religion: Ascetics and Holy Persons, fall 2019. See Richard Gombrich’s chapter “The Sangha’s Discipline” in Theravāda Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benares to Modern Colombo (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1988) 99. 96 Skilling, “Rakṣa Literature of the Śrāvakayāna,” 168-169. 26 Cambridge Nepali manuscripts used by Kern in 1884, Shoko Watanabe's 1975 Gilgit manuscript edition also reads dhāraṇī-padāni in this section according to both Group A and Group B manuscripts found at Gilgit.97 The appearance here of mantra embedded within dhāraṇī-padāni attests to the fact that the two become synonymous by the sixth century C.E., as Hillary Langberg has observed in later Tantric texts.98 Therefore, I follow Langberg and consider this occurrence of dhāraṇī in chapter 21 of the Lotus as representative of the beginning of this conflation.99

Dhāraṇī and the Lotus Sūtra Community The reference to sounds (ruta) and syllables (akṣaye for akṣara) may connect this dhāraṇī to the Medicine King’s role as a dharma-expounder for his community as well, the one in chapter 1 of the Lotus, and those mentioned by Lopez and Stone as well. Phrases that may point instead to a local socio-cultural context revolve around legitimate social status and belonging – mutkula for utkula, “family outcaste.” Although the translation “family outcaste” may seem harsh to an English ear, it seems likely that this could be a person who has left their family and worldly possessions behind. Thus, this person would be welcome, or even called upon for assistance by the members of the Lotus Sūtra assembly who may face danger while expounding the Buddha’s dharma as found in the Lotus Sūtra. Edgerton deems Vakkula to be a name (Bakkula and its variants). I take mantre and rute to be vocatives of mantras and sounds (ruta) as abstract entities to be invoked in prayer and for protection. Mantras and their sounds could have assisted a devotee or dharma-bhāṇaka escape bodily harm while expounding the dharma

97 Watanabe, Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Manuscripts Found in Gilgit, 156 and 283 for Groups A and B mss., resp. 98 Hillary Langberg, “Offerings of Dhāraṇī and Mantra-based Rituals by Sarasvatī and Śrī in the Sūtra of Golden Light” (unpublished manuscript, June 2020), typescript. 99 Langberg, personal communication. For more on mantra, one can start at Buswell and Lopez, Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 529. They define mantra as a “spell, charm, magic formula” as well as “mind protectors” in the texts of “Indian exegetes” because they say that mantras “protect the mind from ordinary appearances.” This latter definition is clearly a later usage known in the Tantric tradition and does not apply here. The first three definitions match the usage here in chapter 21 of the Lotus. The purpose “to propitiate a deity” may also resonate here. 27 of the Lotus Sūtra by remembering him and his protective spells. Namely, the text of the Medicine King’s dhāraṇī in chapter 21 may allude to one of his achievements in chapter 22. We will see later that the bodhisattvas in the assembly who witnessed the Medicine King’s self-sacrifice of his arm gained the ability to hear all sounds. Perhaps the dhāraṇī here invoking ruta (“sound”) as the abstracted and all-encompassing sounds of all beings, especially of bodhisattvas and buddhas.100 Thus his dhāraṇī also allows fits in the model provided by Paul Copp who has investigated the phenomenon of samādhi as the mechanism to reveal dhāraṇī.101 While consulting Langberg on standard mantra formulas in Mahāyāna texts, I was directed to recall the audience here, the Buddha’s assembly (parṣad), the community of the Lotus Sūtra itself. This is no ordinary audience but the Buddha’s disciples of all ranks, from great acolytes with their own subcults to monks and nuns just starting out on their spiritual path. This audience may also stand in for the local community listening to these scriptures being taught, recited, especially by a bhāṇaka, which came to be a “monastic vocation” to recite the dharma, i.e., the scripture. Within this scripture are special dhāraṇī, left in its Sanskrit form in most translations for the maximum efficacy of protection.102 By contextualizing the Medicine King’s dhāraṇī within its community milieu, Davidson’s claim about its inventive impact within the Mahāyāna tradition may also apply to chapter 21 of the Lotus. He argues that “dhāraṇīs represent Buddhist innovation by associating several factors,” such as the “new institutional setting” and a “new sociology of knowledge,” which I would apply to the Medicine King as an individual bodhisattva and dharma-bhāṇaka.103

100 June-July 2020. From personal communication with Hillary Langberg. SP 475.9 cited in Edgerton, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary, Vol. II, 456. Referencing two other examples in the Lotus, Edgerton cites the ruta “of all creatures” in SP 357.5 and in SP 475.9, sarva-ruta-kauśalya-vartāṃ ca nāma dhāraṇīṃ | 101 Langberg personal communication. For more on dhāraṇī revealed after samādhi, Langberg suggests we refer to Paul Copp, "Notes on the Term 'Dhāraṇī" in Medieval Chinese Buddhist Thought," Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 71.3 (2008) 493-508. 102 Langberg and I discussed terms such as “abracadabra, bippity boppity boo, shazam.” Personal communication. 103 Davidson, "Studies in Dhāraṇī Literature I,” 122. 28 Overall, it seems that the Medicine King in chapter 21 offering a dhāraṇī exhibits one of his other skills as a dharma-expounder (dharma-bhāṇaka) of chapter 10. Lopez and Stone make a note of the popularity of dhāraṇīs by explaining that they are often found in the later chapters of Mahāyāna sūtras, such as here in the Lotus Sūtra.104 This passage in chapter 21 featuring the Medicine King’s dhāraṇī also represents what would later become normalized Tantric textual practice.105 The use of mantra-dhāraṇī in the Lotus Sūtra connects the text to the larger genre of rakṣa literature, as investigated by Davidson, Skilling, Skilton, et al.106 Within this vast ritual universe, the Medicine King in chapter 21 uses dhāraṇī for protection (rakṣa, paritta for paritrāṇa) within the context of those who are already studying and memorizing the Lotus.107 As we shall see in chapter 22, the relationship between this bodhisattva-bhāṇaka and his Buddha is one of the king of kings and his eternal cosmic court. The Medicine King as dharma-expounder operates in a transcendent framework of perfection and compassion for all beings, who are first and foremost those present in the assembly.

104 Lopez and Stone, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, 243. 105 Langberg, Personal Communication. 106 Skilling, “Rakṣa Literature of the Śrāvakayāna,” 110; 168-9. 107 For more on paritta (“protection”), see Buswell and Lopez, Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 630- 631. 29 Chapter Three: The Past Lives of the Medicine King

In this chapter, I explore how chapters 22 and 25 of the Lotus Sūtra portray two different past lives of the bodhisattva, namely Sarvasattvapriyadarśana and Vimalagarbha, respectively. The bulk of my analysis in this section is for chapter 22 as the apex of the Medicine King’s career in self-sacrifice. In contrast, my discussion of chapter 25 is limited to how the chapter seems to reinforce what we learn about the Medicine King’s greatness as an advanced bodhisattva and bhāṇaka in chapter 22. This section prepares us for my next chapter as to why Bhaiṣajyarāja is called the Medicine King of the Lotus Sūtra.

IN CHAPTER 22

In this chapter of the Lotus Sūtra, Śakyamuni Buddha explains to the bodhisattva Nakṣatrarājasaṃkumumitābhijña two biographical episodes of the bodhisattva Bhaiṣajyarāja, formerly known as Sarvasattvapriyadarśana, in the time of the Buddha Candravimalasūryaprabhāsaśrī. The first episode is Sarvasattvapriyadarśana’s self- immolation and the second is his rebirth with the same name, where he reiterates the original self-immolation through self-mutilation. For my analysis of this body as offering or gift (dāna), I divide the chapter’s first “episode” of his self-immolation into five scenes which explicitly frame the Medicine King’s worship as performance: resolution, preparation, enactment, verdict, and endurance.

Part 1 - Episode 1: The Self-Immolation

Scene 1 - Resolution

Sarvasattvapriyadarśana resolves to honor the Lotus Sūtra because he is grateful to this sūtra for his newfound ability to display or manifest all forms. sa dvādaśānāṃ varṣasahasrāṇām atyayena sarvarūpasaṃdarśanaṃ nāma samādhiṃ pratilabhate sma । imaṃ saddharmapuṇḍarīkaṃ dharmaparyāyam

30 āgamyāyaṃ mayā sarvarūpasaṃdarśanaḥ samādhiḥ pratilabdhaḥ । (SP 406.1– 3).

With the passing of twelve thousand years, he obtained the power called Sarvarūpasaṃdarśana. Since I have come to understand this White Lotus of the True Dharma, which is the teaching of the Dharma, the power to display all forms has been obtained by me.108

This extraordinary achievement causes the Medicine King to become “satisfied, elevated, delighted, gladdened, becoming very charming from affection,” tuṣṭa udagraḥ āttamanāḥ pramuditaḥ prīti-saumanasya-jātas (SP 406.2). The bodhisattva being thus joyful and filled with contentment, he then proclaims: yan nv ahaṃ bhagavataś candrasūryavimalaprabhāsaśriyas tathāgatasya pūjāṃ kuryām asya ca saddharmapuṇḍarīkasya dharmaparyāyasya । (SP 406.4–6).

I should really perform worship to the Buddha Candravimalasūryavimalaprabhāsaśrī now, and to this White Lotus of the True Teaching of the Dharma.109

Then he first makes two offerings to the Buddha by causing flowers (māndārava and great māndārava, “mystical flowers”) and Uragasāra sandalwood to rain from the sky (SP 406.7–10). In the typical narrative fashion of a tricolon crescens where the third element surpasses the first two elements of a developing plot, the next offering is much more dramatic and impressive. The titular lotus of the Lotus Sūtra has been identified as Nelumbo nucifera, a white lotus.110 The lotus is a metaphor for “the mind’s purity out of polluting saṃsāra, the mud, stagnant ponds” that are each rebirth. The white color of the lotus also resonates in two other elements necessary for its survival, fire and water, as we will see later in chapter 22 as well as 25. The shared aspect of fire and water in relation to the dharma is also in the light of the mind (manas, e.g. Upaniṣads).

108 My translation. 109 For more on pūjā in Buddhism, see Buswell and Lopez, Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 679. 110 Buswell and Lopez, Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 680-681. 31 The Medicine King is in his right mind, calm after rousing from his samādhi (tasmāt samādher vyudatiṣṭhad vyutthāya). The bodhisattva-bhāṇaka is smṛtimān and saṃprajānaṃs, “remembering and mindful,” verbalizing his resolution aloud to himself: na tatharddhi-prātihārya-saṃdarśanena bhagavataḥ pūjā kṛtā bhavati yathātmabhāva-parityāgeneti । (SP 406.11–13).

The worship done of the Blessed One performed by me through the showing of the miracle of my magic power is not like the one done by the giving up of my body.111

Regarding the bodhisattva’s state of mind at the moment of this speech, the use of smṛtimān is common enough in Sanskrit meaning “recalling, being filled with memory,” but it is special here because it is also what one is supposed to do while visiting a stūpa to pay homage. Sarvasattvapriyadarśana as smṛtimān thus foreshadows his future duty after his rebirth in “episode” two.

Scene 2 - Preparation

The Medicine King then prepares for the self-immolation by becoming a votive offering himself, where he slowly becomes a human candle. He consumes unconventional substances that we would consider to be the normal ones used for conventional worship. atha khalu punar… sa sarvasattvapriyadarśano bodhisattvo mahāsattvas tasyāṃ velāyām agaruturuṣkakundurukarasaṃ bhakṣayati sma campakatailaṃ ca pibati sma । tena khalu punar... paryāyeṇa tasya sarvasattvapriyadarśanasya bodhisattvasya mahāsattvasya satatasamitaṃ gandhaṃ bhakṣayataś campakatailaṃ ca pibato dvādaśavarṣāṇy atikrāntāny abhūvan । (SP 406.13– 407.4).

