TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION AND NOTE OF THE LOTUS SUTRA.
The Lotus Sutra is one of the most important and influental of all the sutras or sacred scriptures of Mahayana Buddhism, revered by almost all branches of the Mahayana teachings, and over many centuries the object of intense veneration among Buddhist believers throughout China, Korea, Japan, and other regions of eastern Asia.
In recent years several Sanskrit texts of the Lotus Sutra, titled in Sanskrit Saddharma-pundarika sutra or "The Sutra of the Lotus of the Wonderful Law," have been discovered in Nepal, Central Asia and Kashmir. Some appear to have been copied in the eleventh century or later, though some may have been copied as early as the fifth or sixth century. These Sanskrit version of the work differ considerably in places from the Kumarajiva translation, being often more verbose in expression, which suggests that the next Kumarajiva followed was earlier in date, and may in fact have been quite close to the original version.
KUMARAJIVA
Why, one may also ask , if the Lotus Sutra is a work of Indian Buddhism, has the translation been made from the Kumarajiva Chinese translation of the text rather than from one of the Sanskrit version? First, as already mentioned, though we do not know what language the Lotus Sutra was first composed in, it was very probably not Sanskrit, and therefore the Sanskrit versions of the text are already one step removed from the original. Second, none of the extant Sanskrit versions are as early in date as Kumarajiva's Chinese translation, done in 406, and all differ in some respects from his version. Thus his almost certainly represents an earlier version of the text, one nearer to the original. But most important of all, Kumarajiva's Chinese translation is the version in which the Lotus Sutra has been known and read over the centuries throughout the countries of eastern Asia. Buddhism died out in India long ago and the Sanskrit versions of the text were lost for many hundred years, only coming to light again in recent times. Today no one but a handful of scholars read the Lotus Sutra in its Sanskrit versions, whereas Kumarajiva's text is read and recited daily millions of priests and lay believers of East Asia. It is the language and imagery of the Chinese Lotus Sutra that has molded the religious life and thought of the peoples of that part of the world and made its way into their art and literature. So it seemed wholly justifiable to make the English translation from this still living and vital version of the scripture.
For readers not familiar with the remarkable story of Kumarajiva's life, it may be mentioned here that he lived from 344 to 413 and was a native of the smallstate of Kucha in Central Asia. His father was an Indian of distinguished family who later in life became a Buddhist monk. His mother was a younger sister of the ruler of Kucha. He entered the Buddhist Order as a boy, and with his mother, who had become a nun, traveled extensively around India, acquiring a profound knowledge of Buddhist texts and teachings. Returning to Kucha, he devoted himself there to the propagation of Mahayana Buddhism.
In time his fame as a Buddhist scholar reached China. The Chinese ruler, eager to have so distinguished a religious figure at his own court, dispatched one of his generals to invade Kucha and bring Kumarajiva to the Chinese capital at Ch'ang-an. Because of a change in the ruling dynasty, Kumarajiva was detained for a number of years in Liang-chou in Kansu, but finally reached Ch'ang-an in 401. There, with the support of the ruler, he immediately embarked on a strenuous traanslation program, producing in rapid succession a series of authoritative Chinese versions of important Buddhist sutras and treatises, thirty-five works in all, among them the Lotus Sutra. He was greatly aided in his work by a large body of Chinese disciples and scholar-monks who carefully checked his translations against earlier versions, discussed the meaning with him, and helped him to polish the wording of his own versions. This is no doubt one reason why Kumarajiva's translation of the Lotus Sutra is so superior to other Chinese translations and why it has been so widely and enthusiastically read.
A word may be said here as
to the sort of problems in interpretation that arose. Classical Chinese,
the language of the Kumarajiva Lotus, is highly sphere and compressed
in style, and hence often ambiguous in meaning or construction and open
to varying interpretations. Thus, for example, it is easy to tell where a
passage of direct speech begins, but often difficult to determine
exactly where it ends. Verbs, frequently lack an expressed subject, and a
quite legitimate case can be made for several different interpretations
of the passage. One must often guess at the tense of a verb, or whether
a noun is to be taken as singular or plural.
It may be noted here that Chih-i in his commentaries on the Lotus Sutra developed an extremely complex and sophisticated hermeneutical system by which he attempted to bring out the Sutra's deepest meaning and define its position and importance in the body of the Buddhist writings as a whole. This system was further elaborated and refined in subcommentaries on Chih-i works written by his disciples or later scholars of the T'ien-t'ai school. To fully appreciate the way in which the Lotus Sutra has traditionally been interpreted in East Asian Buddhist circles, one would ideally have to master the ideas and terminology of this system of the exegesis.
