Mahayana sutras

David Drewes
Mahayana sutras are Indian Buddhist texts that imitate the literary form of more traditional sutras
but claim to present especially profound teachings intended primarily for bodhisattvas. Though it
is difficult to give a precise number, according to one scholars estimate, about six hundred
sutras of this class are extant (Skilton 101). Though dozens survive in Indic languages, most are
known only through Tibetan or Chinese translations. The term Mahayana sutra seems not to
have come into general use until a few centuries after the first of these texts were composed. The
earliest known texts show a clear awareness of Mahayana sutras as a distinct class of text, but
use different names, such as vaipulya (extensive) sutras (alt. vaidalya, vaitulya) or gambhra
(profound) sutras, to refer to them.
Scholars have long considered Mahayana sutras the scriptural texts of Mahayana
Buddhism, but this now seems to be incorrect, at least in the Indian context, since these texts no
longer seem to have been the product of a separate form of Buddhism. Over the past two decades
scholars have increasingly reached the consensus that people who believed in and used
Mahayana sutras did not split from the various nikyas, or schools. As Jonathan Silk points out,
there is no evidence that there was any kind of Buddhist monk other than one associated with a
Sectarian [i.e., nikya] ordination lineage in South Asia (364). Several scholars have also
pointed out that Chinese pilgrims and Mahayana sutras themselves make reference to monks
who studied Mahayana sutras who lived in the same monasteries as those who did not. All of the
most ancient Mahayana sutra manuscripts that have come to light were discovered in collections
in which most of the manuscripts contain non-Mahayana texts (Allon and Salomon). Mahayana
stras apparently also show no awareness of any sort of Mahayana Buddhism apart from
Mahayana sutras and the commentarial traditions associated with them. As late as the seventh
century, the pilgrim I Ching defined Mahayanists as people who worship bodhisattvas and read
Mahayana sutras, and specifically stated that the nikyas cannot be classified as Hinayana or
Mahayana. Instead of the products of a separate form of Buddhism, Mahayana sutras can better
be thought of as a controversial textual genre that emerged and developed within traditional
Buddhist social and institutional contexts. With this understanding, the term the Mahayana can
be used to refer to the movement or trend focused on the production and use of these texts and
the beliefs and practices they present. Applied to people, the term Mahayana or Mahayanist
can best be used to refer to those involved with this movement. Several scholars have suggested
that the term be used to refer to people who identified or identify as bodhisattvas, but, as we shall
see below, it seems that some people involved in the early movement did not do so. In addition,
many people historically, and in modern Theravada, have identified as bodhisattvas without
accepting Mahayana sutras (e.g., Samuels). Identifying as a bodhisattva was thus neither a
necessary nor a sufficient condition for involvement in the movement associated with these texts.
Mahayana sutras contain many references to their being rejected as fraudulent compositions and
to Mahayana preachers facing abuse and expulsion from certain monasteries. When the
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Theravada nikya coalesced in roughly the third century CE, Theravdins accepted and used
Mahayana sutras. It was only in the tenth century that a reform movement established Theravada
as avowedly non-Mahayana (Walters). Chinese and Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns focus
primarily on Mahayana texts and follow the vinaya of the Dharmaguptaka and Mulasarvstivda
nikyas.

