The Lankavatara Sutra Read online

  Table of Contents

  Other works by Red Pine

  Title Page

  Preface

  CHAPTER ONE: - KING RAVANA’S REQUEST

  CHAPTER TWO: - MAHAMATI’S QUESTIONS

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  XVI

  XVII

  XVIII

  XIX

  XX

  XXI

  XXII

  XXIII

  XXIV

  XXV

  XXVI

  XXVII

  XXVIII

  XXIX

  XXX

  XXXI

  XXXII

  XXXIII

  XXXIV

  XXXV

  XXXVI

  XXXVII

  XXXVIII

  XXXIX

  XL

  XLI

  XLII

  XLIII

  XLIV

  XLV

  XLVI

  XLVII

  XLVIII

  XLIX

  L

  LI

  LII

  LIII

  LIV

  LV

  LVI

  CHAPTER THREE: - MORE QUESTIONS

  LVII

  LVII

  LIX

  LX

  LXI

  LXII

  LXII

  LXIV

  LXV

  LXVI

  LXVII

  LXVIII

  LXIX

  LXX

  LXXI

  LXXII

  LXXIII

  LXXIVIV

  LXXV

  LXXVI

  LXXVII

  LXXVIII

  LXXIX

  CHAPTER FOUR: - FINAL QUESTIONS

  LXXX

  LXXXI

  LXXXII

  LXXXIII

  LXXXIV

  LXXXV

  LXXXVI

  LXXXVII

  LXXXVIII

  LXXXIX

  XC

  LANKAVATARA MANTRA

  GLOSSARY

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Copyright Page

  Other works by Red Pine

  The Diamond Sutra

  The Heart Sutra

  The Platform Sutra

  In Such Hard Times: The Poetry of Wei Ying-wu

  Lao-tzu’s Taoteching

  The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain

  The Zen Works of Stonehouse: Poems and

  Talks of a 14th-Century Hermit

  The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma

  P’u Ming’s Oxherding Pictures & Verses

  TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

  Zen traces its genesis to one day around 400 B.C. when the Buddha held up a flower and a monk named Kashyapa smiled. From that day on, this simplest yet most profound of teachings was handed down from one generation to the next. At least this is the story that was first recorded a thousand years later, but in China, not in India. Apparently Zen was too simple to be noticed in the land of its origin, where it remained an invisible teaching. It was not until an Indian monk named Bodhidharma brought it to the Middle Kingdom, that Zen finally made landfall. This bearded barbarian who became China’s First Zen Patriarch was only slightly more perceptible than Kashyapa’s smile, but he was perceptible, appearing in a brief biographical notice recorded by his disciple, T’an-lin (506–574), and in a more extensive biography by Tao-hsuan (596—667) in his Hsukaosengchuan. But the event that brought Bodhidharma to the attention of historians and hagiographers alike occurred in or around 534 when he chose Hui-k’o as his successor and handed him a copy of the Lankavatara. Bodhidharma told him everything he needed to know was in this book, and Zen and the Lanka have been linked ever since, if they were not already linked in India.

  The title of this book that contained everything Hui-k’o needed to know is a combination of the Sanskrit words lanka and avatara. Chinese commentators say lanka means “unreachable.” Maybe it does, but I don’t know what they base this on. The only definition I can find is that the word refers to the island we now call Sri Lanka or to its principal town. Perhaps the name was derived from the root lankh or lang, which mean “to go to” or “to go beyond” respectively. But if that were true, it would be “reachable.” And according to Buddhist chronicles, it was, as the Buddha himself reached Lanka on three occasions, one of them being to transmit the teaching of this sutra. Such chronicles, however, were compiled centuries after the Buddha’s reported visits. The earliest recorded appearance of Buddhism on the island did not occur until 150 years after the Buddha’s Nirvana, when Mahinda, the son of King Ashoka (r. 250 B.C.), introduced the Dharma to the island’s inhabitants. As for the second part of the title, avatara, this means “to alight or descend,” and usually refers to the appearance of a deity upon earth—and from which we get the word avatar. Thus, the sutra’s title could be translated as Appearance on Lanka, referring to the Buddha’s reputed visit to the island.

  Since the sutra first appeared in China in the form of a Sanskrit text at the beginning of the fifth century, it was probably composed in India in the middle of the previous century, give or take a decade or two. And since the first two monks who brought Sanskrit copies to China were both from what was then called Central India (the Ganges watershed of Uttar Pradesh), this would be a likely place for its origin. Also, unlike other Mahayana sutras, which were written in Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, the Lankavatara was written in Classical Sanskrit. Classical Sanskrit was the language of Brahmans and of the court. And in the middle of the fourth century, the court was located in the Central Indian city of Patna, on the banks of the Ganges. This was the court of Samudragupta the Great (r. 335–375).