So now then, the great being bodhisattva Sarvasattvapriyadarśana during that time ate agarwood, olibanum incense, frankincense resin, and he drank champaka oil. Indeed, by means of the teaching, with the great being bodhisattva Sarvasattvapriyadarśana having constantly eaten perfume and having continually drunk champaka oil, twelve years passed.112

111 My translation. 112 My translation. 32

This scene highlights the fact that the Medicine King was conscious the entire time he was consuming these unpalatable substances for the sake of honoring the Buddha’s teaching. Instead of seeing, hearing, or speaking as in the grammatical explanation, the Medicine King is eating constantly and continually (satata-samitam).

Scene 3 - Enactment

Finally, the bodhisattva’s twelve years of preparing for his offering to the Buddha pays off. He burns his own body: sa sarvasattvapriyadarśano bodhisattvo mahāsattvasteṣāṃ dvādaśānāṃ varṣāṇām atyayena taṃ svam ātmabhāvaṃ divyair vastraiḥ pariveṣṭya gandhatailaplutaṃ kr̥tvā svakam adhiṣṭhānam akarot svakam adhiṣṭhānaṃ kr̥tvā svaṃ kāyaṃ prajvālayāmāsa tathāgatasya pūjākarmaṇo 'sya ca saddharmapuṇḍarīkasya dharmaparyāyasya pūjārtham । (SP 407.4–8).

He, the great being bodhisattva Sarvasattvapriyadarśana, through the passage of these twelve years, dressing his own body with divine clothes, making it full of perfume and oil, then made a firm resolution for himself. Having made a firm resolution for himself, he set his own body on fire for the special duty of pūjā of the Buddha and for the purpose of pūjā of the teaching of the dharma, the White Lotus of the True Law.113

Kern’s translation of pluta as “bathed” is logical in the ancient Indian context of Vedic ritual and the like because a brahman or any ritual specialist performing a sacrifice would bathe beforehand. Perhaps the Medicine King exclusively ate the volatile substances as part of his regimen despite the lack of explicit description in the previous excerpt. This translation decision helps to paint the picture that after twelve years, the Medicine King would have been literally sweating out the various fragrant oils from his pores. The connotation is that he is not just filled with these substances but also covered with the perfume and oil seeping from the inside out. Aside from exploring the various valences of pluta here, we can also imagine that the bodhisattva covered himself further in perfume and oil right before his self-immolation.

113 My translation. 33 After describing the two physical steps of putting on divine clothes (divyair vastraiḥ pariveṣṭya) and being filled with oil (and bathing in it), the Medicine King then takes the mental step of “making a firm resolution for himself” (svakam-adhiṣṭhānam akarot). The use of adhiṣṭhāna in this passage hearkens back to the beginning of the chapter where the Buddha uses it in a special way regarding the Medicine King. Edgerton cites this passage where the Buddha makes the bodhisattva Sarvasattvapriyadarśana, being one of his disciples, “the basis, i.e. with special regard to him, or for his special benefit.”114 sa ca bhagavānimaṃ saddharmapuṇḍarīkaṃ dharmaparyāyaṃ teṣāṃ mahāśrāvakāṇāṃ teṣāṃ ca bodhisattvānāṃ mahāsattvānāṃ vistareṇa saṃprakāśayati sma sarvasattvapriyadarśanaṃ bodhisattvaṃ mahāsattvamadhiṣṭānaṃ kṛtvā । (SP 405.7–9).

And then the blessed one illuminated this teaching of the dharma that is the White Lotus of the True Law, having paid special attention to the great being bodhisattva Sarvasattvapriyadarśana apart from the assembly of these great beings of bodhisattvas and great disciples.115

The bodhisattva set his own body on fire “for his special rite of pūjā” (pūjākarmaṇas asya) to the Buddha (tathāgatasya) and “for the sake of pūjā” (pūjārtham) to the Lotus Sūtra (saddharmapuṇḍarīkasya dharmaparyāyasya). Since Sarvasattvapriyadarśana’s motive was to worship the Buddha and the Lotus Sūtra by burning his body, it is now time to see how his audience perceives and judges his act of devotion.

Scene 4 - Verdict

The result of the Medicine King’s twelve-year regimen of consuming combustible fragrances and oils is a burning fire so immense that he lights up a multitude of realms beyond his current one: tasya sarvasattvapriyadarśanasya bodhisattvasya mahāsattvasya tābhiḥ kāya- pradīpa-prabhā-jvālābhir aśīti-gaṅgā-nadī-vālikā-samā-lokadhātavaḥ sphuṭā abhūvan | (SP 407.8–10).

114 Edgerton, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary, Vol. II, 15. 115 My translation. 34

Eighty world-systems like the sands of the Ganges river were suffused with the blazes of light from the torch that was the body of the great being bodhisattva Sarvasattvapriyadarśana.116

The adjective sphuṭa describing the eighty world-systems (aśīti lokadhātavaḥ) resonates with the title of the Lotus Sūtra itself because it can also mean “opened, bloomed, blossomed.” The Medicine King lighting up various realms with his intense fire also represents the metaphorical power of the Buddha’s teaching of the Lotus Sūtra to illuminate the world with its “true dharma” (saddharma). The comparison of the world- systems lit up by his body-torch to the sands of the Ganges river hearkens back to the parable of finding water while digging in sand found in chapter ten where the Medicine King himself is the Buddha’s main respondent (SP 233.1–6).117 Although the word for sand (vālikā for vālakā) is not used in the passage from chapter 10 (pāṃsu), the imagery of the sands of the Ganges River and digging for water and finding mud and clay (karda, m. and paṅka, m. or n.) represents the meeting of land and water in both chapters.118 Just as finding water is like finding and understanding the Lotus Sūtra, seeing the immense clarity of light from the Medicine King’s burning is like seeing and understanding the Lotus Sūtra as well, as the Buddha will more explicitly explain later. Logically then, “all the honored buddhas give him applause” for such a dazzling feat of worship (buddhā bhagavantas te sarve sādhukāraṃ dadanti) and they say: sādhu sādhu kulaputra sādhu khalu punas tvaṃ kulaputrāyaṃ sa bhūto bodhisattvānāṃ mahāsattvānāṃ vīryārambha iyaṃ sā bhūtā tathāgatapūjā dharmapūjā । (SP 407.8–408.2).

Excellent, excellent, O son of a good family, excellent. As everyone knows, O son of a good family, among the great beings that are bodhisattvas, you indeed have

116 My translation. 117 Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 221. 118 There is also the belief that all water ultimately comes from the Ganges river as the mother goddess. Cited by John Stratton Hawley’s “Prologue” to Devī: Goddesses of India, edited by John Stratton Hawley and Donna Marie Wulff. 1-28 (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, {1996} 1998) 18. See also Diana Eck’s chapter in the same book, “Gaṅgā: The Goddess Ganges in Hindu Sacred Geography,” 137-153. See also Diana Eck, India: A Sacred Geography (New York: Harmony Books, 2012). 35 become one who has undertaken hard work. This has become the worship of the Buddha, the worship of the dharma.

Kern’s translation of this passage highlights the other bodhisattvas as agents who should follow the Medicine King’s example: “well done, well done… that is the real heroism which the Bodhisattvas Mahāsattvas should develop; that is the real worship of the Tathāgata, the real worship of the law.”119 These unnamed and unnumbered Buddhas applaud the Medicine King and proclaim that his self-immolation has indeed demonstrated his “heroism, manliness, and power” (vīrya).120 Translating vīrya as “hard work” is more precise than Kern’s “heroism.” We can compare the way that the Buddhas praise Sarvasattvapriyadarśana’s form of worship here as “the worship of the Buddha” and “the worship of the dharma” (iyaṃ sā bhūtā tathāgatapūjā dharmapūjā) with the passage in chapter 10. Here we have an example of Buddhist pūjā (“worship”). As discussed earlier, the Buddha teaches that disciples to worship himself, the Lotus Sūtra, and its “preachers” (bhāṇakās, lit. “expounders, proclaimers”) with conventional offerings such as flowers, incense, perfumes, wreaths, lotions, aromatic powder, fine clothes, umbrellas, banners, flags, speeches, homage, and prostrations (SP 226.5–6). On top of this kind of worship in chapter 10, the Buddha says: na tathā puṣpadhūpagandhamālyavilepanacūrṇacīvaracchattradhvajapatākāpūjā nāpyāmiṣapūjā nāpyuragasāracandanapūjā । (SP 408.1–3).

119 Translation by Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 379. 120 Edgerton also cites the compound vīryārambha which describes what several elderly disciples are lacking as they address the Buddha in chapter 4 of the Lotus Sūtra (SP 100.10). Subhūti, Mahākātyāyana, Mahākāśyapa, and Mahāmaudgalyāyana all bemoan their aged bodies and their inability to exert any more power in attaining supreme enlightenment after so much time spent meditating and preaching the Buddha’s teachings. In contrast to these “withered, aged, and elderly” men (jīrṇās vṛddhās mahallakās) who have “become decrepit with old age” (jarā-jīrṇī-bhūtās) in chapter 4, Sarvasattvapriyadarśana in chapter 22 is still young enough to be a kulaputra and has achieved that coveted power (vīrya) before the Buddhas through his exemplary worship. See translation by Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 98. vayaṃ hi bhagavajjīrṇā vṛddhā mahallakā asminbhikṣusaṃghe staviraṃsamatā jarājīrṇībhūtā nirvāṇaprāptāḥ sma iti bhagavanniruddamā anuttarāyāṃ samyaksaṃbodhāvapratibalāḥ smāprativīryārambhāḥ sma । SP 100.8–10. 36 It is not as the worship with flags, banners, umbrellas, clothes, aromatic powders, lotions, garlands, perfumes, incense, or flowers, not even is it like the worship with material goods nor is it as the worship with Uragasāra sandalwood.121

The word for “material goods” āmiṣa refers to “flesh, meat, food;” and is metonymic with the worldly and physical realm in general, as opposed to the spiritual and transcendent world of dharma. The list of offerings in chapter 10 is reiterated here in chapter 22 but put at the bottom of the rung of meritorious worship. The Buddhas then contrast the Medicine King’s gift of his body with the next level of giving, namely that of family and property. The Buddhas outright say that this, self-immolation, is the best way to worship the dharma of Buddha. idaṃ tatkulaputrāgrapradānaṃ na tathā rājyaparityāgadānaṃ na priyaputrabhāryāparityāgadānam । iyaṃ punaḥ kulaputra viśiṣṭāgrā varā pravarā praṇītā dharmapūjā yo 'yamātmabhāvaparityāgaḥ । (SP 408.3–5).

This, indeed, son of a good family, is the foremost presentation, not like the gift of abandoning one’s kingship, or the gift of abandoning one’s wife and beloved son. This indeed, son of a good family, is the distinguished, foremost, best, preeminent, worship of the dharma that has been brought forth, which is this abandoning of the body.122

Dāna, also translated as “generosity,” is also one of the saṃgraha-vastu, the four methods that bodhisattvas use to “attract and retain students,” as will be more apparent later when he is reborn.123 Sarvasattvapriyadarśana’s giving of his body here is once again another part of his portfolio as a developing bodhisattva who has achieved the perfection of giving, the first of five.124 There is also a paradigm shift here where the former abandoning of one’s kingship and family members of olden times were once considered amazing feats in themselves, such as the Buddha himself had done before he set off on his journey to enlightenment. This is the reason why I chose “kingship” instead of “kingdom” for rājya, because giving up one entails the other as well.