Historical background
It is unclear when and where Mahayana sutras were first composed and used. Until recently the
oldest datable evidence we had for these texts was a corpus of roughly a dozen sutras that were
translated into Chinese in the late second century CE. Since the first Mahayana sutras must have
been composed some time before this, leading scholars tended to guess that they were composed
around the beginning of the first millennium. A few years ago portions of a few apparently first
century Mahayana sutra manuscripts from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region came to light,
which, by the same loose reasoning, would push the composition of the first Mahayana sutras
into the first century BCE. Harry Falk and Seishi Karashima have recently suggested that an
early version of the Aashasrik Prajpramit (Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand
Lines) may even have been composed before this (100). The Aashasrik and other apparently
early texts depict themselves as being revealed in the period of the disappearance of the true
dharma, which was believed to have begun five hundred years after the Buddhas death. This
might tend to push the date of the first Mahayana sutras forward in time, though it is not clear
when early Mahayanists believed the Buddha lived. When the composition of Mahayana sutras
ceased in India is also unclear. Edward Conze suggests that the composition of Prajpramit
sutras in the old style ceased in the sixth century, but that some sutras, often focused on
dhras or incorporating tantric terminology, continued to be composed into the second
millennium.
The most ancient extant Mahayana sutra manuscripts were all discovered in Afghanistan
or Pakistan, a fact that has focused attention on this area as a possible location for the initial
composition of Mahayana sutras, but the preservation of Mahayana manuscripts in this region
may just be a result of its dry climate (Allon and Salomon 17). Mahayana texts later came to be
used widely throughout South, Central, East, and Southeast Asia. Though they were certainly
used more in certain areas than others, patterns of use in particular areas surely changed over
time and are difficult to reconstruct. Chinese pilgrims left records of whether Mahayana texts,
non-Mahayana texts, or both were used in particular areas (Lamotte 1954, 392-96). Jens-Uwe
Hartmann comments that Central Asian manuscript discoveries indicate that Mahyna texts
prevailed along the southern Silk Route, while so-called Hnayna scriptures dominated in the
monasteries on the northern route (125). Sculptural material that can be linked to the Mahayana
has the potential to shed further light on this issue. Epigraphical evidence also has some
potential, but only a small number of Indian epigraphs can be linked to the Mahayana. This
material has been studied by primarily by Gregory Schopen (2005), although his main
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conclusions have been challenged by other scholars (e.g., Cousins, Davidson). One of the oldest
pieces of evidence we have for the Mahayana is a pedestal of an image of Amitbha found near
Mathura that dates to the mid second century.
A key problem with dating Mahayana sutras is that their authors depict them as having
been revealed in the time of the Buddha and give few clues as to their absolute or relative dates.
The only objective date that can be assigned to most sutras is the terminus ad quem of
their first translation into Chinese, which can usually be determined with some precision. The
dozen or so Mahayana sutras translated into Chinese in the second century, along with the
recently discovered manuscripts mentioned above, are thus the oldest objectively datable
Mahayana texts. Especially since the first Mahayana sutras now seem likely to have been
composed in the first century BCE, however, Mahayana sutras were likely composed for two
centuries or more before the Chinese translations, which suggests the possibility that other sutras
we possess may have been composed before them in some form. Several scholars have argued
that certain sutras, e.g., the Ajitasenavykaraa, Ugraparipcch, or Maitreyamahsihanda,
are especially early on the basis of internal evidence, but their arguments have not reached broad
acceptance. A certain circularity is difficult to avoid: scholars tend to argue that a sutra is early
because its characteristics fit a certain hypothesis about early Mahayana and then present the
sutra as proof that the hypothesis is correct. There are some criteria that probably do suggest an
early date, but even if such criteria were agreed upon, the fact that sutras were clearly often
composed over periods of time and that later sutras often imitate the style or incorporate
passages from earlier texts would make them difficult to use. The Aashasrik has long been
the proverbial sutra to beat in terms of age. Although several scholars have argued that certain
sutras are older, no sutra has yet been established as such, and recent developments have only
strengthened the texts status. The Aashasrik is said to have been one of the first two
Mahayana sutras translated into Chinese in the second century and a first-century manuscript of
an early or prototypical version of the sutra is now the oldest datable evidence we have for the
Mahayana of any sort. Fragments of another, second-century, manuscript of the text are also
among the oldest Mahayana sutra manuscript material we possess. It is possible that an early
version of the Aashasrik may have been the first Mahayana sutra to rise to prominence,
though we know that other Mahayana sutras were composed before the text reached its current
form, since they are mentioned indirectly in later chapters of the text. Other sutras translated into
Chinese during the second century include the Pratyutpanna, Akobhyavyha, larger
Sukhvatvyha, Kyapaparivarta, Ugraparipcch, Drumakinnararja, ragamasamdhi,
and portions of the Avatasaka. A lengthy manuscript of a previously unknown Mahayana sutra
related to the Akobhyavyha and Prajpramit sutras was among the recent discoveries from
Afghanistan/Pakistan and is currently being edited by Ingo Strauch and Andrea Schlosser. Some
sutras, such as the Sadhinirmocana, can be dated to later periods on the grounds that they
present ideas developed in stric traditions, or by other means.

