The Phrase dharmaparyāyo hastagato in Mahāyāna Buddhist Literature: Rethinking the Cult of the Book in Middle Period Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism

James B. Apple

University of Calgary

This article examines the occurrence of the phrase dharmaparyāyo hastagato, “having the enumeration of the teaching in one’s hand,” in a select number of texts classified as Mahāyāna sūtras and theorizes its occurrence in relation to the use of the book (pustaka) in the religious cultures of middle period (Common Era to fifth/sixth centuries) Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism. In recent scholarly discourse, the “cult of the book” in Mahāyāna Buddhist formations has

been hypothesized to occur in relation to shrines (caitya) or not even to have occurred at all. This article suggests an alternative hypothesis. The paper first analyzes the syntax and composition of the terms dharmaparyāya and the participle hastagata as well as their occurrences within Indian Buddhist literature in Indic languages and in Tibetan and Chinese translations. The paper then identifies the occurrence of the phrase dharmaparyāyo hastagato in a select number of Mahāyāna sūtras and relates this phrase to an observable gradual process of bibliofication, a process where texts increasingly reference

themselves as protective objects, that is detectable in the layers of accretion found within the comparative analysis of extant manuscripts. Based on this analysis, the paper concludes that the “cult of the book,” rather than being a stable or local cult phenomena, was comprised of highly mobile and translocal textual communities who carried their object of veneration with them. Although a number of past Indologists and scholars of Buddhism have briefly mentioned the relations between Mahāyāna Buddhists and their books, the most recent scholarly discourse on the “cult of the book” in Mahāyāna Buddhist formations, as exhibited by the work of Gregory Schopen (1975, 1989, 2005) and David Drewes (2007), has hypothesized that the “cult of the book”

occured in relation to shrines (caitya) or that it may not even have occurred at all. As Schopen (2005: 153 n. 118) states, “Clearly one of the things that must be revisited is the ‘cult of the book’ in early Mahāyāna literature.” However, Schopen characterizes his own early work on this topic (i.e., Schopen 1975) as a “. . . piece of juvenilia” (Schopen 2005: 153 n. 118) and has even more recently provided further clarifications related to the topic (Schopen

2009, 2010, 2012). Drewes’s article provides a thorough critique of Schopen’s early presuppositions, particularly in regard to the idea that Mahāyāna Buddhists worshipped at institutional book shrines and at spots of earth (pṛthivīpradeśa). I do not wish to dwell on these aspects of Drewes’ arguments or Schopen’s theories; rather I would like to focus on something that both of these scholars hint at in their footnotes in regard to Mahāyāna Buddhists and their texts, and that is the embodiment of the text in a person or in the form of a book. In this context, embodiment signifies that Mahāyāna sūtras can be considered as bodies of the Buddha in that they are objects in which the Buddha is

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Oriental Society in St. Louis in 2010. I would like to acknowledge Dr. Shinobu Arai Apple for assistance with the Chinese citations. Any errors are my own.

present (Wallace 2009: 180). I will argue that followers of discourses that came to be known as “Mahāyāna sūtras” related to their texts as both oral and written embodiments of Buddhahood, that such textual discourses could be embodied in those who recited, heard, or even held them, and that the religious activities that Mahāyāna Buddhists performed in relation to these discourses, such as memorizing, copying, and worship, were based on these Indian Buddhist

cultural understandings of embodiment. I will claim that Indian Buddhist cultural understandings of textual discourses resulted in individual and group domestic worship of texts, the veneration of copies of sūtras owned by dharmabhāṇakas, and the veneration of dharmabhāṇakas as Buddhas who embodied the dharma texts that they recited. Moreover, I will argue that textual discourses underwent a gradual process of bibliofication, a process whereby texts increasingly reference themselves as protective objects, a process that is detectable in the layers of accretion found within the comparative analysis of

textual exemplars. This process of bibliofication, particularly illustrated in the entrustment (parīndanā) episodes of Mahāyāna sūtras, will also show that textual discourses had a sacred tactile presence. I will illustrate these factors through one such set of embodying phrases found in self-proclaimed