THE WORLD OF THE LOTUS SUTRA
The Lotus Sutra depicts events that take place in a cosmic world of vast dimensions, a world in many ways reflecting traditional Indian views of the structure of the universe.For those who are not familiar with such views, it may be well to describe them here in brief. The world in which we live at present, it was believed, is made up of four continents ranged around a great central mountain, Mount Sumeru. We live in the continent located to the south, known as Jambudwipa or the "continent of the jambu trees." Outside of our present world there exist countless others spread out in all directions, some similarly made up of four continent, others realms presided over by various Buddhas. All these worlds, like our own, are caught up in a never ending cycle of formation, continuance, decline, and disintegration, a process that takes place over vast kalpas or eons of time.
The ordinary beings living in our present world fall into six categories or occupy six realms of existence, arranged in hierrarchical order in terms of their desireability. Lowest are the hell dwellers, beings who because of their evil actions in the past are compelled, for a time at least, to suffer in the various hells that exist beneath the earth, the most terrible of which is the Avichi hell or the hell of incessant suffering. On a slighty higher level are the hungry ghosts or spirits, beings who are tormented by endless hunger or craving. Above this is the level of beasts or beings of animal nature, and above that the realm of the asuras, demons who are pictured in Indian mythology as constantly in angry warfare. These first three or four realms represent the "evil paths," the lowest, most painful and undesirable states of existence.
Above this is the fifth level, the realm of human beings, and the sixth, that of the heavenly beings or gods. The gods, through they lead for happier lives that the beings in other realms, are doomed in time to die. Wherever the realm, all the beings in these six realms repeat never-ending cycle of death and rebirth, moving up or down from one level to another depending upon the good or evil deeds they have commited, but never gaining release from the cycle.
To these six lower worlds or levels Mahayana Buddhism adds four more, the "holly states," representative of the life of enlightenment. On the seventh level are the shravakas or voice-hearers. This term, by which they are known in the Lotus Sutra, originally reffered to the Buddha's disciples, those who had entered the Buddhist Order and learned the doctrines and practises directly from him, through later it came to refer to those monks and nuns who followed the teachings of early Buddhism such as four noble truths and strove to attain the state of arhat. Once they attained the state they ceased their endeavors, convinced that they had gained the highest goal possible for them.
Above these, on the eight level, are the pratekyabuddhas or "self-enlightened ones," beings who have won an understanding of the truth through their own efforts but who make no effort to teach others or assist them to enlightenment. On the ninth level are the boddhisattvas, already described above, who out of compassion postpone their entry into Buddhahood and remain in the saha world to alleviate the sufferings of others. On the tenth and highest level are the Buddhas or the state of Buddhahood. It is this level, according to Mahayana doctrine, that all living beings should seek to attain, and which, it insists, they can in time attain if they will not content themselves with lesser goals but have faith in the Buddha and his teachings as these are embodied in the sacred scriptures.
THE PRINCIPAL DOCTRINES OF THE LOTUS SUTRA
The Kumarajiva translation of the Lotus Sutra as it exists at present is made up of twenty-eight chapters. Nearly all the chapters consist of a combination of prose and verse passages. Like nearly all sutras, the Lotus begins with the Buddha's close disciples Ananda speaking the words, "This is what I heard." Ananda who was present at all the Buddha's expositions of the Dharma or doctrine, then proceeds to describe the occasion when, at Mount Gridhrakuta or Eagle Peak near the city of Rajagriha, the Buddha preached the Lotus Sutra. In these opening sentences we are still in the world of historical reality or possibility, in a setting in the outskirts of the city of Rajagriha in northern India in which Gautama or Shakyamuni very probably did in fact propound his doctrines in the sixth or fifth century BCE.
But as Ananda proceeds to describe the staggering number and variety of human, nonhuman, and heavenly beings who have gathered to listen to the Buddha's discourse, we realize that we have left the world of factual reality far behind. This is the first point to keep in mind in reading the Lotus Sutra. Its setting, its vast assembly of listeners, its dramatic occurences in the end belong to a realm that totally trancends our ordinary concepts of time, space, and possibility. Again and again we are told of events that took place countless, indescribable numbers of kalpas or eons in the past, or of beings or worlds that are as numerrous as the sands of millions and billions of Ganges rivers. Such "numbers" are in fact no more than pseudo-numbers or non-numbers, intended to impress on us the impossibility of measuring the immeasurrable. They are not meant to convey any stastical data but simply to boggle the mind and jar it loose from its conventional concepts of time and space. For in the realm of Emptiness [Shunyata] time and space as we conceive them are meaningless; anywhere is the same as everywhere, and now, then, never, forever are all one.