Textual Practice
Unlike pre-Mahayana sutras, Mahayana sutras often encourage their users to write them down
and worship them in written form. This fact has led many scholars to think of Mahayana as a
form of Buddhism specially associated with writing. Many scholars, going back to the nineteenth
century, have identified book worship as a distinctly Mahayana practice. In 1975, Schopen
discussed a small number of passages in a few Mahayana sutras that state that places where
people use sutras in various ways will be caityabhta, a difficult term that could literally mean
either a true caitya (shrine), or like a caitya. Whereas earlier scholars tended to take the term
in the latter sense, Schopen argued that it in fact means a true shrine and claimed that it
indicates that Mahayanists created special book-shrines that served as institutional bases of
early Mahayana groups (2005, 25-62). Though his argument was highly tenuous, it was widely
accepted and celebrated. Other scholars, encouraged by Schopens work, argued that written
texts were important for the Mahayana in other ways. Richard Gombrich argued that the rise of
the Mahayana is due to the use of writing in the sense that writing enabled Mahayanists to
preserve new texts outside of traditional oral transmission lineages (21). Other scholars have
argued that the use of writing was responsible for the development of aspects of Mahayana
thought.
Closer study of Schopens caityabhta passages has made it clear that they do not refer
to actual shrines. Though scholars have claimed that Mahayana sutra manuscripts have been
discovered in stupas, none ever actually has been, leaving nothing to suggest that institutional
Mahayana book caityas ever existed (Drewes 2007). Schopen apparently concurs, writing in a
recent publication that when Mahyna literary sources refer in any detail to the location of
books, those books are typically in domestic houses and that nowhere in these texts is there
any suggestion of . . . depositing [them] anywhere but at home (2010, 49, 53). Other claims that
have been made about the importance of writing for Mahayana have overlooked certain
problems. First, Mahayana sutras make reference to and advocate memorizing, reciting, and
teaching them significantly more often than they advocate writing and book worship and
explicitly depict these activities as being more important. The confusion on this point has largely
been a result of a general misunderstanding of the meaning of the words udghti, dhrayati,
and paryavpnoti, which, along with vcayati (recite), are the most common words that
Mahayana sutras use to refer to and advocate textual practices. While scholars have generally
understood these terms as applying to written texts, all three actually refer to memorization
(Drewes forthcoming). In addition, it seems quite likely that writing was used for Buddhist texts
from significantly earlier times than is often thought. Since the nineteenth century, scholars have
generally held that Buddhist texts were not written down until the first century BCE, but the only
basis for this idea is a short passage, two verses long, found in both the fourth or fifth-century
Dpavasa and later Mahvasa, that states that the Tipiaka and commentaries were first
written down at this time. Several leading scholars have suggested over the years that this
passage has little or no historical value. Even if it is a record of fact, however, the passage fairly
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clearly does not even intend to record the first time writing was ever used for Buddhist texts, but
the first creation of a complete set of written scriptures in Sri Lanka. Though early Buddhist
sutras do not mention the writing of Buddhist texts, since we know that Indians possessed a
written script since at least the time of the Aoka, there is no obvious reason to suppose that
Buddhists did not begin writing their texts as early as the second, or even third century. The
likelihood of this is strengthened by the fact that we now possess actual Buddhist manuscripts
that date to the first or second century BCE. Though it is difficult to do more than guess, it seems
quite likely that writing was used for Buddhists texts from well before the emergence of the
Mahayana. The oldest Buddhist textual material that has been found in stpas, and the vast
majority in all periods, is non-Mahayana in nature (e.g., Drewes 2007). Finally, although modern
translations of Mahayana sutras have obscured the fact, Mahayana sutras make very frequent
reference to figures called dharmabhakas, who specialized in the composition, memorization,
transmission, and preaching of Mahayana sutras, and depict them as the central figures in the
Mahayana movement (Drewes 2011). Like the texts of all premodern Indian religious traditions,
Mahayana sutras were primarily used orally and mnemically, though like epics, puras, and
non-Mahayana Buddhist sutras, they were simultaneously used and venerated in written form.

Multiple Mahayanas?
Several scholars have argued that individual Mahayana sutras were composed and used by
separate communities. Schopen asserted this in the final sentence of his 1975 article discussed in
the preceding section: Since each text placed itself at the center of its own cult, early Mahyna
(from a sociological point of view), rather than being an identifiable single group, was in the
beginning a loose federation of a number of distinct though related cults, all of the same pattern,
but each associated with its specific text (2005, 52). Schopens idea at the time was that each
Mahayana group coalesced around a particular site or sites where the sutra it was devoted to was
enshrined. Though Schopen has now apparently given up this theory, he continues to suggest that
since each Mahayana sutra promotes itself over all others . . . what we call the Mahyna was
rather a loose network of individual groups, each focused on a given specific Stra, or set of
Stras (2010, 54). Without the support provided by his theory of institutional book shrines,
however, these are thin grounds for concluding that sutras were associated with separate groups.
Since hundreds of Mahayana sutras have survived, this view would require the existence of
hundreds of distinct early Mahayana groups, when scholarship has increasingly suggested that
early Mahayanists did not form separate groups at all. Schopen reduces the number of distinct
groups his view would require with the suggestion that groups may have formed around sets of
sutras, but the fact that each sutra promotes itself over all others does not provide any support
for this. At present there is no known passage in any Mahayana sutra, stra, or Chinese
pilgrims report that suggests the existence of any group that was devoted to a single Mahayana
sutra, nor any that suggests the existence of a person or group that accepted and used some
Mahayana sutras but not Mahayana sutras in general.
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Many Mahayana sutras, including such texts as the Aashasrik, Pratyutpanna,

Kyapaparivarta, larger Sukhvatvyha, Bhadrakalpika, Vimalakrtinirdea and
Saddharmapuarka, explicitly advocate the use of Mahayana sutras in the plural. Though
Mahayana sutras often present different ontological or Buddhological perspectives, there is no
obvious reason to presume that these were divisive. Buddhists have always been able to present
or overlook theoretical inconsistencies in sutra texts with the understanding that the Buddha
taught different things to different people in accordance with their individual capacities and
needs. Mahayana sutra anthologists freely cite passages from a wide range of sutras; translators
from the second century on down typically translated multiple sutras with divergent perspectives;
and Mahayana stra authors often cite sutras with different perspectives as proof texts. The
attitude toward other sutras that we find in Mahayana sutras tends to be highly inclusive. Some
sutras caution against rejecting sutras that one has not heard before or directly encourage the
revelation of new sutras. Mahayana sutras display an extraordinarily high degree of
intertextuality and are one of the most stereotyped genres of Buddhist literature. After reading
five or seven of them, one is unlikely to find much that lies outside their range. Though we
occasionally find what seem likely originally to have been non-Mahayana texts that were later
Mahayanized, e.g., by adding bodhisattvas to their audiences or similar means, most were clearly
composed in close conjunction with the broader mass. Mahayana sutras can generally be thought
of as an agglomerative corpus of literature. The movement most likely emerged with the
extension of the avadna genre in certain preaching circles, which resulted in the formation of
the Mahayana sutra as a new genre. Though there was certainly some slippage, later authors
generally sought to adopt the basic vision, standard characters, stock phrases, themes, narratives,
and various sorts of lore established in earlier sutras and expand on them in various ways.
Though certain sutras and interpretations undoubtedly became more popular in certain areas and
time periods, and some texts must have been rejected as inauthentic and lost, the movement
seems generally to have been willing to accept new sutras into the Mahayana corpus as they were
revealed.