121 My translation. 122 My translation. 123 Buswell and Lopez, Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 754. 124 Williams, Mahāyāna Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations, 200. 37 The reference to this level of sacrifice also resonates directly with verses 18 and 19 in chapter 1 (SP 11.5–8) where the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī proclaims to Avalokiteśvara that he sees people in the process of sacrificing their limbs and family members. Giving up one’s kingdom (rājya-parityāga) is superficially for the ruling class and royalty who would have that sort of property to give up in the first place, which is not universal to everyone. In contrast, the body is a basic possession everyone, of any background, must give up – if they can. The bodhisattva ideal is the prime opportunity an individual can use to showcase superior generosity and giving, in this case literally overshadowing more familiar types of sacrifice with the flames of one’s own body. The story then returns to the Medicine King’s form of worship as also a demonstration of endurance within the bodhisattva ideal.

Scene 5 - Endurance

The Medicine King’s gift of the body as devotion to the Buddha was not just for a moment but for over a millennium. tasya khalu punar... sarvasattvapriyadarśanātmabhāvasya dīpyato dvādaśa varṣaśatānyati krāntāny abhūvan na ca praśamaṃ gacchati sma । (SP 408.7–8).

Then indeed, as everyone knows, with the body of Sarvasattvapriyadarśana blazing, twelve hundred years passed, and no abatement happened.125

Kern says that the Medicine King burned for 12,000 years, since śata can also mean “any very large number.”126 Whether 1,200 or 12,000 years, it would still be appropriate to argue that Sarvasattvapriyadarśana achieved the perfection of endurance or patience, kṣānti.127 At the beginning of the chapter, he had also wandered for 12,000 years (SP 405.12–14, see above). Although Paul Williams is talking about Mahāyāna Buddhist bodhisattva ideal in 8th century C.E. Tibetan texts, we can still track the Medicine King’s

125 My translation. 126 Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 380. Monier-Williams, Sanskrit Dictionary, 1048. 127 Paul Williams, Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations, 2nd ed. The Library of Religious Beliefs and Practices (London: Routledge, {1989} 2009) 200. 38 development as a bodhisattva. In the Daśabhumika Sūtra (The Sūtra on the Ten Stages), when a bodhisattva first generates bodhicitta (the aspiration to help suffering beings), he enters the first stage (bhumi) among ten called “Joyous.”128 Sarvasattvapriyadarśana reached this stage at the beginning of the chapter after achieving the power to manifest all forms (samādhi sarvarūpasaṃdarśana) when he was all sorts of overjoyed and content and elated (SP 406.2, see above). Per Kamalaśīla’s text Bhavanakrama, the bodhisattva works hard in both “wisdom and means,” where perfecting one’s giving, endurance, and “meditative concentration” make up three of the five.129 Achieving a type of samādhi is one way to perfect meditative concentration and giving up one’s body in the Medicine King’s example is both perfecting giving and endurance at the same time. Within the “Path of Accumulation,” Williams explains that the properly meditating bodhisattva successfully cultivates śamatha (“calm abiding”) also attains the “the ability to visit celestial realms in order to make offerings and acquire merit, and also the ability to see teachers, and statues of the Buddha, as actual Buddhas.”130 Sarvasattvapriyadarśana has achieved this ability since the unnamed and unnumbered Buddhas witnessed his self-immolation and praised him accordingly (SP 408.1–5, see above). Furthermore, within the “Path of Preparation,” Williams lists four stages which resonate with the Medicine King’s progress: “heat, peak, patience (or endurance) and supreme mundane dharmas.”131 These stages prove that the Medicine King has obtained a deeper and deeper comprehension and insight into emptiness (śūnyatā) so that he can “refin[e] away all conceptual awareness and dualistic apprehension.”132 Sarvasattvapriyadarśana also attains one of the fruits of a bodhisattva who has reached this level of growth – the privilege of never being reborn again “in the lower realms,” unless they do so out of compassion.133 With his subsequent rebirth, the Medicine King

128 Williams, Mahāyāna Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations, 200. 129 Williams, Mahāyāna Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations, 200. 130 Williams, Mahāyāna Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations, 201. 131 Williams, Mahāyāna Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations, 201. 132 Williams, Mahāyāna Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations, 201. 133 Williams, Mahāyāna Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations, 201 and 358n33. 39 will be able to achieve this perfection of endurance (or patience) once again through self- mutilation, which will in fact prove to have a noble and altruistic goal.

Part 2 - Episode 2: Rebirth

I divide this section of the Medicine King’s narrative has into five scenes: “Rebirth,” “Filial Piety,” “Special Responsibility,” “Leadership,” and “Teaching.” My analysis of the bodhisattva’s “Teaching” scene and of Part 3 “Śakyamuni’s Teaching” will be coming up my next chapter, “Why he is the Medicine King.”

Scene 1 - Rebirth

After his self-immolation, an act of intensely strenuous devotion, Sarvasattvapriyadarśana is presumably reborn as a prince to King Vimaladatta and his unnamed queen. He has the same name as before this lifetime and his seemingly miraculous birth proceeds without comment in the following prose section: sa khalu punar... sarvasattvapriyadarśano bodhisattvo mahāsattva evaṃrūpāṃ tathāgatapūjāṃ ca dharmapūjāṃ ca kṛtvā tataś cyutas tasyaiva bhagavataś candrasūryavimalaprabhāsaśriyas tathāgatasyārhataḥ samyaksaṃbuddhasya pravacane rājño vimaladattasya gṛha upapanna aupapādika utsaṅge paryaṅkeṇa prādurbhūto 'bhūt । (SP 408.8–12).

So then indeed, as everyone knows, the great being bodhisattva Sarvasattvapriyadarśana, having accomplished the worship of the Buddha, the worship in this form, and the worship of the dharma, having passed away from there, under the preaching of the perfectly enlightened Arhat, the Buddha, the Blessed One Candrasūryavimalaprabhāsaśrī, he was born in the home of King Vimaladatta by spontaneous generation, on the ground with his legs crossed in a seated position he appeared.134

134 My translation. The locative singular masculine noun utsaṅge literally means “on a horizontal level,” presumably “on the ground” which Kern does not translate. Kern translates paryaṅkeṇa as “sitting cross- legged” which describes how Buddhists meditate, while Monier-Williams translates paryaṅka as a “squatting position” assumed by both ascetics and meditating Buddhists. See Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 380. Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit-English Dictionary, 607. 40 In the entire Lotus Sutra, this word aupapādika (or one of its iterations) occurs in four different contexts. Two of the occurrences are from the same chapter so I count them as one occurrence in chapter 8, where the verse version references its own “antecedent” in prose: Chapter 8: aupapādukā(s) (SP 202.5) and upapādukāḥ (SP 205.14), Chapter 11: aupapāduke (SP 260.11–12), Chapter 17: (SP 346.8), here in chapter 22: (SP 408.12), and Chapter 24: upapāduka (SP 455.4). Kern translates aupapādika in two different ways: “apparitional birth” (chapters 8, 22, and 24) and “metamorphosis” (chapters 11 and 17). While at first it seems that the two phrases are simply artistic variants of a similar idea, semantically both phrases suggest different ontological and phenomenological realities for our bodhisattva. “Apparitional birth” suggests that Sarvasattvapriyadarśana went from one lifetime into another, from life x into life y. On the other hand, “metamorphosis” may entail that within only one lifetime x, the bodhisattva entered a period of change and emerged from a specific period of time as an altered being, but did not die and be reborn as a different entity. I follow Edgerton’s definition of aupapādika as “spontaneous generation” which matches Kern’s translation “apparitional birth.” Therefore, I translate cyutas as “passed away” to get a sense of the bodhisattva’s death and rebirth, a journey from one lifetime into another. Kern translates cyutas as “disappeared” which may have been a way to avoid saying he outright “died” as I have done here with “he having passed away from that place” (tatas cyutas tasya eva).135 Kern also translates upapanna in this passage as “(re)appeared,” while I translate it as “he was born” because I follow Kern in the other chapters of the Lotus Sutra where upapanna (or one of its iterations upapatsyate, etc. from upa√pad-) appears in the same passage as aupapāduka.136 My translation situates the bodhisattva within a family context that also reveals gaps in his life story since it is only his spiritual development that matters here. Instead of simply “house” as Kern translates, I choose “home” for gṛha, which denotes greater intimacy. Since the Medicine King is being reborn in the home of a king, where his high

135 Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 380. 136 Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 380. 41 social status should not matter as a bodhisattva but is likely a reward nonetheless for his achievements in his past life. It is likely that Sarvasattvapriyadarśana is the king’s son, namely a prince, just like Śakyamuni Buddha was himself before his enlightenment. This princely heritage would also match one of his other past lives as Vimalagarbha, one of the protagonists of chapter 25 to be discussed at the end of this chapter. Although it is not explicit here, Sarvasattvapriyadarsana is a kulaputra after all, so he would not be reborn in a lower state with his noteworthy resumé. We can assume that he was born as a child who grew up in the royal palace, rather than appearing spontaneously as a full-grown adult, otherwise someone in the palace would have noticed and made a fuss about such a strange miracle. As an aupapāduka, Sarvasattvapriyadarśana joins the ranks of “divinities (deva), hungry ghosts (preta), denizens of hell (nāraka), and those residing in the intermediate state (antarābhava).”137 In chapter 11 of the Lotus Sūtra, those born spontaneously in a particular buddha-field (buddha-kṣetra) reappear face to face with the Buddha himself (tathāgatasya saṃmukham, SP 260.11–12). Buswell and Lopez explain that these beings “appear spontaneously at their rebirth destiny, are fully mature at the time of their birth, and leave no physical corpse behind at death.”138 Sarvasattvapriyadarśana may have been mentally and spiritually “fully mature” at the time of his birth, further marking his elevated rebirth in his bodhisattva career. He was indeed smṛtimān and saṃprajānaṃs (“full of memory and understanding,” SP 406.11) when he first resolved to self-immolate and before his rebirth. Although these terms are not repeated after his rebirth, it is possible that Buswell and Lopez’s description of a being born spontaneously or metamorphically would also retain such advanced mental and spiritual faculties.