Mahāyāna texts, that is, dharmaparyāyo hastagato, “having the Dharma-discourse in one’s hand.” Based on the following evidence, and mindful of drawing any far-reaching definitive conclusions (Schopen 2010: 51), I will suggest for constructive consideration that the “cult of the book” was a cult of a certain

type of textual culture that was both oral and written, and that, rather than being a stable or local cult phenomena, it was comprised of highly mobile and translocal textual communities who carried their object of veneration with them and kept such objects in domestic locations. 1 Hastagata is a Sanskrit

compound comprised of the term hasta ‘hand’ and the past participle -gata. 2 As noted by Macdonell (1927: 171 n. 4), the past participle -gata is often used at the end of dependent determinatives (tatpuruṣa) in the sense of ‘existing in’; e.g.,

hastagata ‘held in the hand’. Although -gata is a passive participle of the root √gam ‘go’ and may be translated as ‘gone, passed, went, attained’, as Johnson (1847: 161) explains, “gata is occasionally added to certain words without necessarily implying the idea of ‘gone’; as hastagata.” Tubb and Boose (2007: 194, §2.19.4) describe -gata as an idiomatic term at the end of a compound used to mean “ ‘being in or on’, where no previous motion is implied,”

and conveying “a meaning expressed in other constructions by the locative case.” Indeed, as indicated in Speyer’s Sanskrit Syntax (1886, §197), hastagata is a participle used as the equivalent of a locative, and can be translated as “in one’s hand.” Franco (2007: 180 n. 67), citing a pramāṇa subcommentary of the ninth-century author Prajñākaragupta (PVABh 69.4: 22 [Ms. 27a8]), provides an example: ko hi hastagataṃ dravyaṃ pādagāmi kariṣyati / paraśucchedyatāṃ

ko vā nakhacchedye sahiṣyate // If something is in one’s hand, why should one try to hold it with the foot? If something can be cut with a finger-nail, who would take the trouble to cut it with an axe? The term dharmaparyāya (Pali dhammapariyāya, Tib. chos kyi rnam grangs) receives a long entry in Edgerton (1953, vol. 2, 279–80), and a brief genealogy of renditions provides

1. Similar observations on Buddhist textual culture have recently been made by Eubanks (2011) in regards to medieval Japan. This paper focuses on developments of Buddhist textual culture in South Asia as recorded in South, Central, and East Asian textual sources. 2. Pāli forms related to hastagata include hatthaga ‘being in the possession of’, hatthagata ‘fallen into the hand or possession of’. See Konow 1907: 154. The Visuddhimagga (§VIII 142) refers to the “hand-grasping question” (hatthaga-hana-pañhā). None of these occurrences in Pāli is related to holding books.

a variety of translations of the term. Dharmaparyāya is translated by Burnouf (1852: 714) as “discours religieux,” by Hurvitz (1976: 119, 372–73) as “Dharma-circuit,” by Zimmermann (2002: 144) as “Dharma discourse,” by Nattier (2003: 260, 319–30) as “Dharma-text,” by Skilling (2009: 63) as “turn of the teaching,” and by von Hinüber (2012: 60) as “exposition of the Dharma.” The term can refer, according to Schopen (1989: 135 n. 9), to both “a discourse on

the Doctrine” and the text that contains it. As Schopen notes, the term dharmaparyāya in relation to terms of embodiment such as “carrying on one’s head” (mūrdhani dhārayeta, Kern and Nanjio 1908–12: 99.2) or “carrying on one’s shoulder” (aṃsena pariharati, Kern and Nanjio 1908–12: 338.4), or, even, in relation to hands (hastagata), leads to an ambiguity as to whether these phrases are figures of speech or actual practices. I will suggest that in the development of textual discourse among Mahāyānists such phrases are simultaneously figurative and literal, as both references are possible, depending upon whether the discourse was being orally transmitted or transmitted through writing (Skilling 2009). As I will argue below, Dharma-discourses could oscillate between oral and written forms as they became embodied within individuals.