Standard Interpretations
The most influential readings of Mahayana sutras have represented attempts to uncover things
that are relevant to modern religious concerns or beliefs. In the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries scholars envisioned Buddhism as a rational moral philosophy. When the
ideas of Auguste Comte, who coined the term altruism (altruisme) and presented it as the
highest stage in the development of human ethics, came into vogue, T.W. Rhys Davids
considered whether altruism was found in Buddhism and initially concluded that it was not. In a
section entitled The duty to the race in Buddhism and Comtism, he writes:
Early Buddhism had no idea, just as early Christianity had not, of the principle
underlying the foundation of the higher morality of the future, the duty which we owe,
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not only to our fellow-men of to-day, but also to those of the morrow. . . . Buddhists and
Christians may both maintain . . . that the duty of universal love laid down in their
Scriptures can be held to involve and include this modern conception; but neither the
early Buddhists nor the early Christians looked at the matter quite in this way. . . . So far
as I know, it never occurred to the Buddhist teachers to inculcate a duty towards the
beings that will exist in the ages yet to come (110-12).
Returning to the matter in an appendix, he introduced what was to become arguably the single
most influential perspective on Mahayana in Western scholarship:
What was it that gave to [Mahayana] that superior vital power which enabled it to outlive
the earlier teaching? [Samuel] Beal . . . places the distinguishing characteristics of the
newer school in certain metaphysical subtleties which could scarcely have gained for it
the ear of the multitude. I venture to think that the idea referred to above, as summarized
in the theory of Bodisatship, is the key-note of the later school. . . . The Mahyna
doctors said, in effect: We grant you all you say about the bliss of attaining Nirva in
this life. But it produces advantage only to yourselves. . . . Greater, better, nobler, then,
than the attainment of Arahatship, must be the attainment of Bodisatship from a desire to
save all living creatures in the ages that will come. . . . They might have been wiser had
they perceived that their duty to the race would have been more completely fulfilled by
their acting up to the ideal of Arahatship. But it was at least no slight merit to have been
led, even though they were led astray, by a sense of duty to the race (254-55).
Though it began as little more than a projection of Comtes evolutionary vision onto ancient
India, the idea that Mahayana emerged from the birth of a new spirit of altruism quickly rose to
prominence. Building on Rhys Davids vision, Jean Przyluski later linked the putative selfishness
of the arhat ideal to Buddhist monastics and the compassionate reaction against it to the laity,
creating the lay-origin theory of the Mahayana which became dominant in Western scholarship
for most of the twentieth century. Even after its connection with Comtism had been forgotten,
and despite the fact that the sudden upsurge of compassion it posits now seems risibly utopian,
Rhys Davids idea has continued to seem plausible to many, perhaps because it depicts
Mahayana in a way that fits in with the still common idea that religion is fundamentally about
ethics.
Closer study of the way earlier Mahayana sutras talk about bodhisattvas and the
attainment of Buddhahood has suggested that the bodhisattva ideal appealed less to strong
feelings of compassion than, as Jan Nattier puts it, a sense of the glory of striving for the highest
achievement that the Buddhist repertoire had to offer (2003, 147). Paul Harrison similarly
suggests that the bodhisattva ideal was a kind of power fantasy, in which the Buddhist
practitioner aspires not simply to . . . arhatship, but to the cosmic sovereignty and power
represented by complete Buddhahoodnot the destruction of ego, but its apotheosis (1995, 19).
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While Mahayana texts often depict bodhisattvas as compassionate, they almost never encourage
anything like social service, working for the poor, overcoming injustice or the caste system, or
anything along these lines. Bodhisattvas are compassionate because they aim to become
Buddhas; there is no need for them actually to work for the benefit of others in this life. In terms
of so-called real religious significance, the adoption of the bodhisattva ideal probably meant
little more than that, rather than envisioning a series of heavenly rebirths after death and eventual
transformation into one sort of exalted supernatural being (the arhat), Buddhists began to
envision themselves eventually being transformed into a different sort of even more exalted
supernatural being.
In the nineteen-twenties and thirties the paradigm of Buddhism qua moral philosophy
began to be eclipsed by the idea that Buddhism was fundamentally about meditation and the
attainment of ineffable religious experience or awakened consciousness. This new vision was
first developed by D.T. Suzuki, who was influenced by the work of William James (Sharf 1995a
and 1995b). It quickly became so influential, and remains so today, that it is often difficult to
recognize how completely unprecedented it was both in scholarship and Buddhism itself.
Though Suzuki conceded to Pali scholars that early texts provide little support for his vision,
scholars immediately began to read this idea back into early texts. This happened so smoothly
and seamlessly that it is now widely held that the general understanding of Buddhism as a
philosophy or way of life centered on meditation resulted from an excessive focus on the Pali
canon. Though it took several decades, scholars eventually developed a coherent theory that fit
Mahayana into Suzukis paradigm, the so-called forest hypothesis, which has been the most
influential theory in the field over the past two decades. According to this theory, Buddhism
degenerated into institutionalization and ritual in the centuries after its origin and early
Mahayanists tried to revive its original focus on the quest for religious experience. This theory
makes it possible to imagine Tibetan Buddhism and Zen as preserving traditions of meditation
that go back, through early Mahayana, to early Buddhism, providing strong support for the idea
that Buddhism is essentially about meditation. The main innovation of the forest hypothesis was
a move to take references to forest-dwelling and ascetic practice as evidence for the practice of
meditation, which Mahayana sutras rarely encourage, or the quest for inward religious
experience. Mahayana went overnight from being a form of lay devotionalism to a hardcore,
monastic meditation movement. Descriptions of otherworldly paradises filled with jeweled trees
and lotus ponds were repackaged as accounts of profound meditation experiences. Apart from
the dubiousness of equating advocacy of harsh discipline with the pursuit of religious experience,
the theorys main problem is that few Mahayana sutras encourage forest-dwelling or ascetic
practice any more than they do meditation. Only two of the roughly dozen sutras translated into
Chinese in the second century advocate these practices and they do so only indifferently or
inconsistently. The large majority of other sutras also do not advocate them and there are no
known sutras for which they are the primary focus. Many Mahayana sutras are more concerned
to provide justification for behavior, especially sexual behavior, that is prohibited by traditional
Buddhist morality. Unusual sutras that focus on criticizing the immoral behavior of others may
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represent attempts to counterbalance the general trend or even merely to impress preaching
audiences with virtuous-sounding talk.