After several astounding events that impress upon us the truly cosmis scale of the drama that is unfolding, the Buddha begins to preach. The first important point he wishes to convey is that there is only one vehicle [Ekayana] or one path to salvation, that which leads to the goal of Buddhahood.Earlier in his preaching career, he had described three paths for the believer, what he calls the three vehicles [Triyana]. One was that of the shravaka or voice-hearer, which leads to the realm of the arhat. Second was that of the pratekyabuddha, the being who gains enlightenment by himself and for himself alone, and the third was that of the boddhisattva. But now, the Buddha tells us, these lesser paths or goals are to be set aside and all beings are to aim for the single goal of Buddhahood, the one and only vehicle to true enlightenment or perfect understanding, a state designated in the Lotus Sutra by the rather daunting Sanskrit term annutara-samyak-sambodhi.
When asked why, if there is only the single vehicle or truth, the Buddha has earlier taught his followers the dotrine of the three vehicles, he replies that at that time they were not yet ready to comprehend or accept the highest truth. Therefore he had to employ what he terms an expedient means [Upaya Kausalya] in order to lead them gradually along the road to greater understanding. He then illustrates his point through the famous parable of the burning house.
The first lesson the sutra wishes to teach, then, is that its doctrines, delivered by the Buddha some forty or more years after the start of his preaching career, which is how the Lotus Sutra depicts them, represent the highest level of truth, the summation of the Buddha's message, supersiding his earlier pronouncements, which had only provisional validity.
In some Mahayana texts Shariputra and the other close disciples of the Buddha, who represent the Lesser vehicle outlook and path of endeavor, are held up to ridicule or portrayed as figures of fun. But the prevailing mood of the Lotus Sutra is one of compassion, and in it the voice-hearers are shown responding to the Buddha's words with understanding and gratitude. In return, the Buddha bestows on each of them a prophecy of the attainment of Buddhahood in a future existence, and in many cases reveals the type of Buddha land each will preside over.
All these monks and nuns have been personal followers of Shakyamuni Buddha, dilligent in religious practice and faultless in their observance of the rules of conduct, and it is hardly suprising to learn that their efforts are to be crowned with success. Trully surprising however, is the prophecy set forth in chapter twelve concerning Devadatta, who gives his name to the chapter.
Devadatta is described in accounts of the life of Shakyamuni Buddha as a disciple and cousin of the Buddha who, through full of zeal at first, later grew envious of Shakyamuni, made several attempts on his life, and schemed to foment division in Order. For these crimes, amont the most heinous in the eyes of Buddhism, he was said to have fallen into hell alive. Yet in chapter twelve of the Lotus Sutra the Buddha reveals that in a past existence this epitome of evil was in fact a good friend and teacher of the Buddha, preaching the way of enlightenment for him, and that in an era to come, Devadatta will without fail become a Buddha himself. From this we learn that even the most depraved of persons can hope for salvation, and that in the realm of nondualism good and evil are not the eternal and mutually exclusive opposites we had supposed then to be.
Chapter twelve relates another affair of equally astounding import. In it, the boddhisattva Manjushri describes how he has been preaching the Lotus Sutra at the palace of the dragon king at the bottom of the sea. The nagas or dragons, it should be noted, are one of eight kinds of nonhuman beings who are believed to protect Buddhism. They were revered in early Indian folk religion and were taken over by Buddhism, whose scriptures often portray them as paying homage to the Buddha and seeking knowledge of his teachings.
Asked if there were any among his listeners who succedded in gaining enlightenment, Manjushri mentions the daughter of the dragon king Sagara, a girl just turned eight, who was able to master all the teachings. The questioner expresses understandable skepticism, pointing out that even Shakyamuni himself required many eons of religious practice before he could achieve enlightenment.
The girl herself then appears and before the astonished assembly performs various acts that demonstrate she has in fact achieved the highest level of understanding and can "in an instant" attain Buddhahood. Earlier Buddhism had asserted that women are gravely hampered in their religious endeavors by "five obstacle," one of which is the fact that they can never hope to attain Buddhahood. But all such assertions are herein the Lotus Sutra unequivocally thrust aside. The child is a dragon, a nonhuman being, she is of the female sex, and she has barely turned eight, yet she reaches the highest goal in the space of a moment. Once again the Lotus Sutra reveals that its revolutionary doctrines operate in a realm transcending all pretty distinctions of sex or species, instant or eon.
These joyous revelations concerning the universal accesibility of Buddhahood, which occupy the middle chapters of the Sutra, constitute the second important message of the work. The third is set forth in chapter sixteen. In chapter fifteen we are told how a vast multitude of Boddhisattvas spring up from the earth in a miraculuous manner in order that they may undertake the task of transmitting and protecting the teachings of the Buddha. When the Buddha is asked who these boddhisattvas are, he replies that they are persons whom be has taught and converted such immeasurable multitudes in the course of only forty years of preaching.