the embodied sAcred presence of dhArmA-discourse The initial developments of Mahāyāna Dharma-discourses as embodied discourses were most likely oral. 3 A good example of evidence for initial oral embodiment and entrustment is found in the An Xuan 安玄 and Yan Fotiao 嚴佛調 version 4 preserved in Chinese translation (T. no. 322, 8. 22b13–24) of the Ugraparipṛcchā (“The Inquiry of Ugra”), the Fa jing jing 法鏡經 translated around 181 c.e. In section 33A of Nattier’s English rendition (2003:

3. In later sections of this paper I will be documenting the gradual development of the core text of a Dharma-discourse, whose content initially represents itself in oral idioms, such as hearing, listening, reciting, and memorizing, but then upon which there accrete more and more textual additions that point to a concrete physical representation of the Dharma-discourse as a protective or prophylactic textual object through the addition of markers that indicate a Dharma-discourse’s written and sacred textuality. The earliest sources of Mahāyāna literature available are exemplars preserved in versions translated

into Chinese or fragmentary remains of Indic-based texts recovered from sites such as Gandhāra, Gilgit, or Central Asia. As Nattier (2003: 13–16) explains, a great amount of “what we have today are written canonical documents that originated as oral texts” but that the social and historical processes that took place to produce “what are now known as ‘Mahāyāna sūtras’ took place off-camera—that is, were never documented in written form . . .” Harrison (1993: 139–40) points out that “In fact their [i.e., Mahāyāna sūtras’] level of development, both in form and content, shows . . . that the Mahāyāna reached China in full bloom, with perhaps several centuries of growth behind it, while the texts with which it made its initial impact there . . . represent a fairly

advanced stage in a long literary tradition.” Even though we do not have access to the “off-camera” stages of the beginning developments of a Dharma- discourse, we do have access to snapshots of the developments of specific Mahāyāna discourses as preserved in Indic languages, Chinese, and Tibetan. Although the textual situation of such multiple snapshots is extremely complex, I concur with Nattier’s observation that multiple exemplars from various preserved versions can serve as an indicator of general trends in the development of a text in medieval South Asian culture. In other words, the textual

scholar can observe the gradual processes of textual accretion and that “Like a geologist analyzing the relative ages of a series of sedimentary layers, the textual analyst can thus identify older and newer strata in the text based on the level at which each item was added” (Nattier 2003: 37). 4. I follow Karashima’s (2011: xii) distinction between “translation” and version of a text, as it is inaccurate to think that there was just one original text “from which the Chinese and Tibetan translations were made at different periods of time.” As Lamotte (1965, cited after English translation: 1998: xv) observed

decades ago, and as Schopen (2009, 2012) has clearly demonstrated, following upon Ruegg’s (2004: 21) suggestion, there was not any single Urtext traceable to a unique archetype of any Mahāyāna sūtra, as there could be multiple variant versions of a sūtra at the same time from the same place (Schopen 2009: 193). Therefore, a Chinese or Tibetan translation “should not be regarded simply as ‘a translation’ of the text but as ‘a version’ representing a certain stage at which the text developed” (Karashima 2011: xii).