137 Aupapāduka is one of the four modes of birth versus the six modes in chapter 17 in the Lotus Sūtra. In the three realms of existence, Buswell and Lopez list the four birth modes as: egg birth (aṇḍajayoni), womb birth (jarāyujayoni), moisture birth (saṃsvedajayoni), and upapadukayoni “metamorphic” or “spontaneous” birth. Further: “Beings born into Sukhāvatī are said to be born either spontaneously into a lotus flower in the Pure Land, viviparously to other beings at the outer perimeter of that land. Beings born metamorphically are the most numerous of all the four modes of birth and are regarded as superior,” see Upapādukayoni in Buswell and Lopez, Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 940. For example, the monks in chapter 24 of the Lotus Sūtra born on lotuses. 138 See Upapādukayoni in Buswell and Lopez, Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 940. 42 The privilege of being born aupapāduka also means that Sarvasattvapriyadarśana “also recognizes his appropriate rebirth destination at the moment of his death and generates a desire to appear in that specific destiny, even if that desire be directed toward a baleful place like the hells.”139 We can assume that the Medicine King chose to be reborn as a prince in the home of a king since he has attained such wonderous bodhisattva powers. Although we can interpret aupapāduka as simply a stock phrase that describes impressive bodhisattvas, the characteristics of being born spontaneously also represents a bodhisattva’s upward mobility in rebirth after rebirth. Most importantly as an aupapāduka, he must not have been born from a woman (womb birth, jarāyujayoni), yet that is unclear in this passage. In the prose section, Sarvasattvapriyadarśana addresses both of his parents -- his father and mother. Yet if he is aupapāduka, he must not have been born from her womb but by his own elevated status derived from his meritorious worship. In every single passage where Kern translates aupapāduka as “apparitional birth,” the very existence of women, the chance to ever be reborn again as a woman, and any possibility of sex with women, are all explicitly excluded and non-existent in those buddha-fields (buddha- kṣetra).140 However instead of being a theological problem, we can shelve the question

139 See Upapādukayoni in Buswell and Lopez, Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 940. 140 In chapter 8 the monks reborn upapāduka in the buddha-field called Pūrṇa do not have to worry about women because they do not exist there na mātṛgrāmo (lit. there are no “mother people”). In verse: āhārasaṃjñā ca na tatra bheṣyati anyatra dharme rati dhyānaprītiḥ । na mātṛgrāmo 'pi ca tatra bheṣyati na cāpyapāyāna ca durgatībhayam ॥ 19 ॥ (SP 206.1–2). “They shall know no other food but pleasure in the law and delight in knowledge. No womankind shall be there, nor fear of the places of punishments or of dismal states,” translated by Kern Lotus of the True Law, 197. In the prose: tena khalu punarbhikṣavaḥ samayenedaṃ buddhakṣetramapagatapāpaṃ bhaviṣyatyagatamātṛgrāmaṃ ca । sarve ca te sattvā aupapādukā bhaviṣyanti [...] | (SP 202.4–5). “Moreover, monks, at that time that Buddha-field shall be exempt from places of punishment and from womankind, as all beings shall be born by apparitional birth,” translated by Kern Lotus of the True Law, 194. In chapter 22, there are no women in Candrasūryavimalaprabhāsaśrī Buddha’s spiritual rule, apagata-mātṛgrāmaṃ (SP 405.1). See Kern Lotus of the True Law, 377. Any woman who hears even a single verse from this particular chapter will experience their last birth as a woman and will reappear as a man seated inside a lotus. sacetpunar [...] mātṛgrāma imaṃ dharmaparyāyaṃ śrutvodgrahīṣyati* dhārayiṣyati tasya sa eva paścimaḥ strībhāvo bhaviṣyati । SP 418.9–419.1 *udgṛhīṣyati in manuscripts labeled K. (a Nepali manuscript) and W. (also Nepali – see Yuyama A Bibliography of the Sanskrit Texts, 19). The Gilgit Group A manuscript also reads udgrahīṣyati, see Watanabe Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Manuscripts Found in Gilgit, 167. For an English 43 for another time, because it does not seem to matter whether or not he was born from a woman or not. Instead, we can continue to wonder: how is Sarvasattvapriyadarśana reborn with the same exact name as before? How is he the same person despite the Buddhist belief of no “persistent” soul throughout different lifetimes due to the constant flux of everything? Are we expected to consider this rebirth to truly be a different “lifetime? It must be so because he is a bodhisattva and being reborn again and again is essential to his attaining various perfections. Before he resumes this path, the next scene allows us to see that the main point is he is a good son who respects his parents and honors them with a polite address before moving onto serving the Buddha Candrasūryavimalaprabhāsaśrī once again.

Scene 2 - Filial Piety

Being kulaputra himself, it is logical that at Sarvasattvapriyadarśana’s rebirth, both parents would be there to greet him. He recalls his past self-immolation when he addresses his parents (sva-mātā-pitarau, SP 408.13), saying a final goodbye to only his father the king before he embarks on a noble mission to serve the Buddha Candrasūryavimalaprabhāsaśrī. ayaṃ mama caṅkrama rājaśreṣṭha yasmin mayā sthitva samādhi labdhaḥ । vīrya dṛḍhaṃ ārabhitaṃ mahāvrataṃ parityajitvā priyam ātmabhāvam || (SP 408.14–15).141

translation, see Kern Lotus of the True Law, 389. In chapter 24 “there are no women,” na ca istriṇa (SP 455.3–4). 141 Kern and Nanjio originally read mamā for mama. Watanabe’s reading of mama seems to be the better choice here to avoid repetition of mayā twice in the same line since Kern and Nanjio provide mayā as an alternate reading for mamā. See SP 408.14n9 and Watanabe, Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Manuscripts Found in Gilgit, 162. Kern and Nanjio read caṅkrama and provide caṅkramu and caṅkrame as alternate readings. See SP 408.14n10. Watanabe reads caṅkramu. Although Kern and Nanjio read yasmiṃ, they note at SP 408.14n11 that all the manuscripts read yasmin, which is what we have in the Gilgit manuscript. See Watanabe, Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Manuscripts Found in Gilgit, 162. In both the editio princeps and corrigenda, the editors read sthitva without listing alternate readings. I identify this feature using Edgerton’s discussion of “short vowels for long” in Buddhist Sanskrit where we see a for final ā in indeclinable words, such as with the gerund sthitvā, and only in verses, which we also see here. See Edgerton, Hybrid Buddhist Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary, Vol. 1, 24 §3.27. 44 I have obtained from my pious wandering, oh best among kings, this final state of intense abstract meditation, Being one known for my manly power, with intense perseverance I have abandoned my dear self as a great vow I have undertaken.142

Although the prose says that he addressed his parents, at first it seemed like he is addressing the Buddha as “best among kings.” In Hurvitz’s English translation from the Chinese, it is clear that he is addressing his father King Vimaladatta.143 This discrepancy between the prose and verse sections would work well with Kern’s theory that the verses were written first, and the prose written after. We may also have to take for granted that Sarvasattvapriyadarśana is referring to his actions from his past life, unless he completed the wandering, meditation, and self-sacrifice in this lifetime as well. In either case, it is less important when he did these things, but that he did them at all, for they prepare him to leave his parents to fulfill his special responsibility to the Buddha Candrasūryavimalaprabhāsaśrī. In a following prose section, the Medicine King once again addresses his mom and dad (amba tāta) and tells them about how the Buddha Candrasūryavimalaprabhāsaśrī “is still alive at this very moment” (candrasūryavimalaprabhāsaśrīs-tathāgato … etarhi tiṣṭhati, SP 409.3) Then the bodhisattva recounts to his parents (svamātāpitarau SP 409.2) that he has already achieved the samādhi of knowing all sounds, sarvaruta- kauśalya-dhāranī (SP 409.3–5), especially all of the countless recitations of the Lotus Sūtra.144 pratilabdhāyaṃ ca saddharmapuṇḍarīko dharmaparyāyo 'śītibhir gāthā-koṭī- nayuta-śata-sahasraiḥ kaṅkaraiś ca vivaraiś cākṣobhyaiś ca tasya bhagavato 'ntikācchruto 'abhūt । (SP 409.5–6).

And I obtained the teaching and chapter of the dharma that is The White Lotus of the True Law through its eighty hundred thousands of thousand billions of ten

142 My translation. 143 Leon Hurvitz’s English translation from the Chinese makes it clear that the bodhisattva is addressing his father with that verse, rather than the Buddha as I had thought before. See Leon Hurvitz, Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma: Translated from the Chinese of Kumārajīva (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976) 295. 144 Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 380-381. 45 millions of stanzas and a million, one hundred thousand billions, and trillions of these I heard in the presence of the Blessed One himself.145

Just like in his past life, Sarvasattvapriyadarśana is grateful for achieving the samādhi of manifesting all sights (sarva-rūpa-saṃdarśana, SP 406.1–3). Kern says that this fact is “unprecedented.”146 Perhaps one of the authors wrote down sarva-ruta-kauśalya-dhāraṇī because it sounds like sarva-rūpa-saṃdarśana because sarva-ruta rhymes with sarva- rūpa and there is only a one-syllable difference between the two phrases, perhaps “stock” phrases at that. I believe these sounds are the resounding recitations, utterances, and chanting of the Lotus Sūtra as is so popular in Mahāyāna Buddhist practice in south eastern Asian countries today. Earlier in the chapter 10 on preachers of the dharma, the Buddha says in verse that if a person even hears the sūtra one time (denoting its live recitation) or memorizes a single verse (denoting possible repetition aloud until memorization), that person gains so much merit that it exceeds giving alms to all the buddhas and their cosmic legions of bodhisattvas themselves.147 Reciting the sūtra to others is also part of a preacher’s responsibilities and bodhisattvas are preachers.148 A hundred thousand billions and trillions of these recitations of the Lotus Sūtra occurred in the presence of the Buddha himself, likely by his legions of fellow buddhas, bodhisattvas, and the like.

145 My translation. For nayuta as “a thousand billion” and vivara as “hundred thousand billion.” See Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 381n2-3. A koṭi is “ten million” according to Monier-Williams (in the Manu-Smṛti, etc.). 146 Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 381n1. 147 Kern translates: “And… the young man or young lady of good family, striving in the Bodhisattva vehicle for the goal, who after filling with the seven precious substances this whole triple world should give it in alms to all Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, disciples, Pratyekabuddhas, that young man or young lady of good family… does not produce so much pious merit as a young man or young lady of good family who shall keep, were it but a single verse from this Dharmaparyāya of the Lotus of the True Law. I positively declare that the accumulation of merit of the latter is greater than if a person, after filling the whole triple world with the seven previous substances, bestows it in alms on all Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, disciples, or Pratyekabuddhas.” Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 386. 148 Kern translates: “If such a one, by his paying that worship to the objects of veneration during eighteen thousands koṭis of eons, happens to hear this Sūtra, were it only once, he shall obtain an amazingly great advantage.” Kern Lotus of the True Law, 219. Kern translates: “these young men and young ladies of good family, who after the complete extinction of the Tathāgata shall believe, read, write, honor this Dharmaparyāya and recite it others.” Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 220. 46 Scene 3 - Special Responsibility

In the following prose section, the Medicine King addresses not just his father as the king, but both parents much more informally and intimately about his plan: tat sādhv amba tāta gamiṣyāmy ahaṃ tasya bhagavato 'ntikaṃ tasmiṃś ca gatvā bhūyas tasya bhagavataḥ pūjāṃ kariṣyāmīti । (SP 409.6–7).