The Idea of the Bodhisattva

The idea of the bodhisattva was Mahayana sutra authors point of departure, but not in the way
that is often imagined. Since the time of Rhys Davids, scholars have tended to presume that the
rejection of the goal of arhatship and the adoption of the bodhisattva path by some mass or
masses of people was the primary factor that motivated the composition of Mahayana sutras.
They have thus often understood explaining the emergence of Mahayana to be a matter of
figuring out what led Buddhists to do this. As several scholars have pointed out, however,
several apparently early Mahayana sutras include people pursuing arhatship and
pratyekabuddhahood in their intended audiences and claim that their teachings can enable such
people to reach their goals more rapidly than traditional sutras. Remarkable passages in the first
two chapters of the Aashasrik both encourage and attempt to justify rvakas giving
teachings to bodhisattvas, suggesting that people who identified as rvakas were involved in the
composition of early Mahayana sutras. It thus seems clear that Mahayana did not emerge from a
rejection of the arhat ideal, and that identifying as a bodhisattva was not considered necessary for
people involved in the creation and use of the texts. As we shall see below, given the way the
bodhisattva path was understood, it is unclear that many people plausibly could have identified
as bodhisattvas before the development of the central early Mahayana doctrine that people who
accept and use these texts are already advanced bodhisattvas. Rather than Mahayana sutras
resulting from the adoption of the bodhisattva path by some significant mass of people, the mass
adoption of the bodhisattva path seems somewhat more likely to have been precipitated by these
texts.
Rather than reflecting a mass upsurge of compassion, a rejection of Buddhist
monasticism, or a longing for Suzukian inward religious experience, the idea of the
bodhisattva was the key to the creation of Mahayana sutras as a new genre of text that
dramatically expanded the early Buddhist vision. Early sutras clearly depict the Buddha as
possessing vast knowledge that he never imparted to his disciples. They generally present this as
a reflection of his pragmatism: he taught his rvakas things that were necessary for them to
attain liberation rather than things of merely theoretical interest. At the same time, early sutras
recognize the existence of bodhisattvas, and present them as central figures in the Buddhist
world, but present no teachings for them, leaving a major lacuna in the Buddhist vision that was
recognized as a problem by Mahayanists and non-Mahayanists alike. The non-Mahayana author
of the Abhidharmadpa, for example, accepts the Mahayana claim that the Buddha must have
given teachings for bodhisattvas and dubiously tries to argue that such teachings are contained in
the Tripiaka (Jaini). Since bodhisattvas needed to obtain omniscience, rather than mere
liberation, they needed to know the things that the Buddha did not teach his rvakas. Presenting
teachings for bodhisattvas thus enabled Mahayana authors to explore the content of the Buddhas
9

unrevealed knowledge and simultaneously made it possible for them to present their listeners
with a path to a higher religious goal than had previously seemed plausible. For people who
identified as rvakas, Mahayana authors claimed that their texts could enable to them attain
arhatship more quickly than non-Mahayana texts. Looked at in this way, the idea of the
bodhisattva can be seen as a salient loophole in the established Buddhist narrative that enabled
Mahayana authors to present an expanded, primarily supernatural, vision that appealed to some
significant audiences of their day.