318–19), the Buddha entrusts the dharmaparyāya, or Dharma-text, to Ānanda and states the following (emphasis added): O Ānanda, as soon as one hears this Dharma-text, one will attain the virtues, the stamina, and the many qualities (dharmas) of the bodhisattva, whereas one whose exertion is weak could not do so. Therefore, O Ānanda, one who wishes to bring forth exertion in himself and incite others to exertion, and who wishes to dwell and establish others, should listen to this Dharma-text. O Ānanda, I entrust this Dharma-text to you, so that it may be widely taught. Although we will return to the importance of entrustment vignettes below, the idea in this example is that the dharmaparyāya contains qualities of Buddhahood that the reciter and auditor may come to embody. Notably, this early entrustment vignette of the Ugraparipṛcchā does not mention books or the placing of Dharma-texts, the dharmaparyāya, in someone’s hands. On the other hand, there is evidence that early in the history of these Buddhist discourses, subsequently classified as “Mahāyāna sūtras,” 5 the text in the form of a book 6 itself had power as an embodiment of Buddhahood. The earliest complete version of the Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitāsūtra, the Daoxingbore jing 道行般若經, translated by Lokakṣema 支婁 迦讖 in 179 c.e., states: Furthermore, Kausika, once the prajñāpāramitā has already been copied, even though one cannot study or recite it, if one [just] holds the scriptural roll [of the prajñāpāramitā], then either people or ghosts will not be able to harm [him]. 7 Vetter (1994: 1267) comments on this early Chinese translation: T[aishō]. 224 p. 431 c22–432a26, the oldest version of Aṣṭa[sāhasrikā] V 28,10–29,27, is, despite difficulties in details, clear in its structure; clearer than the Sanskrit passage, which is sometimes senselessly enlarged . . . [it] . . . shows there already existed a written form of the text, but it was not held in high esteem. In p. 431c22–24 it is indicated that there are persons who are not able to study and recite the text orally (and consequently, do not attain the results announced in the preceding passages). Such persons should hold a book containing the Prajñāpāramitā (in their hands?). Drewes (2007: 119 n. 21) states, with regard to the later extant Sanskrit text of this section of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā, that “The idea is that all that is necessary to obtain the promised benefits is to have a physical copy of the text, presumably in one’s home. One does not need to actually worship the sūtra or do anything else with it.” As Schopen (2010: 41, 44, 46) repeatedly argues in his most recent work on the topic, the dharmaparyāya could be a “powerful sacred

5. Nattier (2003: 10, 100–101) argues that labels such as “Mahāyāna sūtra” are “retrospective attributions” that obscure the social, historical, and contextual complexities of a given Dharma-discourse’s development among Buddhist communities. Nattier applies an alternative classification, “bodhisattva sūtra,” as well as proposing the theoretical model of “sūtrafication” to envision the processes of how a Dharma-discourse may have developed into an authentic text attributed to the Buddha. Pagel (2006: 75–76) disagrees with Nattier’s arguments, but does not provide a viable alternative to theorizing the gradual processes of a Dharma-discourse’s development, and settles for the emic standard designation “Mahāyāna sūtra.” 6. Falk and Karashima (2012) have recently published fragments of a first-century Prajñāpāramitā birch-bark manuscript, closely resembling the version of Lokakṣema, written in the Gāndhārī language in Kharoṣṭhī script, bearing a colophon that speaks of the manuscript fragment as the first “book” (G. postaka, Skt. pustaka) of the Prajñāpāramitā (G. prañaparamida). Regardless of whether these Gāndhārī fragments are actually related to any preserved version of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā (Indic or Chinese), this evidence does indicate that a Prajñāpāramitā existed in book form in the first century. 7. Karashima (2011: 65; T. no. 224, 12. 431c22–24): 復次，拘翼！般若波羅蜜書已，雖不能學、不能誦 者，當持其經卷，若人、若鬼神不能中害. Translation also in Fronsdal 1998: 186.

object” that had a “prophylactic function” and “protective presence.” In fact, it may be the case that treating the dharmaparyāya as a protective sacred object preceded the development of worshipping the text. Following the philological evidence in the various versions of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā of these particular sentences, as presented in Karashima’s (2011: 65) masterful critical edition of Lokakṣema’s version, we find an interesting development. After the phrase “if one [just] holds the scriptural roll” in Lokakṣema’s version, all the later Chinese, Sanskrit, and Tibetan versions add the phrase “having made a book, worshipped it, and placed it” (p. 65 n. 98; Skt. pustagatāṃ kṛtvā pūjapūrvaṃgamaṃ sthāpayitvā). As Karashima notes, the older versions of Lokakṣema (179 c.e.), Zhi Qian 支謙 (fl. ca. 220–257), Zhu Fonian 竺佛念 (382 c.e.), and Kumārajīva 鳩摩羅什 (408 c.e.) lack this additional phrase. 8