“Therefore, dear mom and dad, I will go to the presence of the Blessed one, and having gone there, I will perform worship of the Blessed One once more,” he said.149

Kern translates the future indicative verbs here in the more optative sense to show obligation, “I should like to go to that Lord and worship him again.”150 I chose to translate the future indicative verbs in the simple future indicative rather than the optative because it shows the Medicine King’s resolve to do it no matter what objection his parents might make, for they make none, and in fact, say nothing at all in the text. The future indicative also emphasizes that he is performing worship of the Buddha again (bhūyas, indeclinable adverb) in this lifetime as he did in his last. I also translate sādhv amba tāta as “dear mom and dad” to show closeness between the nuclear family before embarking on his next task away from home. In that very moment, Sarvasattvapriyadarśana immediately ascends (abhyudgamya) into the sky (vaihāyasam, lit. in the open air) over a distance equal to seven fan-palm trees (tālas, m. Palmyra tree, Borassus flabelliformis). Then after arriving at an upper chamber (or perhaps city) consisting of seven jewels (sapta-ratna-maye kūṭāgāre), he bends into the cross-legged position (paryaṅkam ābhujya) and reaches the presence (sakāśam) of the Buddha Candrasūryavimalaprabhāsaśrī (SP 409.9–12).151 Without further delay, Sarvasattvapriyadarśana begins to pay the proper homage to the Buddha before addressing him:

149 My translation. 150 Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 381. 151 Edgerton, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary, Vol. II, xxvi. 47 upasaṃkrānta upasaṃkramya tasya bhagavatas pādau śirasābhivadya taṃ bhagavantaṃ saptakṛtvaḥ pradakṣiṇīkṛtya yena sa bhagavāṃs tena añjaliṃ praṇāmya namaskṛtvānayā gāthayābhiṣṭauti sma । (SP 409.10–12).152

While stepping to one side, then having stepped to his other side, then having saluted reverentially with his head at the Blessed One’s feet seven times, he having circumambulated around him clockwise, by which, having bowed down to the Blessed One, by that one, having given his adoration, with this verse he praised the Blessed One.153

The phrase pradakṣiṇī-kṛtya indicate that the Medicine King made sure his right side was always facing the Buddha while he walked around him with the utmost respect. Then after the physical paying of homage, in the second and last verse of the chapter, the Medicine King addresses the Buddha Candrasūryavimalaprabhāsaśrī personally and in the proper manner verbally: suvimalavadanā narendra dhīrā tava prabha rājat iyaṃ daśa-d-diśāsu । tubhya sugata kṛtva agrapūjāṃ aham iha āgatu nātha darśanāya ॥ 2 ॥ (SP 410.1–2).154

O King, wise one, whose face is perfectly pure, your light glittering here in the ten directions. O Blissful One, having performed the foremost worship for you, I am here, for the purpose of viewing the Lord.155

The bodhisattva here is staking his claim that he may presume to be permitted to address the Buddha himself, because he has proven himself in his past life through self- immolation. Both meanings of agra can apply here as well, referring to his devotion in

152 SP 409.10n12-13: For saptakṛtvah, the group A Gilgit manuscript reads -kṛt as an upapada compound. Kern and Nanjio provide kṛtya from ms. Cb, and kṛtva from ms. K which seems to be most in line with Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit per Edgerton’s study cited above for verse 2. For pradakṣiṇī-kṛtya, the group A Gilgit manuscript reads -kṛtvā See Watanabe, Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Manuscripts Found in Gilgit, 163. 153 My translation. 154 My sandhi breaks are in accordance with Watanabe’s reading of the group A Gilgit manuscript on the same section. Watanabe, Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Manuscripts Found in Gilgit, 163. 155 My translation. 48 the most recent past life as well as the fact that the lord Buddhas had already deemed it the “best, foremost, chief.”156 After this respectful address, the Medicine King addresses the Buddha Candrasūryavimalaprabhāsaśrī in informal prose, “are you even now still alive, o Honored One?” (adyāpi tvaṃ bhagavaṃs tiṣṭhasi | SP 410.5). The Buddha Candrasūryavimalaprabhāsaśrī responds to Sarvasattvapriyadarśana alerting to him that the time has come for him to die for the last time ever: parinirvāṇa kāla sa mayo me kulaputrānuprāptaḥ kṣayānta kālo me kulaputrānuprāptas tad gaccha tvaṃ kulaputra mama mañcaṃ prajñapayasva parinirvāyiṣyāmīti । (SP 410.7–8).

“Therefore, young man of good family, prepare my couch; I am going to enter complete extinction.”157

The Buddha then proceeds to relay his last will and testament, where he entrusts to the Medicine King two sets of property: first leadership over his entire spiritual community and domain: idaṃ ca te kulaputra śāsanam anuparindāmīmāś ca bodhisattvān mahāsattvān imāṃś ca mahāśrāvakān imāṃ ca buddhabodhim imāṃ ca lokadhātum imāni ca ratnavyomakān īmāni ca ratnavṛkṣāṇ īmāṃś ca devaputrān mamopasthāyakān anuparindāmi । (SP 410.10–12).

I am handing over to you, O son of a good family, my teaching. I am handing over to you these great being bodhisattvas, these high-ranking disciples, this enlightenment of a Buddha, this world, these jewel-encrusted sky palaces, these celestial trees, and these gods, these attendants of mine.158

Passing over the torch of his dharma, the Buddha hands over (anuparindāmi) to the Medicine King an impressive list of “possessions” that only a true King could give away: his spiritual rule (śāsanam), his great being bodhisattvas bodhisattvān mahāsattvān imāṃś, his great disciples mahāśrāvakān, and the very foundation of his dharmic

156 On the Buddhist Sanskrit form of kṛtva: if a gerund, expect kṛtvā even in Hybrid Sanskrit. See Edgerton on “the Gerund” in Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary, Vol. I, 171-177. 157 Translation by Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 382. 158 My translation. 49 kingship, “this enlightenment of a Buddha” (buddha-bodhim imāṃ). When the Buddha entrusts the Medicine King with buddha-bodhi, is he fast-forwarding the bodhisattva’s access to the powers of Buddhahood without becoming a buddha? Kern translates this compound as “Buddha-enlightenment,” which leaves it up to me to decide that in line with chapter 10 previously on the role of bhāṇakas (SP 226.1–6).159 These expounders of the Buddha’s dharma become like the Buddha and are supposed to be treated as if it were really him, that is, a buddha. Now that the Medicine King has been bestowed the privilege of being considered as a Buddha, he also gains the cosmic status that comes with it. Kern translates śāsana as “my commandment (or mastership, rule).”160 Although the term normally means “teaching,” śāsana also has the resonance of the Buddha’s rule and discipline, where the bodhisattva is responsible for disseminating his teaching as the rule. After all, the Medicine King gains responsibility to take care of the Buddha’s body after his final extinction and their continued worship:

parinirvṛtasya ca me kulaputra ye dhātavas tān anuparindāmi । ātmanā ca tvayā kulaputra mama dhātūnāṃ vipulā pūjā kartavyā vaistārikāś ca te dhātavaḥ kartavyāḥ stūpānāṃ ca bahūni sahasrāṇi kartavyāni । (SP 410.12–411.3).

“I entrust to thee also, young man of good family, my relics after my complete extinction. Thou shouldst pay a great worship to my relics, young man of good family, and distribute them and build many Stūpas.”161

The opportunity to aid the Buddha in his final hour is no doubt a very highly honorable and coveted responsibility for a disciple: atha khalu... sa sarvasattvapriyadarśano bodhisattvo mahāsattvas taṃ bhagavantaṃ candrasūryavimalaprabhāsaśriyaṃ tathāgataṃ parinirvṛtaṃ viditvoregasāracandanacitāṃ kṛtvā taṃ tathāgatātmabhāvam saṃprajvālayām

159 In particular, the first clause, the Buddha addresses the Medicine King, “Indeed Medicine King, a son or daughter from a good family can or should or must be known as a Buddha” (sa hi bhaiṣajyarāja kulaputro vā kuladuhitā vā tathāgato veditavyaḥ, SP 226.1). The rest of the passage talks about the correct means of worshipping them as a Buddha. 160 Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 382. The first person indicative present verb anuparindāmi is a peculiar case. 161 Translation by Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 382. 50 āsa । dagdhaṃ niśāntaṃ ca tathāgatātmabhāvaṃ viditvā tato dhātūn gṛhītvā rodati krandati paridevate sma । (SP 411.6–9).

So then indeed, the great being bodhisattva Sarvasattvapriyadarśana having watched the Blessed One, the Buddha Candrasūryavimalaprabhāsaśrī become completely emancipated, then having finished the piling up of Uregasāra sandalwood, he completely burned the body of the Buddha. Having watched the body of the Buddha be scorched and quieted, then having taken all the relics he wept, grieved, and wailed for the Buddha.162

The Medicine King then obeyed the Buddha Candrasūryavimalaprabhāsaśrī and turned his remains (84,000 urns) into stūpas (SP 411.9–412.2). We can presume he did this by cremating the Buddha’s body, then dividing up his ashes and his possessions into decorated mounds. Here we have the same word for the Buddha’s physical body (tathāgata- ātmabhāva) as the Medicine King’s earlier during his self-immolation. Again, the same word for the Sarvasattvapriyadarśana’s own body as devotion is used for burning the Buddha’s body (saṃprajvālayām āsa). The Medicine King also properly and respectfully mourns the Buddha Candrasūryavimalaprabhāsaśrī at his death (rodati krandati paridevate sma). In contrast to the usual audience of multitudes in attendance to the Buddha’s didactic expositions, the Medicine King is alone here in his responsibility to care for the Buddha’s remains, in his worship, and mourning. The adjectives describing the Buddha Candrasūryavimalaprabhāsaśrī’s body dagdhaṃ and niśāntaṃ are special here because they describe how attentively the Medicine King as Sarvasattvapriyadarśana attended to the Buddha. The first adjective dagdhaṃ (from the verbal root √dah) means to be “burnt, scorched, consumed by fire,” relating the image of his body withering into ashes in the flames before the Medicine King’s eyes. This image hearkens back to the Medicine King himself in the previous lifetime burning for 12,000 years to show his devotion to the Buddha. In this lifetime, he has attained the privilege of watching this Buddha be completely finished with the “mundane whirl” of existence, never to be reborn

162 My translation. 51 again to help others out of compassion because he has reached the end of his goal: final nirvāṇa. The adjective niśānta, to be “allayed, calm, tranquil” (from ni√śam) has connotations of conducting austerities within ascetic practice. The Buddha himself has worked long and hard over the extent of his career to the point of satisfactory exhaustion, reaching the goal of complete release from existence. While this passage does not say how long the Buddha Candrasūryavimalaprabhāsaśrī’s body was burning for, we know the Medicine King stayed until the flames were completely gone so that he could properly tend to his remains. Then the Medicine King uses this opportunity to teach others about what he verified during this attendance in the final ritual for the Buddha – as the Buddha himself has shown, nirvāṇa is attainable and therefore the Buddha’s dharma is the true law. Now it is time for the Medicine King to show gratitude once again for this knowledge through more worship of the Buddha.

Scene 4 - Leadership

The Medicine King then resolves to worship the Buddha’s relics even more than he already did, once again going above and beyond: kṛtā mayā tasya bhagavataś candrasūryavimalaprabhāsaśriyas tathāgatasya dhātūnāṃ pūjā ataśca bhūya uttariviśiṣṭatarāṃ tathāgatadhātūnāṃ pūjāṃ kariṣyāmīti । (SP 412.2–4).

I have done the worship of the relics of the Blessed One, the Buddha Candrasūryavimalaprabhāsaśrī and therefore, once again I will perform an even more excellent and distinguished worship of the relics of the Buddha.163

This time, his worship (pūjā) is “even more excellent and distinguished” (uttari- viśiṣṭatara) than what the Buddha originally asked of him, namely the making of his stūpas. Remembering how he was praised in his last life for the self-immolation, he issues a command to the audience, who was either already there the whole time or only come into view after the Medicine King created the stūpas for them to also worship.

163 My translation. 52 sarve yūyaṃ kulaputrāḥ samanvāharadhvaṃ tasya bhagavato dhātūnāṃ pūjāṃ kariṣyāma iti । (SP 412.6–7).

Oh, sons from good families, you all should resolve to do thus: we must make worship to the relics of the Buddha.164

Then as any good teacher for their students, the bodhisattva Sarvasattvapriyadarśana demonstrates that worship (pūja) means self-mutilation through limited self-immolation. atha khalu... sa sarvasattvapriyadarśano bodhisattvo mahāsattvas tasyāṃ velāyāṃ teṣāṃ catur-aśītīnāṃ tathāgata-dhātu-stūpa-sahasrāṇāṃ puras-tāc- chata-puṇya-vicitritaṃ svaṃ bāhum ādīpayāmāsādīpya ca dvāsaptati-varṣa- sahasrāṇi teṣāṃ tathāgata-dhātu-stūpāṇāṃ pūjām akarot । (SP 412.7–10).

