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Mahāmaitrī in a Mahāyāna Sūtra in Khotanese ― Continuity and Innovation in Buddhist Meditation

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Mahāmaitrī in a Mahāyāna Sūtra in Khotanese ― Continuity and Innovation in Buddhist Meditation Chung-Hwa Buddhist Journal (2011, 24:121-194) Taipei: Chung-Hwa Institute of Buddhist Studies 中華佛學學報第二十四期 頁121-194 (民國一百年)，臺北：中華佛學研究所 ISSN:1017-7132 Mahāmaitrī in a Mahāyāna Sūtra in Khotanese ― Continuity and Innovation in Buddhist Meditation Giuliana Martini Italian School of East Asian Studies, Kyoto Institute for Research in Humanities, University of Kyoto Abstract This article is a study of loving kindness meditation as presented in the third chapter of the Khotanese Book of Zambasta in the light of its Chinese parallel, the Da fangguang fo huayan jing xiuci fen 大方廣佛華嚴經修慈分 (T 306), a Buddhāvataṃsaka (Fo huayan 佛華嚴) work. Chapter three is first assessed in relationship to the structure and content of the Book of Zambasta. It is then analyzed in terms of its meditation dynamics and dialectics, against its philosophical background of objectless loving kindness (Skt. anālaṃbana-maitrī) and non- conceptual knowledge (Skt. nirvikalpaka-jñāna). The peculiarity of the meditation practice in question is a marked emphasis on the conceptual and visual aspects integrated with the use of the four elements and particles of physical matter as the basis for a loving kindness suffusion. Aspects of both continuity and innovation with respect to earlier Buddhist traditions are taken into account, as well as an example of four elements meditation as taught in a contemporary Burmese Theravāda tradition. The practice is described in the Khotanese text as one of ‘great loving kindness’ (Skt. mahāmaitrī): the soteriological implications of this statement and the way the Mahāyāna goal and vision inform practical aspects of meditation are explored, and elements pointing to doctrinal compatibility of the text with a Sarvāstivāda/Yogācāra milieu are also singled out. Keywords: Book of Zambasta, Buddhāvataṃsaka, Four Elements, Great Loving Kindness, Khotanese Buddhism. 122 • Chung-Hwa Buddhist Journal Volume 24 (2011) 由于闐之大乘經典談大慈— 佛教禪修的延續與創新 Giuliana Martini Italian School of East Asia Studies (イタリア国立東方学研究所), Kyoto (京都) & Institute for Research in Humanities, University of Kyoto (京都大学人文科学研究所). 摘要 此篇論文討論于闐文《贊巴斯塔之書》第三章有關慈心的研究，此章相當於佛 華嚴經中之《大方廣佛華嚴經修慈分》。首先它檢視了《贊巴斯塔之書》的結構與 內文的關係，並分析其禪修與辨證關係，以對應其無緣慈與無分別智的哲學背景。 此禪修特質的問題在於強調思惟與觀想方面，整合四大的運用及極微作為慈心的基 礎。同時考量早期佛教傳統的延續與創新，以現代緬甸的南傳傳統禪修四大為例； 于闐文本中以大慈心說明此修行，由此探究此教法的解脫意涵、修行的大乘目標及 禪修觀想之道，並指出文本中與說一切有部或瑜伽行派在教義上之相容元素。 關鍵字：《贊巴斯塔之書》、佛華嚴、四大、大慈心、于闐佛教。 Mahāmaitrī in a Mahāyāna Sūtra in Khotanese • 123 I. Introduction1 This article focuses on loving kindness (Khot. maitrā-, Skt. maitrī and also maitrā) meditation as described in a text preserved as the third chapter of the Khotanese Book of Zambasta (ca. mid-fifth century),2 which has a Chinese parallel, the Da fangguang fo huayan jing xiuci fen 大方廣佛華嚴經修慈分 (T 306), a Buddhāvataṃsaka (Fo huayan 佛華嚴) work that was translated by the Khotanese monk *Devendraprajña 提雲般若 at the end of the seventh century. Like its fellows in the Book of Zambasta, chapter three bears no title. It presents itself as a discourse (sūtra) in which the Buddha, requested by the Bodhisattva Maitreya, gives a teaching on loving kindness. The practice is portrayed as an approach to realisation in a Mahāyāna setting, and begins with the contemplation of the four elements of the body. Fifth-century Central Asia marked a significant juncture in the history of Buddhist meditative traditions, above all in their transmission from India to China and beyond. Central Asia is sometimes held to have been a focal area for both the translation and the production of meditation texts and for a wealth of related artistic and iconographic developments, including the diffusion of complexes of meditation caves. The circulation of visualisation sūtras (guan jing 觀經) in the form of Mahāyāna discourses and of meditation manuals (chan jing 禪經) based on the framework of earlier meditative approaches,3 together provided a textual basis 1 This article is a revised version of a chapter of my PhD thesis (Studies on the Book of Zambasta, University of Naples, 2010). I presented it at the conference “Meditative Traditions of East Asia” held at National Tsing Hua University and Dharma Drum Buddhist College, Taiwan, October 29th-31st, 2009. The article is rather long and complex, in that it covers different phases and aspects of Buddhist thought and practice, thus equally long is the list of those to whom I am indebted for comments and corrections: Bhikkhu Anālayo, Dorji Wangchuk, Bhikkhu Gavesako, Mauro Maggi, Jan Nattier, Peter Skilling, Vincent Tournier, Stefano Zacchetti and the reviewers of the Chung-Hwa Buddhist Journal. I am especially grateful for the last minute help I received from Funayama Tōru 船山 徹, who cleared up some of my doubts and saved me from some mistakes, and from Antonello Palumbo, who brought to my attention the presence of the brahmapuṇya formula in chapter three of the Book of Zambasta and in its Chinese parallel. Any remaining errors are however my own responsibility. Throughout this article, for the sake of readability, in quoting text editions I have on occurrence standardised the transliterations, adjusted the punctuation, capitalised proper names, etc. All translations are mine unless otherwise indicated. 