Soteriology
One of the most common misconceptions about Mahayana sutras is that they encourage people
to become bodhisattvas, which can perhaps be seen as a legacy of Rhys Davids depiction of the
bodhisattva as an ethical, rather than supernatural, ideal. Not only do these texts not encourage
people to become bodhisattvas, doing so would make little sense in their religious world.
According to both non-Mahayana and at least earlier Mahayana understanding, one cannot
simply decide to become a bodhisattva. According to non-Mahayana and early Mahayana
understanding, since ordinary beings generally do not remember their past lives, and are reborn
in circumstances determined by their accumulated karma, if someone were somehow to form a
desire to attain Buddhahood ex nihilo and do some bodhisattva practices he or she would
probably forget all about it in their next life. Even if a person were to get some traction and make
some progress on the path over several lifetimes, ones status would remain tenuous for eons.
According to a story in the Ta chih du lun, for instance, riputra practiced the bodhisattva path
for sixteen eons before giving up and deciding to become an arhat instead (Lamotte 1981, 701).
Only after one encounters a living Buddha who predicts that one will eventually become a
Buddha oneself is ones status as a bodhisattva assured. According to the Sarvstivda
Mahvibha, a being cannot properly be called a bodhisattva until he has not only received a
prediction from a Buddha, but developed sufficient merit, or good karma, to be able to manifest
the so-called thirty-two marks of a great man (Fronsdal 120). The Theravada Nidnakath
similarly states that an aspiration to become a Buddha takes effect only if it is made in the
presence of a living Buddha and specifically states that making a resolution at a stupa or bodhi
tree will not work.
Since there are now no Buddhas in the world, it is impossible for Buddhists to obtain a
prediction or make a meaningful resolution to become a bodhisattva in this life. The key
doctrinal innovation that made it possible to circumvent this problem was the idea that users of
Mahayana sutras had already received, or were close to receiving, a prediction that established
them as true, or irreversible, bodhisattvas. From early times, it was believed that only beings
with a great deal of merit could encounter and accept Buddhist teachings. Mahayana sutras
extend this idea and claim that it is not possible to encounter and believe in the Buddhas most
profound teachingsMahayana sutraswithout having already made significant progress on the
bodhisattva path. The Aashasrik, makes this claim, according to an old rough count of mine,
10

about twenty times. One passage states, for instance, Those sons and daughters of good family
for whom this Prajpramit will come within range of hearing will be those who have done
services to former Jinas [i.e., Buddhas], who have good roots that were planted under many
Buddhas . . . how much more so those who will memorize this Prajpramit, retain it in
memory [etc.]. Another states:
It is just like a man leaving the interior of a [great] forest . . . . While leaving, he will see
prior signs, [such as] cowherds, animal herders, or boundaries . . . by which a village, a
town, or market town is discerned. Having seen these prior signs he thinks, Since these
prior signs are seen, my village, or town, or market town is near. He becomes relaxed
and no longer has concern for robbers. In just this way . . . the bodhisattva-mahsattva for
whom this profound Prajpramit turns up . . . should understand, I am very near
unsurpassed, complete enlightenment. I will obtain the prediction to unsurpassed,
complete enlightenment before long. He need no longer fear, or be frightened of, or
afraid of, the level of rvakas or the level of pratyekabuddhas.
Other passages state that people who believe in or are not frightened by the text are already
irreversible. The way the Aashasrik presents it, the Aashasrik itself serves as a sort of
signpost on the bodhisattva path that indicates to whomever encounters it that he or she is either
an irreversible bodhisattva, or nearly an irreversible bodhisattva, already. Despite the fact that
they have been all but ignored in scholarship, similar passages are found widely in Mahayana
sutra literature, e.g., in the Pratyutpanna, Akobhyavyha, smaller and larger Sukhvatvyhas,
Ajitasenavykaraa, Samdhirja, Saddharmapuarka, Vimalakrtinirdea, Ratnari, and so
on. An important passage in the Aashasrik criticizes bodhisattvas who reject the text because
they do not trust its claim that they are irreversible because the text does not mention them
specifically by name. This suggests that the claim was intended to be taken literally and that
convincing people that they were bodhisattvas was an important part of the texts presentation.
Though the bodhisattva path is often depicted as being extraordinarily long and arduous, the
doctrine that users of Mahayana sutras were already irreversible or nearly irreversible meant that
most of their difficulty was already in the past. Mahayana sutras and stras that make use of the
scheme of ten bhmis, or stages, of the bodhisattva path typically place the attainment of
irreversibility on the seventh or eighth stage. The idea of the ekayna, or one vehicle, and related
conceptions, such as the idea that people destined to become arhats, pratyekabuddhas, or
Buddhas inherently belong to separate gotras, or lineages, which are developed in some later
sutras, can be understood as attempts to simplify the identification of large audiences as
bodhisattvas.
The main practices that Mahayana sutra authors advocate are creatively conceived
shortcuts that they claim can enable their users to circumvent most of the remaining path and
attain Buddhahood as quickly and easily as they wish. Generally they focus on the attainment of
merit, the universal currency of the Buddhist world, a vast quantity of which was believed to be
necessary for the attainment of Buddhahood. Though it has been overlooked in scholarship, one
11

such practice that is mentioned frequently is anumodan, or rejoicing, in meritorious actions or