  Samudragupta was a devout Hindu, but he also respected other religious traditions and once granted permission to King Meghavarna, the ruler of Lanka, to construct a Buddhist monastery at Bodh Gaya, the place of the Buddha’s Enlightenment. Perhaps it was such an event that inspired our author to locate his text on the island. And perhaps he composed his work hoping that it might reach the ears or eyes of this cakravartin, or universal monarch, which was how Samudragupta often referred to himself—and to whom the author of the Lanka also refers in a number of places. In addition to his military prowess, Samudragupta was also a skilled musician, and the detailed description of melodic modes near the beginning of Chapter One must have been written with someone in mind.

  Another possibility for the sutra’s place of origin would be Lanka itself or the nearby mainland. Although Theravada has been the dominant form of Buddhism on the island for the past thousand years, prior to that it was a stronghold of the Yogacara school. And this sutra was clearly addressed to an audience familiar with the formative concepts of this school of Buddhism. But what sets the Lanka apart is that it points readers beyond the teachings of the early Yogacara to their own minds. Pointing directly at the mind was and still is a hallmark of the Zen school of Buddhism. And the man who brought Zen to China was from the area just north of Lanka near the seaport of Kanchipuram. Of course, most scholars doubt that Zen ever existed in India—and thus they necessarily see Bodhidharma as an invention of Chinese hagiographers. They contend that Zen was of Chinese origin, where it first appears in the sixth and seventh centuries and where it then conjures its Indian origin and the person of Bodhidharma to provide it with historical legitimacy.

  This is an argument that has given rise to much debate and not one to which I have anything salutary to add, other than to ask: if Zen originated in China, where did this
text come from? If there ever was a sutra that presented the underlying teaching of Zen, this is it. It is unrelenting in its insistence on the primacy of personal realization and is unlike any other teaching attributed to the Buddha in this regard. D. T. Suzuki, the previous translator of the Lankavatara, put it this way, “The reason why Bodhidharma handed this sutra to Hui-k’ o as containing the essence of Zen Buddhism must be sought in this, that the constant refrain of the Lankavatara is the all-importance of an inner perception (pratyamagati) or self-realization (svasiddhanta).” (Studies in the Lankavatara Sutra, pg. 102)

  Indeed, this is the constant refrain of the sutra. But it isn’t just about Zen; it is firmly rooted in what would later become known as Yogacara Buddhism as well. And it also focuses on the bodhisattva path that still dominates Mahayana Buddhism. But it does all this far beyond the normal venues of Mahayana discourse on the distant island of Lanka, where the sutra opens with the Buddha instructing one of ancient India’s serpent kings in the Dharma. As the Buddha reappears from the serpent king’s watery realm, Ravana, ruler of Lanka, invites him to his nearby capital in hopes of a similar discourse. The Buddha agrees and proceeds to instruct the king in the illusory nature of what Buddhists call dharmas, all those things we think of as real, be they tangible, intangible, or merely imagined.

  Following this introductory chapter, Mahamati then rises from among the assembled bodhisattvas and presents the Buddha with a gauntlet of questions, to which the Buddha responds by telling him that the very terms in which his questions are posed are projections of his own and others’ imaginations and as such are tantamount to pie in the sky. A statement about pie thus becomes a statement about no pie.

  Just as the Diamond Sutra teaches detachment from dharmas, and the Heart Sutra teaches the emptiness of dharmas, the Lankavatara teaches the non-projection of dharmas, that there would be no dharmas to be empty or to be detached from if we did not project them as existing or not existing in the first place. The Buddha tells Mahamati, “Because the various projections of people’s minds appear before them as objects, they become attached to the existence of their projections.” So how do they get free of such attachments? The Buddha continues, “By becoming aware that projections are nothing but mind. Thus, do they transform their body and mind and finally see clearly all the stages and realms of self-awareness of tathagatas and transcend views and projections regarding the five dharmas and modes of reality.” (Chapter Two, LXIV)

  Having proclaimed the illusory nature of projections, including such Yogacara categories as the five dharmas and the three modes of reality, the Buddha directs Mahamati to its source, namely, consciousness itself. He then explains how consciousness works and how liberation consists in realizing that consciousness is a self–fabricated fiction, just another illusion, and how bodhisattvas transform their consciousness into the projectionless tathagata-garbha, or womb from which the buddhas arise. Such a teaching is not something everyone is prepared to hear. But Mahamati continues to ask questions, and the Buddha continues to answer, yet in a way that always leads his disciple back to the two teachings that underlie this sutra: the “nothing but mind” of Yogacara and the “self–realization” of Zen.