Embodying the dharmaparyāya in oneself through recitation and memorization or through holding it in book form is attested from the times of the earliest extant exemplars of preserved Mahāyāna sūtras. The simultaneous embodying of the Dharma-discourse through the book or through memorization is mentioned in a number of Mahāyāna sūtras, as evident several times in the Sanskrit versions of both the Aṣṭasāhasrikā and the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka 9 in the phrase kāyagatā vā bhaviṣyati pustakagatā vā “through bearing in body or bearing in a book.” 10 The Akṣayamatinirdeśasūtra also mentions both oral and textual embodiment, as well as providing a metaphor or, as I will argue below, a literal statement that indicates the tactile nature of the dharmaparyāya, when the text states: “As for the bodhisattva who knows this exposition by heart or has written it down in a book, for him all the qualities of a Buddha should be known as being in the palm of his hand.” 11 The embodying of the Dharma-discourse in the book or in the body is paralleled through the veneration or worship of either the Dharma-discourse, often in the form of a book, or the one who has memorized and preaches the Dharma-discourse, the dharmabhāṇaka. An example of venerating either the oral or textual embodiment of the Dharma-discourse is found in the sixth/seventh-century Gilgit version of the Sarvadharmaguṇavyūharāja. In the initial entrustment episode (von Criegern 2012, §22) of the sūtra where the Buddha passes the dharmaparyāya, equal to the Tathāgata (tathāgatasama), to Vajrapāṇi, the bodhisattva-mahāsattva Vajrapāṇi responds in the following manner:

8. Note that the two occurrences in the Aṣṭasāhasrikā of the expression caityabhūta that both Schopen and Drewes direct attention towards are missing in the early Chinese translations. As already indicated by Vetter (1994: 1267) and noted by Karashima (2011: 66 n. 110), the phrase caityabhūtaḥ kṛto is missing in the corresponding sections of the Chinese versions of Lokakṣema (T. no. 224, 8. 432a3), Zhi Qian (T. no. 225, 8. 484a10), and Zhu Fonian (T. no. 226, 8. 515b10). Likewise, the term caityabhūto (Karashima 2011: 68 n. 130) is missing in the Chinese versions of Lokakṣema (T. no. 224, 8. 432a19.), Zhi Qian (T. no. 225, 8. 484a18), Zhu Fonian (T. no. 226, 8. 514b25), Kumārajīva (T. no. 227, 8. 542b29), and Xuanzang (T. no. 220, 5. 873c3). 9. There are Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan versions of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra. I will cite the critical edition of Kern and Nanjio 1908–12 for Sanskrit citations. However, there are multiple versions in Sanskrit and Chinese. There are three main lines of transmission preserved among the Sanskrit versions, including the Nepalese, the Central Asian, and the Gilgit manuscripts. For a recent overview of the preserved Sanskrit versions see Tsukamoto (2007: 31–34) and von Hinüber (2012). The most important Chinese versions for the purposes of this study are Dharmarakṣa’s Zhengfahua jing 正法華經 (T. no. 263, 9) completed in 286 c.e. and Kumārajīva’s Miaofalianhua jing 妙法蓮華經 (T. no. 262, 9) translated in 406 c.e. Surendrabodhi and Ye-shes-sde’s Tibetan Dam pa’i chos pad ma dkar po shes bya ba theg pa chen po’i mdo (Derge 113, mdo sde Ja, 1b1–180b7) was completed in the ninth century. 10. Saddharmapuṇḍarīka (Kern and Nanjio 1908–12: 282.11, 395.4–5); Aṣṭasāhasrikā (Wogiwara 1932–35: 582, 930–31; cf. translation Conze 1973: 184, 277–78). 11. Braarvig 1993, vol. II, p. 583, Tibetan, vol. I, p. 156: byang chub sems dpa’ gang chos kyi rnam grangs ’di lus la yong ba’am glegs bam du byas kyang rung ste / sangs rgyas kyi chos thams cad de’i lag mthil du phyin par shes par bya’o /