So then indeed, the great being bodhisattva Sarvasattvapriyadarśana in that time, in front of the eighty-four thousand stupas and relics of the Buddha, he set his own arm on fire, the one adorned with the one hundred marks of meritorious action, and having kindled it for 72,000 years, he made worship of the stūpas and relics of the Buddha.165

This time his single arm burns much longer (72,000 years) than his whole body did in his past life (12,000 years). Once again, the Medicine King demonstrates his perfection of endurance and understanding of emptiness because he can withstand this sort of self- mutilation even longer than that of his whole body. He is also able to control the fire so that the fire does not spread to his whole body. It is unclear how he is setting his arm ablaze, but we can imagine it may have combusted on its own from a special power, or he dipped it directly into an unnamed fire source. Now we turn to the end of chapter 22 to investigate how Bhaiṣajyarāja is the King of Medicine. It is not a coincidence that the end of the Medicine King chapter is where the Buddha says that the Lotus Sūtra is “like a doctor” vaidya iva ‘for the sick āturāṇāṃ” (from ātura; SP 417.9–10). evam eva ...ayaṃ saddharmapuṇḍarīko dharmaparyāyaḥ sarvaduḥkhapramocakaḥ sarvavyādhicchedakaḥ sarvasaṃsārabhayabandhanasaṃkaṭapramocakaḥ । (SP 417.11–13).

164 My translation. 165 My translation. 53

So in this way, this teaching of the dharma of the White Lotus of the True Dharma is one which frees all from suffering, one which cuts away disease from all, one which frees all from the suffocating bondage of dread that is the cycle of rebirth.166

I have translated saṃsāra-bhaya-bandhana-saṃkaṭa as “the suffocating bondage of dread that is the cycle of rebirth.” Kern translates this compound as “the narrow bonds of the mundane whirl” which is less dramatic. Kern also notes that this teaching of the dharma is “Death or Nirvāṇa,”167 but this does not seem to fit in a Buddhist context that accepts death as part of the polluting process of rebirth. The word for “disease” is vyādhi (usually m. but in Hybrid Sanskrit, it is f.). Vyādhi can be the personification of Disease itself, the child of Mṛtyu, Death in the Viṣṇu-Purāṇa (700 BCE - 1045 CE).168 Kern follows Monier-Williams on vyādhi’s association of “disease” with “death” in the purāṇa and may connect to the Lotus Sūtra as a rakṣā text (see above). The “releases from the narrow bonds of the mundane whirl” (sarva-saṃsāra- bhaya-bandhana-saṃkaṭa-pramocakaḥ) refer to final extinction in itself, the ultimate goal for pratyekabuddhas “solitary enlightened ones” of the Theravāda tradition.169 However, for this chapter of the Lotus Sūtra in particular, Kern’s note does not seem to make sense with my focus on the bodhisattva ideal as informed by Lopez and Stone’s contextualization of these later chapters as specific to individual bodhisattva cults. In the bodhisattva ideal, final extinction is not the immediate goal for the sake of helping as many beings as superhumanly possible along the way to said final extinction. Here I resume my discussion of chapter 22 on two aspects of the story’s denouement: how Śakyamuni Buddha identifies Sarvasattvapriyadarśana as Bhaiṣajyarāja, and how this Buddha also explicitly endorses self-mutilation as viable form of worship of the dharma.

166 My translation. 167 Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 388. 168 Ludo Rocher, The Puranas. A History of Indian Literature, Vol. 2. Epics and Sanskrit Religious Literature, Fasc. 3 (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 1986) 249. 169 Lopez’s translation cited earlier in this paper. 54 Scene 5 - Teaching

Sarvasattvapriyadarśana’s self-mutilation empowers the audience members to attain the samādhi he had earlier in the past life before his self-immolation, the ability to manifest all forms (sarvarūpasaṃdarśana). pūjāṃ ca kurvatā tasyāḥ parṣado 'saṃkhyeyāni śrāvaka-koṭī-nayuna-śata- sahasrāṇi vinītāni sarvaiś ca tair bodhisattvaiḥ sarva-rūpa-saṃdarśana- samādhiḥ pratilabdho 'bhūt ॥ (SP 412.11–12).

So, everyone, perform the worship in front of the assembly, a billion ten million, hundreds of thousands of innumerable educated disciples. There was the acquisition that was the power to manifest all forms by all these bodhisattvas.170

Despite this success, the audience of bodhisattvas, here in the role as students, are dismayed at seeing their teacher apparently so physically injured. Despite their success in gaining a new power, the students still grieve and are thus distracted from the central goal of worship (pūja). Vinītāni refers to the educated disciples who have been “thoroughly led away” from ignorance of the dharma. However, they are still developing and still retain some ignorance, so they begin to mourn – but at the wrong moment. atha khalu... sa sarvāvānbodhisattva-gaṇas te ca sarve sarvāvānbodhisattva- gaṇas mahāśrāvakās taṃ sarvasattvapriyadarśanaṃ bodhisattvaṃ mahāsattvam aṅga-hīnaṃ dṛṣṭvāśrumukhā rudantaḥ krandantaḥ paridevamānāḥ parasparam etad ūcuḥ । ayaṃ sarvasattvapriyadarśano bodhisattvo mahāsattvo 'smākam ācāryo 'nuśāsakaḥ so 'yaṃ sāṃpratam aṅgahīno bāhuhīnaḥ saṃvṛtta iti । (SP 412.13–413.3).

So then, every single class of bodhisattva and all the high-ranking disciples with tears on their faces saw him, the great being bodhisattva Sarvasattvapriyadaśana with an injured arm. While crying, wailing, and sobbing amongst one another, they said this: “This great being bodhisattva Sarvasattvapriyadarśana, our teacher and ruler has a mutilated limb – his arm is completely gone.”171

Recall that Sarvasattvapriyadarśana has already been certified as a teacher by the Buddha Candrasūryavimalaprabhāśrī himself as his dying wish. The Medicine King takes this

170 My translation. 171 My translation. 55 moment as an opportunity to teach a lesson from the Buddha’s dharma to all the classes of bodhisattvas (sarvāvānbodhisattva-gaṇa). I identify this extensive group as one of the Buddha’s śāsana, his spiritual kingdom. The unnamed collective group voices name Sarvasattvapriyadaśana as their anuśāsaka (ruler, governor; instructor, director, advisor; punisher, chastiser, corrector), which is from the same verbal root (√śās).172 Here I can identify the literary device of polyptoton, where various forms of a single verbal root appear within a given passage. This polyptoton shows a continuity of narrative and authorial intention concerning the bodhisattva’s perceived character and status among a hallowed realm. The spiritual kingdom as the bodhisattva’s audience is not the same one as before – the one who witnessed and celebrated Sarvasattvapriyadarśana’s self-immolation from the most recent past life. They are not buddhas, but rather bodhisattvas. They are not as experienced as the Medicine King and because they did not receive the buddha-bodhi from the last Buddha of their lifetime, Candrasūryavimalaprabhāśrī. This privilege makes Sarvasattvapriyadarśana stand out among them, and in fact in front of them with confidence and resolve: mā yūyaṃ kulaputrā mām aṅga-hīnaṃ dṛṣṭvā rudata mā krandata mā paridevadhvam । eṣo 'haṃ kulaputrā ye kecid daśasu dikṣv anantā paryantāsu loka-dhānuṣu buddhā bhagavantas tiṣṭhanti dhriyante yāpayanti tān sarvān buddhān bhagavataḥ sākṣiṇaḥ kṛtvā । (SP 413.5–7).173

“Do not, young men of good family, weep, cry, lament at the sight of my being deprived of one arm. All the Lords Buddhas who be, exist, live in the endless, limitless worlds in every direction of space, have I taken to witness.” 174

172 Kern translates the pair of epithets ācārya and anuśāsaka as “our master and instructor.” Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 384. 173 On the form loka-dhānuṣu for loka-dhātuṣu, see footnote above on the switch of the consonant -t with a nasal (-n). Edgerton, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary, Vol. II, 19 §2.67. SP 413.6n7 shows that in the O. manuscript, we have similar prakritization as in the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad. See Richard Salomon, “A Linguistic Analysis of the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad,” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 25 (1981) 91-105: here, 96§ 21. 174 Translation by Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 384. 56 The audience members do not know better yet than to cry at the sight of the sacrificed arm (aṅga-hīna), which we would assume causes immense, immeasurable pain. That is why the bodhisattva gently reassures them to remember the reward for perfecting endurance (kṣānti-pāramitā) and of giving (dāna-pāramitā) in the realm of the buddhas.175 This victory over bodily and mental pain gives Sarvasattvapriyadarśana spiritual power, status, and authority. As an exemplary bodhisattva, each time he dies again and is reborn enables him another opportunity to teach and lead more people away from that illusion, denying them the ultimate truth of the Buddha’s dharma. The buddhas from his last life affirmed and praised the bodhisattva’s self-immolation, the gift of his entire body was absolutely the perfect worship of The Lotus of the True Law, The Lotus Sūtra, Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra. Sarvasattvapriyadarśana in this life can pass on the teaching to these bodhisattvas. To implement his lesson, the Medicine King uses a formulaic and conventional truth statement, satyavacana, to prove the validity of his knowledge to heal his own body.176 teṣāṃ purataḥ satyādhiṣṭhānaṃ karomi yena satyena satya-vacanena svaṃ mama bāhuṃ tathāgata-pūjā-karmaṇe parityajya suvarṇa-varṇo me kāyo bhaviṣyati tena satyena satya-vacanenāyaṃ mama bāhur yathā paurāṇo bhavatv iyaṃ ca mahāpṛthivī ṣaḍvikāraṃ prakampatv antarīkṣa-gatāś ca devaputrā mahā-puṣpa-varṣaṃ pravarṣantu । (SP 413.7–10).

Before you all, I am enacting an empowering blessing of truth. By which utterance of true truth Because I abandoned my own arm for the purpose of performing worship of the Buddha, my body will become the color of gold.