  As the Buddha guides Mahamati through the conceptual categories of Mahayana Buddhism, and those of other paths as well, he tells him that these too are fabrications of the mind and that reaching the land of buddhas requires transcending all conjured landscapes, including that of the tathagata-garbha. Summarizing the process whereby practitioners follow such a teaching, the Buddha says, “Who sees that the habit-energy of projections of the beginningless past is the cause of the three realms, and who understands that the tathagata stage is free from projections or anything that arises, attains the personal realization of buddha knowledge and effortless mastery over their own minds.” (Chapter Two, Section VIII)

  Thus, the sutra weaves together the threads of Yogacara and Zen, along with such unique Mahayana concepts as the no-self self of the tathagata-garbha, and it does this for three hundred pages, mostly in prose, and with occasional recapitulations in verse. Although it has long been revered as one of the six sacred texts of Yogacara Buddhism, it is also the text to which China’s early Zen masters turned for instruction. Whether or not it was the product of Indian Zen masters is a moot point, as neither the Lanka nor Zen appear in the historical record until both showed up in China in the fifth century.

  The first to appear was the sutra. It arrived in the baggage of a monk from central India named Dharmakshema. He arrived in the Silk Road oasis of Tunhuang in 414, if not a year or two earlier, and he either learned Chinese quickly, or he did so earlier at one of the other oases where he stayed on his way to China. Soon after settling in Tunhuang, he began working on a translation of the Nirvana Sutra and soon established a reputation as a skilled translator. In addition to his linguistic abilities, he was also known for his skill in prophecy and magic. And when Tunhuang was conquered by the neighboring Northern Liang state in 420, he was invited by its king to serve as an advisor and to continue his translation work at the Northern Liang capital of Kutsang (modern Wuwei), 500 miles to the southeast. Magic and prophecy were the major reasons why those in power financed sutra translation—the powers associated with sutras and mantras had political and military applications.

  During the next twelve years, Dharmakshema distinguished himself as a counselor and also as a translator. And as the monk’s reputation spread, the ruler of the Northern Wei state invited him to his capital of Pingcheng (modern Tatung). Although Pingcheng was another 800 miles to the east and across two major deserts, the continued survival of the Northern Liang depended on its good relations with its much larger and more powerful neighbor, and its ruler had no choice but to comply. However, Dharmakshema’s patron feared his monk advisor might reveal state secrets or use his magic powers against him, and shortly after Dharmakshema left Kutsang, the Northern Liang ruler had him killed.

  While the monk’s assassination is accepted as occurring in 433, one account says he was not killed while traveling east to the Northern Wei capital. Rather, he was traveling west to the Silk Road kingdom of Khotan in search of a more complete copy of the Nirvana Sutra when the Northern Liang ruler learned his monk counselor had been secretly transmitting sexual techniques to members of the royal harem and became so enraged he had him killed. Of course, this account would have played to the advantage of the Northern Liang ruler and was probably invented to absolve him of his treachery. But it didn’t work, as the Northern Wei soon put an end to the Northern Liang. Still, regardless of which account was correct, among the texts Dharmakshema left behind was the first known translation of the Lankavatara. According to a catalogue of the Buddhist Canon made by Tao-hsuan in 664, it was still extant more than two hundred years later. But by the time the next catalogue was made in 730, it had disappeared. And it has not been seen since.

  This was often what happened to sutras, especially those like the Lankavatara that required a teacher to reveal their meaning. They were translated at imperial request or at the urging of wealthy patrons, and once translated, copies were made and distributed to major Buddhist monasteries around the country. But they often ended up in monastery libraries unread. This was the fate of hundreds of sutras translated during this period. A translator was lucky if half the texts he produced were actually used by practitioners, much less kept in circulation. In this regard, Dharmakshema did better than most. Of the two dozen works attributed to him, more than half have survived.

  The second translation of the Lankavatara was more fortunate. This translation was made by Gunabhadra, another monk from Central India. But unlike Dharmakshema, he traveled by sea instead of by the overland route. In 435, two years after Dharmakshema’s assassination, Gunabhadra arrived in the southern seaport of Nanhai (Kuangchou), and he seems to have been expected. As soon as he reached China, he was invited by the ruler of the Liu Sung kingdom to his capital at Chienkang (Nanching). And once he reached Chienkang, Guna
bhadra stayed in and around the Liu Sung capital for the next thirty years, while he worked on translations, assisted, it was said, by a staff of 700. One of the places he stayed was Chihuan Monastery in Tanyang. This was where he was living when he completed his translation of the Lankavatara in 443.

  By the time Gunabhadra died in 468, in addition to the Lankavatara, he was credited with translating fifty other texts, including the Sandhinirmocana Sutra, which was the earliest known text of Yogacara Buddhism. Although we don’t know if he lectured on the Lankavatara or if he was conversant with Zen, two hundred years later, the Northern School of Zen credited Gunabhadra with bringing Zen to China, such was the importance of the sutra he translated.