2 The Book of Zambasta has been dated from the mid-fifth century by Maggi (2004a) on palaeographic grounds, and this dating is now confirmed by Sander (2009); cf. also Martini (2011, forthcoming). 3 As far as this genre of texts devoted to the presentation and elucidation of spiritual cultivation is concerned, Deleanu (2006, 157) notes that “there is no traditional Indian term denoting this genre. The Chinese Buddhists, faced with an impressive number of such translations (as well as apocrypha), coined terms like chan jing 禪經 ‘meditation scripture’, chan dian 禪典 ‘meditation writ’, or chan yao 禪要 ‘meditation summary’. This large output is quite natural for 124 • Chung-Hwa Buddhist Journal Volume 24 (2011) for the establishment of rich cultures of meditation or mental cultivation. These had important ramifications for the development of Buddhist meditation practices en route from the Indian and Indianised Buddhist world to China. Chapter three of the Book of Zambasta was probably translated into Khotanese from an Indian language, as we will see below, and is one among many meditation texts that were transmitted in Central Asia in the fifth and sixth centuries. Most of these meditation texts, dating from roughly the first to the sixth centuries, cannot be univocally pinned down to either the Śrāvakayāna or the Mahāyāna traditions.4 Many of these works are preserved in Chinese translations, but some of them, found and perhaps composed in Central Asia, survive in Sanskrit.5 To some extent, the milieu of yogācāra bhikṣus (and perhaps also yogācārā bhikṣuṇīs) as communities of practicing, meditating yogins and ascetics,6 represented the setting for “a rapprochement between the two Vehicles”, which “was under way in some ascetic milieus in India and Central Asia”,7 testifying to a blend of earlier and more developed techniques and doctrines. The religious ideologies and dynamics in operation were however complex and variegated, as indicated, for example, by the many polemical passages of the Book of Zambasta where a strong, self-conscious and exclusive Mahāyāna identity is affirmed, showing that tension and conflict coexisted with integration and religious cohabitation. An emphasis on the marvellous qualities of the Buddha and their recollection (buddhānusmṛti) is already attested in the corpus of the Nikāyas/Āgamas.8 The glorification of a religion in which meditation was a paramount spiritual concern”. 4 See Yamabe (2009). 5 For the Sanskrit fragments, see Schlingloff (1964) with corrections to the text in Hartmann et al. (2006, 305-307), Seyfort-Ruegg (1967), Hartmann (1987, 2006a, 2006b and 2006c), and Yamabe (1997 and 2006); on the Chinese translations Démieville (1954, 339-363); on meditative visualisation practices in sixth-century Northeast ern China Williams (2005); on visualisation sūtras, especially the Guan wu liang shou fo jing 觀無量壽佛經, *Amitāyurdhyāna-sūtra (T 1753), Pas (1977); in relation to iconographies, see e.g., Abe (1991) and Yamabe (2002 and 2004); on the significance of the so-calledYogalehrbuch in relation to Chinese meditation texts Yamabe (1999a and 1999b); on the link between visualisation and repentance practices, and especially between visions as validation of one’s repentance and self-ordination in the Fanwang jing 梵網經 and in Indian and Central Asian antecedents, see Yamabe (2005) and Funayama (1995). A survey of this literature is found in Yamabe (1999b, 39-114). The discussion of divergent theories concerning the formation and status of the Sūtra on the Ocean-like Samādhi of the Visualisation of the Buddha, Guanfo sanmei hai jing 觀佛三昧海經 (T 643), in Yamabe (1999b, 115-124) is useful to assess the problem of the genesis and redaction of this literature in general. A recent study of the development of the traditional practice of the four establishments of mindfulness in sixth-century China as presented in Huisi’s 慧思 (515-577 AD) meditation texts is found in Ching-wei Wang (2009). See also Soper (1959), the work of reference on early Buddhist art in China in the light of the relevant literary evidence. 6 See Silk (1997 and 2000). 7 Deleanu (2006, 217, 94n). Seyfort-Ruegg (1967, 162, 18n) similarly remarks that meditators might have “bridged the gap separating the two Yānas”. 8 On these themes, see Harrison (1978, 1990 and especially 1992), Gethin (2006, 93-102), Yamabe Mahāmaitrī in a Mahāyāna Sūtra in Khotanese • 125 the Buddha(s), the prominence placed on their supernatural, omniscient and quasi omnipotent qualities, and the emphasis on the (meta-)physical characteristics of their bodies provided sources of immense empowerment that could be accessed in visualisations and other forms of recollection. These developments and possibilities were to gradually change not just the concept of the Buddha(s), but also the very way the meditative path is theoretically and practically articulated in order to lead to the goal of liberation. And this goal was, eventually, universally re-determined in what is known as the Mahāyāna as the attainment of Buddhahood rather than arhatship.
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