udgṛhīto me bhagavann ayan dharmaparyāya⟨ḥ,⟩ dhāraṇāya vācanāya pūjanāya saṃśrāvaṇāya, tāṃś ca dharmabhāṇakān pū(ja)|yiṣye ; yaś cāsya dharmaparyāyasya teṣān dharmabhāṇakānāṃ pūjāṅ kariṣyati (ma|māp)i (sa pūja)k(aḥ, ta)syāhāṃ bhagavan rakṣāṃ kariṣyāmi, paripālayi(ṣyāmi) || (kṛtajño) ’han tathāgatasya. 12 Having received, Blessed One, this Dharma-discourse, in order to preserve it, to recite it, to worship it, to present it, I will revere Dharma-preachers; and those who perform worship of the Dharma-discourse and Dharma-preachers, worship me as well. For that [[[Wikipedia:individual|individual]]] I will grant protection, I will guard [them]; I am grateful to the Tathāgata. This entrustment vignette, directed at Vajrapāṇi and announced to the audience of the Dharma-discourse, indicates that the Dharma-discourse and Dharma-preacher are both worshipped and venerated and are regarded as equal embodiments of the Tathāgata. 13 Other sūtras

indicate these relations as well. The opening three sections of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka’s tenth chapter on dharmabhāṇakas, the Dharmabhāṇakaparivarta, establishes that the sūtra is equivalent to the Buddha, that the sūtra is recited and carried by dharmabhāṇakas, and that the dharmabhāṇaka who bears the book is the same as a Buddha. Manuscript materials found among the sixth/seventh-century manuscripts from Gilgit, such as the Saṃghāṭa Sūtra 14 and the aforementioned Sarvadharmaguṇavyūharājasūtra, 15 repeatedly state that the dharmabhāṇaka is like a Tathāgata and should be venerated. In brief, these sūtras suggest coalescence between the Buddha, the sūtra, and the dharmabhāṇaka reciter. Furthermore, a text such as the Pratyutpanna-Buddha-

Saṃmukhāvasthita-Samādhi-Sūtra (Harrison 1990), even in its earliest Chinese version translated by Lokaṣema in 179 c.e., expresses this relationship through reference to hands. The most relevant citation is as follows: If this Dharma teaching comes into people’s hands and they preserve and practice this sūtra-text, wholeheartedly treat them like Buddhas; afterwards study and recite this meditation. 16

12. I have retained the editorial marks of von Criegern’s (2012: 85) edition. Cf. Kanjur Tibetan (p. 139): bcom ldan ’das chos kyi rnam grangs ’di gzung bar bgyi ba dang / bklag par bgyi ba dang / mchod par bgyi ba dang / nyan du gzhug par bgyi ba’i slad du bdag gis bzung lags so / /chos smra ba de dag la yang mchod par bgyi / brjed par bgyi’o / / gang chos kyi rnams grangs ’di dang / chos smra ba de dag la mchod pa bgyid pa de ni bdag la yang mchod pa bgyid pa lags te / de ni bdag gis bsrung bar bgyi / yongs su bskyang bar bgyi ste / bdag ni de bzhin gshegs pa la bka’ drin gzo bar bgyid do / / I would like to acknowledge Oliver von Criegern for his kindness in sending me a microfilm copy of his edition of the Gilgit Sarvadharmaguṇavyūharāja. 13. The equivalence of the dharmabhāṇaka and dharmaparyāya is also illustrated through the interchange of these two terms between the Sanskrit and Tibetan versions of the