175 Christoph Kleine, “’The Epitome of the Ascetic Life’: The Controversy over Self-Mortification and Ritual Suicide as Ascetic Practices in East Asian Buddhism,” in Ascetics and Its Critics, ed. Oliver Freiberger (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2006) 158-159. 176 Lopez and Stone, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, 225. See also Satyavacana in Buswell and Lopez, Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 789. 57

By this utterance of true truth, may my arm become as it was originally. May the Great Earth shake amidst six disturbances, and may the gods who are in heaven pour forth a rain of great flowers.177

The word ṣaḍvikāra deserves special mention because its resonance extends beyond the literal “perturbations, agitations.” As an adverbial accusative, “six disturbances” may allude to directions: south, west, north, east, nadir, and zenith. The Medicine King prays, “may the earth tremble everywhere,” in perhaps what we can extrapolate as all six regions of the world. Thinking about the word “pray” I wonder about the role of verbal mood in this translation. Is the Medicine King in a sense also commanding the bodhisattvas in the assembly to act immediately upon his uttered speech act of empowerment (adhiṣṭhāna)? He does after all have the Buddha’s spiritual rule and realm although a bodhisattva, but only because he also received the Buddha-Enlightenment, buddha-buddhi from the last dying Buddha Candrasūryavimalaprabhāśrī. When the Medicine King enacted his last rites, he also paid appropriate homage with flowers to the Buddha, liberated from our reality as a realm of the Saha-world. Bhaiṣjyarāja at the start of chapter 22 first manifests mañjūṣaka and mandārava flowers as gratitude for gaining the power to manifest all forms, sarvarūpasaṃdarśana. Are the mahāpuṣpa white lotuses like in the title puṇḍarīka? Earlier in the chapter they were mañjūṣaka and mandārava flowers. The flowers serve as both worship and celebration through empowerment as an act (adhiṣṭhāna). The bodhisattva Sarvasattvapriyadarśana emulates the Buddha himself who also made it rain flowers as worship of the dharma. As exemplary bhāṇaka, Sarvasattvapriyadarśana has just empowered the bodhisattvas here with the same samādhi of “right concentration.” The statement of truth was a form of actively empowering the present bodhisattvas with sarvasaṃrūpadarśana. I consider this satyavacana as a type of dhāraṇī

177 My translation and formatting. 58 (“incantation, spell”).178 After all, it was Bhaiṣajyarāja who served as the Buddha’s chief respondent in chapter 21 of the Lotus Sūtra on these incantations sanctified by the Buddha himself. The bodhisattva’s statement of truth involves the obedience and compliance of the gods in heaven. As a reduced form of self-sacrifice, the bodhisattva has given his arm by fire to the buddhas and their dharma. It is no wonder that they hear one of their own, the Medicine King’s commanding prayer and willingly oblige. After all, he has all the accoutrements of the Buddha as Candravimalasūrya Buddha has granted, as well as Śakyamuni Buddha teaches about preachers of the dharma in chapter 10 on its expounders, preachers (bhāṇaka). When all the statements of his satyavacana come true and become fulfilled commands, the text illustrates the power of the Buddha’s teaching of the Lotus Sūtra and his obedient worship of it. Chapter 22 then pans out back in a ring composition where the buddha of the current epoch, Śakyamuni, teaches his interlocutor Nakṣatrarājasaṃkusumitābhijña about Bhaiṣajyarāja.

Part 3 - Śakyamuni Buddha’s Teaching

In this section, the Buddha addresses Nakśatrarājasaṃkusumitābhijña and reassures him that the bodhisattva Sarvasattvapriyadarśana is the one and only Bhaiṣajyarāja. “Perhaps, Nakśatrarājasaṃkusumitābhijña, thou wilt have some doubt, uncertainty of misgiving, (and think) that the Bodhisattva Mahāsattva Sarvasattvapriyadarśana at that time, and that epoch, was another. But do not think so; for the Bodhisattva Mahāsattva Bhaiṣajyarāja here was at that time, and that epoch, the Bodhisattva Mahāsattva Sarvasattvapriyadarśana. So many hundred thousand myriads of koṭis of difficult things, … and sacrifices of his body does this Bodhisattva Mahāsattva Sarvasattvapriyadarśana accomplish.”179

178 See Ronald Davidson. “Studies in Dhāraṇī Literature II: Pragmatics of Dhāraṇīs,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 77.1 (2014) 5-61. 179 Translation by Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 385. Syāt khalu punas te nakśatrarājasaṃkusumitābhijña kāṅkṣā vā vimatirvā vicikitsā cānyaḥ sa tena kālena tena samayena sarvasattvapriyadarśano bodhisattvo mahāsattvo 'bhūt । na khalu punaste ... evaṃ draṣṭavyam । tat kasya hetoḥ । ayaṃ sa ... bhaiṣajyarājo bodhisattvo mahāsattvastena kālena tena samayena sarvasattvapriyadarśano bodhisattvo mahāsattvo 'bhūt । iyanti ... bhaiṣajyarājo bodhisattvo mahāsattvo duṣkara-koṭī-nayuta-śata-sahasrāṇi karoty ātmabhāva- parityāgāṃś ca karoti । SP 414.4–10.

59

The Buddha teaches readers, listeners, and disciples in general the variety of ways that one can emulate this exemplary bodhisattva. The Medicine King to this day still self- sacrifices on top of his “difficult tasks,” (duṣkara). Translating duṣkara as “ascetic acts” would add another layer of identification with contemporary practice where monastic institutions have standardized asceticism. Based on the Medicine King, the Buddha proclaims that there is another worthwhile form devotion through self-mutilation: “Now, … the young man or young lad of good family striving in the Bodhisattva vehicle towards the goal and longing for supreme, perfect enlightenment, who at the Tathāgata-shrines shall burn a great toe, a finger, a toe, or a whole limb, such a young man or young lady of good family, I assure thee, shall produce far more pious merit, far more than results from giving up a kingdom, sons, daughters, and wives, the whole triple world with its woods, oceans, mountains, springs, streams, tanks, wells, and gardens.”180

The Buddha openly condones self-mutilation as a form of worship, thereby expanding the role of the ritual act for merit into an empowering act for supremacy within a moral realm. The Medicine King’s status within the Buddha’s assembly is thus set, where we see the Buddha reinforcing his praiseworthy status in the following section, chapter 25 of the Lotus Sūtra.

IN CHAPTER 25

In chapter 25, Bhaiṣajyarāja and Bhaiṣajyasamudgata used to be brothers in a past life as Vimalagarbha and Vimalanetra.181 These brothers are the two precocious sons of a king Śubhavyūha, whom the sons successfully converted to Buddhism out of their own

180 Translation by Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 385-386. Bahutaraṃ khalvapi sa ...bodhisattva-yāna- saṃprasthitaḥ kulaputro vā kuladuhitā vemām anuttarāṃ samyaksaṃbodhim ākāṅkṣamāṇo yaḥ pādāṅguṣṭhaṃ tathāgatacaityeṣv ādīpayed ekāṃ hastāṅuliṃ pādāṅguliṃ vaikāṅgaṃ vā bāhum ādīpayed bodhisattvayāna-saṃprasthitaḥ sa kulaputro vā bahutaraṃ puṇyābhisaṃskāraṃ prasavati na tveva rājyaparityāgān na priya-putra-duhitṛ-bhāryā-parityāgān na trisāhasra-mahāsāhasrī-lokadhātoḥ180 savana-samudra-parvatotsasaras taḍāgakūpārāmāyāḥ parityāgāt । SP 414.10–415.2. 181 See Buswell and Lopez, Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 109. 60 compassion (SP 459.12–460.1)182 The latter brother bodhisattva is the younger one traditionally, so perhaps the writers made the older brother Medicine the more successful and advanced of the two, at least when it comes to the Lotus Sūtra chapters as we have them. However, both bodhisattva bhāṇaka brothers are very accomplished as their resume in this chapter shows. The brothers’ bodhisattva status is indicated by the perfections (pāramitā) they have follow and practice (SP 457.11–460.4)183 which includes that of giving (dāna) and endurance (kṣānti),184 which we know are major features of the Medicine King. Vimalagarbha and Vimalanetra have also attained five different types of samādhi, which already outnumber the two we know the Medicine King as Sarvasattvapriyadarśana gained in both lifetimes we saw in chapter 22.185 The two sons are described as being on the bodhisattva path and possessing “magical power and wisdom” (SP 457.10–11),186 where Kern tantalizes us with the mystery of what the “sundry epithets” scribbled in the margins of the manuscripts could have entailed, but there is hope for us yet.187 After the Buddha notes that their “miracles, extraordinary occurrences” (prātihārya) were “allowed by the Buddha” (buddhānujñāta, SP 459.12, Kern’s translation), the two brothers Vimalagarbha and Vimalanetra perform the following miracle of fire and water: "They prepared in the sky a couch and raised dust; there they also emitted from the lower part of their body a shower of rain, and from the upper part a mass of

182 Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 421. tasya pitū rajñaḥ śubhavyūhasyānukampāyai buddhānujñātāni yamakāni prātihāryāṇy akurutām । SP 459.12–460.1. Kern and Nanjio’s note for yamakāni indicate that this reading comes from the Kashgar manuscripts which Kern favored as “older” than the Nepali mss., as Watanabe has corrected in his edition. Yamakāni is left out of the Cb. ms., representing the second of the two Cambridge ms., which is Nepali. 183 Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 419-420. 184 These perfections are translated as “almsgiving” and “forbearance” by Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 419. 185 Kern leaves the names of these samādhis untranslated: Vimala, Nakṣatrarājāditya, Vimalanirbhāsa, Vimalābhāsa, Alaṅkārasūra, Mahātejogarbha. See Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 420. SP 458.2–4. 186 Vṛdddhimantau cābhūtāṃ prajñāvantau ca puṇyavantau ca jñānavantau ca bodhisattvacaryāyām caryāyāṃ cābhiyuktāvabhūtām | SP 457.10–11. 187 Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 419n2. 61 fire; then again they emitted from the upper part of their body a shower of rain, and from the lower part a mass of fire."188

Here, the bodhisattva brothers exhibit their dharma-bhāṇaka side to convert their father King Śubhyavyūha, who incidentally will become the bodhisattva Padmaśrī, the 22nd bodhisattva in the Medicine King’s group in chapter 1 (pādmaśriyā, SP 3.8). Here we have filial piety squared because of two sons, the coveted offspring for Brahmanical landowners preparing for death, whose miracle both exhibits the perfection of compassion (karuṇā) and teaches the dharma to the hallowed father archetype. They go beyond basic ancestral rites and help their father embark on the bodhisattva vehicle where he himself has also been predicted to become a Buddha one day. The end of chapter 25 has the same formulaic “reveal” scene as in chapter 22 where the Buddha confirms the identities between the two brothers Vimalagarbha and Vimalanetra here with their more advanced “versions,” Bhaiṣajyarāja and Bhaiṣajyasamudgata. The Buddha reassures the eager audience of bodhisattvas and other such holy folk and various creatures.189 Various scenes of chapter 25 resonate with chapter 22. First is the part where we find out the mother of the brother bodhisattvas is none other than Vimaladattā (SP 457.8),190 the female version of Sarvasattvapriyadarśana’s father’s name in chapter 22. Next is the scene where the two brothers bodhisattvas rise up into the air (SP 459.11–12)191 as high as Sarvasattvapriyadarśana did after his post-self-immolation rebirth (the height of seven fan-palm trees) to meet the Buddha and complete his ultimate worship and teaching via self-immolation. Both chapters 21 and 22 are part of the Lotus’ third stage of compilation after all, so it makes sense that the repetition of actions between lives shows the reciting