the teachings of Mahayana sutras, typically combined with the dedication of the resulting merit
either to the attainment of Buddhahood or to all beings. The Aashasrik, Pratyutpanna, and
Samdhirja each devote a full chapter to the practice and many other sutras advocate it as well,
including such texts as the Ugraparipcch, Saddharmapuarka, Kraavyha,
Upliparipcch, Bhadracaripraidhna, Vimalakrtinirdea, Tathgatagarbha,
Ratnaketuparivarta, and Suvarabhsa. According to the Aashasriks presentation, the
practice involves considering all the merit made throughout all time by all Buddhas, in all
worlds, as well by all bodhisattvas and other beings, forming a vivid mental image of it,
rejoicing, and dedicating the resulting merit to the attainment of Buddhahood. According to the
text, doing this will result in one obtaining more merit than the total amount of merit possessed
by all beings.
Since ancient times Buddhists have believed that merit could be produced not only by
performing meritorious acts of ones own but also through anumodan in the meritorious acts of
others. The idea is found in the Pali canon, and in other non-Mahayana texts such as the
Mahvastu, Sarvstivda abhidharma texts, and the Dvyvadna. Even today in Theravada
countries it is believed to be possible to make more merit through anumodan in anothers gift
than the giver makes him- or herself. Mahayana sutras take this old idea and use it as the
theoretical basis for a new practice that can generate a vast amount of merit quickly and easily.
The key to the new version of the practice is that rather than rejoicing in the merit made by
others individual gifts, one rejoices, e.g., in all the merit ever made by all beings. If anumodan
in a gift can enable one to make more merit than its giver, the amount of merit that can be
generated by rejoicing in all the merit ever produced is surely just as vast as the Aashasrik
says it is. This is strongly emphasized at the end of the texts chapter on anumodan when a
large number of gods state in unison that it is amazing that the heap of merit generated by this
practice surpasses the merit that other bodhisattvas generate over a vast expanse of time.
Perhaps the best known of all the shortcuts to Buddhahood advocated in Mahayana sutra
literature are what are commonly known as pure land practices, practices that are presented as
enabling people to be born after their deaths in special worlds where Buddhas currently live, and
where it is easy to make rapid progress to Buddhahood. The two main pure lands are Sukhvat,
the pure land of the Buddha Amitbha, also known as Amityus, and Abhirati, the pure land of
the Buddha Akobhya. The basic theory is that Akobhya and Amitbha performed especially
difficult bodhisattva practices in order to endow their worlds with all manner of luxuries and
make it possible for beings born there to acquire the merit and knowledge necessary to attain
Buddhahood quickly and easily. Practices that are said to enable one to be born in these pure
lands are typically exaggeratedly easy, such as merely giving rise to an intention to be born there
or focusing ones attention on Amitbhas name. Schopen has drawn attention to the fact that
promises of rebirth in Sukhvat and Abhirati are not only found in sutras focused specifically on
Amitbha or Akobhya, but throughout Mahayana sutra literature in general (2005, 154-89).
Such promises are made to people who engage in a wide varieties of practices which usually
12

have nothing specifically to do with Amitbha or Akobhya, including such things as

maintaining the eight precepts, hearing the names of certain Buddhas or bodhisattvas,
remembering the name of kyamuni, and, most commonly, hearing, memorizing, and writing
various Mahayana sutras or parts of Mahayana sutras. According to some sutras, including the
Sanskrit larger and smaller Sukavatvyhas, after being born in a pure land one can quickly
generate a vast store of merit and knowledge and obtain Buddhahood in ones very next life.
Several scholars have argued that pure-land practices are the product of ascetics or forestdwellers. Schopen and Grard Fussman have argued on the basis of passages that state that only
advanced bodhisattva are born in Sukhvat that it was originally understood as a destination for
what Schopen calls the religious virtuoso, rather than an easily accessible paradise (Schopen
2005, 189, Fussman). This, however, overlooks the central Mahayana sutra doctrine, discussed
above, that everyone who accepts the authenticity of these texts is already an advanced
bodhisattva. Harrison suggests that Lokakemas translation of the text fits in with the forest
hypothesis on the grounds that it states that women born in Sukhvat are born as men, which he
suggests is a reflection of uncompromising anti-female sentiments of . . . male ascetics (1998,
564). Since the presupposition that all women hope to be reborn as men is widely attested in
Mahayana sutras, however, it seems more likely that this stipulation was actually intended to
appeal to women. Harrison also suggests that Sukhvat is the forest hermitage celestial and
that the texts well-known descriptions of glorious trees made of gold and jewels are intended as
a template for meditative visualization, the effect of which would presumably [be] brilliant
and kaleidoscopic (2003, 142, 121-22), but the text does not advocate using its descriptions in
this manner. Nattier argues to the contrary that even the earliest versions of the Sukhvatvyha
depict rebirth in Sukhvat and Buddhahood itself as being able to be obtained with ease (2000,
99,101). She herself argues, however, that the Akobhyavyha depicts difficult or ascetic practice
as necessary for rebirth in Akobhyas pure land Abhirati (2000, 91, 99). This, however,
overlooks the main passage in the text that explains how to be born there, which in both the
Tibetan version of the text and the second century Chinese translation presents a series of
methods ranging from relatively to extremely easy, including being mindful of Akobhya,
learning the text of the Akobhyavyha, or simply giving rise to a desire to be born there, each of
which is explicitly said to be sufficient for rebirth in Abhirati.
Although Mahayana sutras often recommend anumodan and pure land practices, the
shortcuts they mention by far the most frequently are ones involving the use of Mahayana sutras
themselves: listening to them, memorizing them, reciting them, preaching them, copying them,
and worshipping them. Throughout Mahayana literature we are told that doing these things
generates more merit than filling worlds with gems and giving them to Buddhas, erecting billions
of stpas, or establishing virtually infinite numbers of beings on the bodhisattva path. In the past,
scholars have generally ignored these passages, or dismissed them as simply cult of the book
related material. They have often seen them as gimmicks for encouraging people to preserve
Mahayana sutras that have little to do with the actual concerns of these texts. A more
straightforward and perhaps more likely interpretation would be that Mahayana sutra authors
13