In chapter sixteen Shakyamuni reveals the answer to this riddle. The Buddha, he says, is an eternal being, ever present in the world, ever concerned for the salvation of all beings. He attained Buddhahood an incalculably distant time in the past, and has never ceased to abide in the world since then. He seems at times to pass away into nirvana, and at other times to make new appearance in the world. But he does this only so that living beings will not take his presence for granted and be slack in their quest for enlightenment. His seeming dissapearance is no more than an expedient means which he employs to encourage then in the their efforts, one of many such expedients that he adopts in order to fit his teachings to the different natures and capacities of individual beings and insue that they will have relevance for all. From this we see that in the Lotus Sutra the Buddha, who had earlier been viewed as historical personality, is now conceived as a being who transcends all boundaries of time and space, an ever-abiding principle of truth and compassion that exists everywhere and within all beings.
These then are the principal teachings of the Lotus Sutra, concepts that are basic to all Mahayana thought. In the Sutra they are often very beautifully and persuasively expounded, especially in the various parables for which the Lotus is famous. But one should not approach the Lotus expecting to find in it a methodical exposition of a system of philosophy. Some of the most important principles of Buddhism are only touched upon in passing, as though the reader or hearer is expected to be acquainted with them already, while many of the more revolutionary doctrines are not presented in any olderly fashion or supported by careful or detailed arguments but rather thrust upon him with the suddenness of devine revelation.
The text, with its long lists of personages, its astronomical numbers, its formulaic language and frequent repetions, its vivid parables, is incantatory in effect, appealing not so much to the intelect as to the emotions. It may be noted that in the early centuries of Buddhism it was customary not to put the teachings into written form but to transmit them orally, the works being commited to memory as had been the practice in earlier Indian religion. This was thought to be the proper way, the respectful way to transmit them and insure that they were not revealed to persons who were unqualified or unworthy to receive them. The formulaic language, the recapitulations in verse, the repetitions were all designed to assist the memory of the reciter, and these stylistic features were retained even after the scriptures had been put into written form.
Very early in the sutra the Buddha warns us that the wisdom of the Buddha is extremely profound and difficult to comprehend [in Japanese Nanshin Nange], and this warning is repeated frequently in later chapter. The Lotus Sutra tells us at times that the Lotus Sutra is about to be preached, at other times it says that the Lotus Sutra has already been preached with such-and-such results, and at still other times it gives instruction on just how the Lotus Sutra is to be preached or enumerates in detail the merits that accrue to one who pays due honor to the text. But the reader may be forgiven if he comes away from the work wondering just which of the chapters that make it up was meant to be The Lotus Sutra itself. One writer has in fact been led to describe the sutra as a text "about a discourse that is never delivered,....a lengthy preface without a book." This is no doubt because Mahayana Buddhism has always insisted that its highest truth can never in the end be expressed in words, since words immediately create the kind of distinctions that violate the unity of Emptiness [Shunyata]. All the sutra can do, therefore, is to talk around it, leaving a hole in the middle where truth can reside.
But of course in the view of religion there are other approaches to truth than merely through words annd intellectual discourse. The sutra therefore exhorts the individual to approach the wisdom of the Buddhas through the avenue of faith and religious practice. The profound influence which the Lotus Sutra has exerted upon the cultural and religious life of the countries of eastern Asia is due as much to its function as a guide to devotional practice as to the actual ideas that it expounds. It calls upon us to act out the Sutra with our bodies and minds rather than merely reading it, and in that way to enter into its meaning.
Much of the Lotus Sutra is taken up with injunctions to the believer to "accept and uphold, read, recite, copy and teach" it to others, and with descriptions of the bountiful merits to be gained by such action, as well as warnings of the evil effects of speaking ill of the sutra and its practises.
Because of its importance as an expression of basic Mahayana thought, its appeal as devotional work, its dramatic scenes and memorable parables, the Lotus, as already emphasized, has exerted an incalculable influence upon the culture of East Asia.
The Lotus is not so much an integral work as a collection of religious texts, an anthology of sermons, stories and devotional manuals, some speaking with particular force to persons of one type or in one set of circumstances. This is no doubt one reason why it has had such broad and lasting appeal over the ages and has permeated so deeply into the cultures that have been exposed to it.
The present translation is offered in the hope that through it readers of English may come to appreciate something of the power and appeal of the Lotus Sutra, and that among its wealth of profound religious ideas and striking imagery they may find passages that speak compellingly to them as well.
BURTON WATSON.