188 Translation by Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 421. tau tatraivāntarīkṣe gatau śayyāma-kalpayatāṃ tatraivāntarīkṣe caṅkramatas tatraivāntarīkṣe rajo vyadhunītāṃ tatraivāntarīkṣe 'dhaḥkāyād vāridhārāṃ pramumocatur ūrdhva-kāyād agni-skandhaṃ prajvālayataḥ smordhvakāyād vāridhārāṃ pramumocatur adhaḥkāyādagni-skandhaṃ prajvālayataḥ sma । SP 460.1–4. 189 Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 430. Having heard or read chapter 22, perhaps the listener or reader would be able to guess who at least one of these boys would become because of the fire motif at least. 190 Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 419. 191 Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 421. sapta-tāla-mātram vaihāya-samabhyudgamya | SP 459.11–12. 62 and listening devotee practitioner the power of that particular action – by virtue of its almost ad infinitum recursivity. Among the two brother bodhisattvas, the Medicine King appears in several chapters before the Buddha’s assembly across the overall Lotus Sūtra whereas the younger brother Bhaiṣajyasamudgata only features briefly in chapter 1 and 25. In chapter 25, the younger brother does not have an individual opportunity to speak to the Buddha but only speaks simultaneously with his older brother.192 Buswell and Lopez connect the textual representation of the brothers to contemporary cult practice in ancient India, explaining that: “the appearance of the brothers in the [Lotus Sūtra] suggests that a cult of a medicine bodhisattva or buddha had developed in India by at least the third century C.E.”193 The fact that the two bodhisattva brothers’ cults get subsumed as subsidiary of the Medicine Buddha’s cult may add to their possible popularity, because the community would have two bodhisattvas as intermediaries to approach for help. If Bhaiṣajyarāja seems too busy, perhaps one might appeal to the younger brother Bhaṣajyasamudgata to advocate on one’s behalf. Both brothers have proven themselves as valuable and effective preachers of the dharma within their own family, making them more approachable to lay people who first may appreciate spiritual leaders more easily with known kinship ties in their own spiritual families, such as the Lotus Sūtra community. Chapter 25 shows us that Vimalagarbha was yet another notable past life for the Medicine King, in addition to his two consecutive lifetimes as Sarvasattvapriyardarśana in chapter 22. From the names of family members to the visions of fire and water for the sake of filial piety, we gain yet another spiritual perspective of the Medicine King as Vimalagarbha who served his father, a lesser feat than the Buddha directly. Yet with Mahāyāna logic, the service could be considered “equal” because as a fellow bodhisattva in a different lifetime, King Śubhyavyūha will also become a Buddha himself one day

192 They address their mother in one voice both times. See Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 421-423. They address their father in one voice. Kern, Lotus of the True Law, 422. They address both their parents at the same time on p. 423. 193 See Buswell and Lopez, Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 109. 63 far, far away, after his own lengthy career of perfecting both giving and endurance. After investigating several episodes of the Lotus Sūtra featuring the Medicine King in three different roles – preacher, supreme worshipper, loyal son, effective teacher, and even supportive brother, we can now see why he is the Medicine King in the Lotus Sūtra.

64 Chapter Four: Conclusion

Could the Medicine King have taught the same lesson of perfecting worship, giving, and endurance without both immolating and mutilating himself? To begin answering this question, I refer to the other bodhisattvas featured in various chapters at the end of the sūtra. Chapter 25 is less about a bodhisattva than about spells that help the speaker attain special powers such as a stronger memory and self-protection in times of need.194 Bhaiṣajyarāja and Pradānaśūra mainly serve as the Buddha’s interlocutors. Gadgadasvara is known for travelling to the Sahā world to pay his respects to the Buddha, and is warned to refrain from complaining about particular people or places.195 Avalokiteśvara is known for rescuing people in need if they call his name and is the most famous bodhisattva among the list.196 King Śubhavyūha, who will become bodhisattva Padmaśrī is known for attaining Buddhahood by being converted from Brahmanism to the Buddhism of the Lotus Sūtra.197 Samantabhadra is known for teaching repentance through meditative contemplation, as well as promising to protect followers of the Lotus Sūtra during the five hundred years after the Buddha has passed away. That is when he will appear as a white elephant with six tusks.198 Among these bodhisattvas, Bhaiṣajyarāja is the only one that gives his body up, in whole and in part, as worship to the Buddha and his dharma over innumerable lifetimes. With the Buddha as the ultimate teacher in this text, he seems to authorize self- mutilation as a reduced reenactment of self-immolation as a meritorious form of worship. Self-immolation serves the bodhisattva ideal and how self-mutilation seems to be a miniature self-immolation. With chapter 22 as the Medicine King’s apex episode in the Lotus Sūtra, we can connect it to two previous episodes which foreshadow and reinforce the Medicine King’s identity as bodhisattva-bhāṇaka: as a nikṣepa-dhāraka in chapter

194 See their chapter on “Dhāraṇī,” Lopez and Stone, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, 243ff. 195 Lopez and Stone, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, 237. 196 Lopez and Stone, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, 237-8. 197 Lopez and Stone, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, 249; 251. 198 Lopez and Stone, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, 258-9. 65 10/12 and as a provider of a dhāraṇī in chapter 21. After getting accustomed to seeing only chapter 21 as dhāraṇī cited by scholars so far, I have decided it best to take chapter 22 as a dhāraṇī chapter as well. These chapters as a set may give us spiritual insight into the Medicine King’s overall character development and identity within the Mahāyāna canon. Although marginal at first, the tradition defeated all odds and obstacles for the dharma, just as the Medicine King helps us do with his dhāraṇī in chapter 21. Sarvasattvapriyadarśana, being reborn with the same name once again, maximizes the number of lives that he can offer to the dharma so that he moves up in the cycle of rebirth. We find the Medicine King at an elevated status after his self-immolation to the Buddha who would reward him with great power and responsibility to the Lotus Sūtra community. We see the Medicine King become qualified enough to personally serve the Buddha Candravimalasūryaprabhāsaśrī at the moment of his final death. This bodhisattva has been granted the hallowed responsibility of cremating and consecrating the Buddha's remains into stūpas and relics after he had passed into final extinction. He then offers his arm to the Buddha's relics as worship. The audience of bodhisattvas are dismayed at this self-mutilation but Sarvasattvapriyadarśana uses this moment to teach them what the Buddha had already taught him, that the body is the ultimate offering of worship. He proves to them that the self-mutilation was a vow and that the harm done was beneficial because his arm has been restored, the sky rained flowers, and the world shook in every direction. Based on Sarvasattvapriyadarśana-Bhaiṣajyarāja's self-mutilation, the Buddha teaches that an offering of a finger, toe, or arm also has greater merit than what seem to be "normal" offerings such as one’s kingdom or children. By teaching these initially dismayed bodhisattvas the true merit of self-mutilation, the Medicine King thereby fulfills the demands of the bhāṇaka preacher in chapter 10. These individual “expounders” come from all ranks of devotees, but advanced bodhisattvas, like the Medicine King, are more powerful due to their self-sacrifice for the Buddha and the dharma. Bhaiṣajyarāja fleshes out the bodhisattva ideal of Mahāyāna Buddhism through 66 self-immolation and self-mutilation before the approving eyes of Śakyamuni Buddha. With the Lotus Sūtra itself as “medicine,” it makes sense the Medicine King provides the Lotus Sūtra community, not just one, but two dhāraṇīs as a part of the Mahāyāna rakṣa movement.199 After examining all six Medicine King chapters as a set, I propose we visualize all six within the image of six concentric circles, where the outermost layer begins with 1, followed by 10, 12, 21, and 22 with the central smallest circle representing chapter 25. We see that the two outer layers represent the second stage of the sūtra’s composition, which not only represent the Medicine King’s first appearance in the text, but also establish his foundational status and identity as bodhisattva, an intermediary to the Buddha, and thus an expounder. Then the four innermost circles are layers of the text where chapters 12, 21, 22, and 25 are the third stage of the sūtra’s composition, a marked increase in representation across the text’s 27 total Sanskrit chapters. From two to six chapters, the Medicine King’s representation increased by three times across the text, thereby indicating his increased importance and prominence as a bodhisattva worthy of worship and emulation.200 While the Medicine King’s bhāṇaka role is prominent in chapters 10, 12, and 21, Chapter 22 represents the bodhisattva’s apex of spiritual development and power because of the Buddha’s reinforcement of self-sacrifice and its access to spiritual power. Chapter 25 serves as a reinforcement of chapter 22 where we continue witnessing the Medicine King’s third exemplary identity devoted to self- sacrifice for the Buddha’s dharma, Vimalagarbha. Although the Sanskrit Lotus Sūtra was marginal in its ancient Indian milieu, we can examine the Medicine King multi-lifetime career both as a bodhisattva who is an intermediary to the Buddha, as well as a bhāṇaka, an expounder of the dharma. This project lays the groundwork for comparative textual analysis of the Lotus Sūtra’ lesser-

199 For the Lotus Sūtra as medicine, see Lopez and Stone, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, 235. 200 For more on modern self-immolation in relation to the Lotus Sūtra and especially those during the Vietnam War by Thích Quảng Đức and Nhất Chi Mai (d. 1963 and d. 1967, resp.), see the works of Sallie B. King, Michael Biggs, Michelle Murray Yang, Russell T. McCutcheon, James M. Harding, Lisa M. Skow and George N. Dionisopoulos, Jessica Ravitz, et al. 67 studied diasporic translations, the Hindi and Vietnamese during both pre- and post- colonial periods. Based on the undeniability of the Medicine King’s impressive spiritual power through both forms of self-sacrifice in immolation and mutilation, we can now better examine the evident spiritual power of individuals who continue to emulate his self-sacrifice today.

68 References

CRITICAL SANSKRIT EDITIONS Dutt, Nalinaksha, rev. Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtram with N. D. Mironov’s Readings from Central Asian MSS. Bibliotheca Indica 176. Calcutta, India: Asiatic Society, 1953.

Kern, Hendrik and Bunyiu Nanjio, eds. Saddharmapuṇḍarīka. Bibliotheca Buddhica, X. St.-Pétersbourg: Imprimerie de l'Académie Impériale des Sciences, 1908-1912.

------. and Bunyiu Nanjio, eds. Saddharmapuṇḍarīka. Bibliotheca Buddhica, X. Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, 1992.

Watanabe, Shōkō, ed. Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Manuscripts Found in Gilgit. Tokyo: The Reiyukai, 1975.

Wogihara, U. and C. Tsuchida. Saddharmapuṇḍarīka-Sūtram: Romanized and Revised Text of The Bibliotheca Buddhica Publication by consulting A Skt. MS. & Tibetan and Chinese Translations. Tokyo: The Seigo-Kenkyūkai, 1934.

Vaidya, Paraśurāma Lakshmaṇa, ed. Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra. Bauddha-Saṃskr̦ta- Granthāvalī no. 6. Darbhanga, (Bihar): The Mithila Institute of Post-Graduate Studies and Research in Sanskrit Learning, 1960.

TRANSLATIONS FROM SANSKRIT French Burnouf, Eugène. Le Lotus de la Bonne Loi - Traduit du Sanscrit, Accompagné d’un Commentaire et de Vingt et un Mémoires Relatifs au Bouddhisme. Paris: L’Imprimerie Nationale, 1852.

English Kern, Hendrik, trans. The Saddharma-Puṇḍarīka or, The Lotus of the True Law. The Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XXI, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1884.

———., trans. The Saddharma-Puṇḍarīka or The Lotus of the True Law. The Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XXI, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, (1884) 1968.

Hindi Dās, Rāmmohan, trans. Saddharmapuṇḍarīka [Mūl-sah Hindī-Anuvād] (Main text with Hindi Translation). Paṭnā: Bihār-Rāṣṭrabhāṣā-Pariṣad, 1966.

69 Singh, Paramanand, ed. Saddharma Puṇḍārīka Sūtra (Text with Hindi Translation). Translated by Jai Govind Mishra. Bauddha Akar Granthamala 1. Varanasi, India: Bauddha Akar Granthamala, 1993.

Vimalakīrti, trans. Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra. Delhi: Navabhārat Prakāshan, 2015.

Vietnamese201 Đoàn, Trung Còn, trans. Diệu-Pháp Liên-Hoa Kinh. Vol. 2. Phật Học 11. Saigon, VN: Editions Đoàn-Trung-Còn, 1936.

------., trans. Diệu-Pháp Liên-Hoa Kinh. 3rd ed. Phật Học 11. 1936. Reprint, Sàigòn, VN: Phật Học Thơ Xã, 1969.

Thích, Tịnh Trí, trans. Diệu Pháp Liên Hoa Kinh. Phật Lịch 2606. Westminster, CA: Giáo Hội Phật Giáo Tăng Già Khất Sĩ Thế Giới, 1982.

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