recommend these practices more frequently and more enthusiastically than all others simply
because they saw them as the most effective practices for making rapid progress toward
Buddhahood.
Between the idea that users of Mahayana sutras are already, or nearly, irreversible
bodhisattvas, and the shortcut methods these texts advocate, a point that I do not believe can be
overstated is that the path to Buddhahood envisioned by at least earlier, and most, Mahayana
sutras is a quick and easy one. The only significant exceptions, which are mentioned especially
in narrative sections of Mahayana sutras, are cases in which bodhisattvas choose to take their
time, being born in luxurious circumstances for eons, always in the presence of Buddhas, before
finally becoming Buddhas themselves. In this regard, these texts can be seen as extending the
religious vision of avadna literature, according to which, as Jonathan Walters explains,
commenting specifically on the Pali apadna collection, Each Apadna actor experiences in his
or her cosmic biography a period of transition between the first performance of a Buddhist
actionoften a trivial gesture or fleeting recollectionand the final attainment of nirva . . . .
This period of transition lasts for countless eons, but it is entirely pleasant: only birth in heaven
or on earth, and always in a state of luxury that vastly magnifies the original piety (1997, 178).
According to Mahayana sutras, simply listening to a Mahayana sutra and believing in it
simultaneously locates ones existence in a cosmic biography in which one has already been
practicing as a bodhisattva for eons and guarantees that one is destined to encounter only glory
and bliss in future lives. tienne Lamotte has made the important observation that Mahayana
sutras make use of formulae and stock phrases that are only otherwise found in avadnas (1988,
591) and Hajime Nakamura has plausibly suggested that the Avadna literature was the matrix
of Mahyna stras (153).

Ontology, Buddhology, and Cosmology

Many Mahayana sutras present perspectives on the nature of reality, the nature of Buddhas, and
the cosmos that significantly extend more traditional Buddhist visions. Since Prof. Williams
addresses much of this material in his article in this volume, there is no need for more than a few
observations here. The most influential ontological perspective developed in Mahayana sutras is
the concept of emptiness (nyat). As Prof. Williams points out, although Prajpramit
sutras and Mahayana sutras in general assign great importance to this idea, they do not present it
in a philosophically articulated manner. Although realizing emptiness through the practice of
meditation is often depicted as one of Mahayanists central aims, the Aashasrik and some
other apparently early sutras actually depict this as something that bodhisattvas must be careful
to avoid. Realizing emptiness is tantamount to attaining liberation, so if a bodhisattva were to do
so before accumulating all the merit and other requisites of Buddhahood, he or she would
immediately become an arhat or pratyekabuddha, which would make attaining Buddhahood
impossible. In some texts we see a clear concern to avoid realizing emptiness by mistake.
Another common idea about emptiness is that it does not legitimate violating the Buddhist
14

precepts, but the Aashasrik and many other sutras clearly depict it as making traditional
Buddhist morality, especially sexual morality, largely irrelevant. Much of the ontology,
Buddhology, and cosmology of Mahayana sutras is presented in narrative form. One thinks of
the famous stories of Vimalakrtis illness in the Vimalakrtinirdea, Maitreyas pavilion, or
tower, in the Gaavyha, the dance of rvakas (and low level bodhisattvas) in the
Drumakinnararja, Dhamatis attempt to discover kyamunis lifespan in the
ragamasamdhi, and the vast number of similar stories that fill Mahayana sutra literature.
Although it is often precisely such material that attracts scholars to the study of Mahayana, it has
received little attention in scholarship. Scholars often suggest that such material is an expression
of meditation experiences, but this seems unwarranted. Rather than explaining these stories, such
interpretations explain them away, propping up the Suzukian vision of Buddhism as a tradition
focused on some sort of actual spiritual experience or awakening while doing little to clarify
Mahayana authors actual vision. The fact that different Mahayana sutras often present different
ontological or Buddhological perspectives is sometimes presented as evidence for different
Mahayana groups with different doctrines, but, as mentioned above, we know that texts with
divergent perspectives were used together from early times. Some of the most highly articulated
ontological and Buddhological perspectives are presented in sutras, such as the
Sadhinirmocana and Lakvatra, which reflect the influence of stric traditions more than
that of earlier Mahayana sutras.
DAVID DREWES
David Drewes is Associate Professor in the Department of Religion at the University of
Manitoba. He is the author of several articles on early Mahayana.
Index: Mahayana, bodhisattva, orality, books, meditation, pure land, anumodan, Aashasrik,
D.T. Suzuki, Auguste Comte

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