Aparimitāyuḥ Sūtra (Konow 1916: 319, vs. 29), where the Sanskrit reads ya idaṃ dharmabhāṇakaṃ pūjayiṣyati tena sakalasamāptaḥ saddharmaḥ pūjito bhavati, and the Tibetan reads gang la la zhig chos kyi rnam grangs [= dharmaparyāya] ’di la mchod pa byed par ’gyur ba des dam pa’i chos mtha’ dag chub par mchod par ’gyur ro. I do not have access to the edition by Wallesser (1916), but the English translations of this edition by Silk (2004: 427) and Payne (2007: 299) do not mention this section. 14. Saṃghāṭasūtra §45, Canevascini 1993: 45: bhagavān āha. dharmabhāṇakaḥ sarvaśūra tathāgatasamo jñātavyaḥ. sarvaśūra āha. katamo dharmabhāṇakaḥ. bhagavān āha. yaḥ saṃghāṭaṃ sūtraṃ śrāvayati sa dharmabhāṇakaḥ. “The Blessed One said, ‘A dharma-preacher (dharmabhāṇaka), Sarvaśūra, should be understood as identical to the Tathāgata.’ Sarvaśūra said: ‘Which dharma-preacher?’ The Blessed One said, ‘One who recites the

Saṃghāṭa sūtra.’” This citation of the sūtra is also found in von Hinüber 2012: 62. 15. Sarvadharmaguṇavyūharāja (von Criegern 2012), §8: Skt. p. 62, Tib. p. 118; §26: Skt. p. 91, Tib. p. 146; §29: Skt. p. 95, Tib. p. 151. 16. The sūtra mentions this relation in at least six verses: “Those into whose hands these great sūtras pass at the time of the final destruction, given pride of place as [my] eldest sons, they are lauded and extolled, and their praises are sung” (Harrison 1990: 120 [14j (15); Harrison and McRae 1998: 60 differs]); “They into whose hands this most excellent samādhi passes in the last age, will well and truly gain the finest possession, and will also receive inconceivable dharmas” (Harrison 1990: 129 [15P (8); Harrison and McRae 1998: 68–69 differs]); “Those who apply themselves constantly, and firmly direct their mindfulness to this dharma, difficult to see, for the benefit and

In extant Indian exemplars, the specific phrase dharmaparyāyo hastagato “having the Dharma-discourse in one’s hand” occurs twice in both the Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra and Vimalakīrtinirdeśa. As I have mentioned, the Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra exhibits a number of embodying phrases (see Schopen 1989: 135 n. 9), and I think that the formula “in one’s hand” (hastagata) adds to the list. The participle hastagata occurs twice and the locative of hasta in relation to the dharmaparyāya occurs twice as well. The twenty-sixth chapter of the Sanskrit version of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra explains that this

dharmaparyāya will be in the hands (hastagato bhaviṣyati) of a woman endowed with four qualities, including qualities such as planting wholesome roots and producing the thought of unexcelled enlightenment. Kumārajīva’s Chinese version lacks the reference to hands and reads, as translated by Kubo and Yuyama (2007: 331–32, emphasis added), that “sons and daughters of a virtuous family will definitely attain this sūtra after the parinirvāṇa of the Tathāgata if they perfect these four accomplishments.” Hurvitz (1976: 413 n. 1) translates the Sanskrit phrase hastagato bhaviṣyati as “within the grip of a woman.” Among modern translators only Burnouf’s (1852: 277) French translation translates “in the hands” literally. Based on the evidence presented, an alternative translation for the Sanskrit versions would be as follows: ebhiḥ kulaputra caturbhir dharmaiḥ samanvāgatasya mātṛgrāmasyāyaṃ saddharmapuṇḍarīko dharmaparyāyo hastagato bhaviṣyati / (Kern and Nanjio 1908–12: 474.1–2) Son of good family, it is a woman endowed with these four qualities who will have the Dharma discourse of the White Lotus of the True Dharma in her hands. The other instance of dharmaparyāyo hastagato in the Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra

occurs in a section related to the verb pra √car, as in Jambudvīpe pracaramāṇaḥ, which, according to Skilling, conceptually illustrates how Mahāyāna sūtras circulated in India. This section states: Bhagavan, when this Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra-dharmaparyāya circulates in Jambudvīpa, the Bodhisattva Mahāsattvas who have it in their hands, those dharma-bhāṇakas should know this: It is by power of the Bodhisattva Mahāsattva Samantabhadra that this dharmaparyāya has come into our hands, by the might of the Bodhisattva Mahāsattva Samantabhadra. 17 The twenty-sixth chapter of the Sanskrit version of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra (Kern and Nanjio 1908–12: 481.6–7), in the context of explaining how to regard dharmabhāṇakas, also states: yaḥ samantabhadra paścime kāle paścime samaye paścimāyāṃ pañcaśatyāṃ vartamānāyām asya saddharmapuṇḍarīkasya dharmaparyāyasya dhārakaṃ bhikṣuṃ paśyet . . . Whoever, Samantabhadra, may at the latter time, on the latter occasion, 18 when the last five hundred years are in progress, see a monk holding a Dharma discourse of the White Lotus of the True Dharma . .

. support of beings, into their hands shall this samādhi pass” (Harrison 1990: 195 [24J (4): Not preserved in 1998, T no. 418 version]). 17. Skilling 2004: 192; Kern and Nanjio 1908–12: 477.7: ayaṃ ca bhagavan saddharmapuṇḍarīko dharmaparyāyo ’smin jambudvīpe pracaramāṇo yeṣāṃ bodhisattvānāṃ mahāsattvānāṃ hastagato bhaviṣyati, tair bhagavan dharmabhāṇakair evaṃ veditavyam samantabhadrasya bodhisattvasya mahāsattvasyānubhāvena yad asmākam ayaṃ dharmaparyāyo hastagataḥ samantabhadrasya bodhisattvasya mahāsattvasya tejasā / 18. On the translation of paścime kāle paścime samaye and its ramifications in Buddhist cosmology see Nattier (1991: 91–94, 101–10).

The term dhāraka, which Edgerton (1953, vol. 2, p. 284) states may occur as an adjective or substantive, is derived from the root √dhṛ, ‘to hold’ or ‘to grasp’ and, as recently argued by Schopen (2010: 59 n. 67), signifies, “first of all ‘to hold, carry, keep, preserve’ a material object.” As noted by Zimmermann (1999: 163–64 n. 44), the Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra at the end of the twentieth chapter of the Sanskrit version (Kern and Nanjio 1908–12: 392–93) uses forms of dhārayati in relative clauses: ye dhārayiṣyanti ’maṃ sūtram agraṃ (20.5c), ye sūtra dhārenti idaṃ śubhaṃ sadā (6d), bhaveyu yo dhārayi sūtram etat (9d), yo dhārayet sūtr’ imu bhūtadharmam (10d), yo dhārayet sūtram idaṃ viśiṣṭam (11d). These verses are replicated in three verses of the Tathāgatagarbhasūtra (see below) that are also comprised of stereotyped relative clauses which mention holding the sūtra in one’s hands. The Tibetan

version (D. 146a) uses the verb ’dzin pa ‘to grasp’ and likewise the Chinese version of Kumārajīva in this section (T. no. 262, 9. 52b6–52c1) repeatedly uses the verb chi 持 ‘to grasp’. 19 In the context of these passages, the dharmaparyāya, as a book, functions like an emblem that one could see someone carrying. Two phrases related to placing the Dharma-discourse in the hands are found in the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa. The first occurrence is what initially caught my attention for this article. In section 11.9 of Lamotte’s translation (1976: 249–50), he provides a rendition as well as a Sanskrit reconstruction: Beings who thoroughly grasp (udgṛhanti) this excellent interpretation of the Law (dharmaparyāya) will obtain the precious treasure of the Law (dharmaratnanidhāna). Lamotte’s translation, based on a Sanskrit reconstruction from the Tibetan in consultation with other Sanskrit Mahāyāna sūtra exemplars, reflects the ambiguity between a literal and figurative understanding of “grasping” a sūtra. Thurman (1976: 95), following in Lamotte’s

footsteps, translates the “grasping” as a cognitive act: “Those living beings who understand correctly this teaching of the Dharma will obtain the treasury of the jewels of the Dharma.” However, an eleventh-to-thirteenth-century Sanskrit manuscript subsequently recovered from Lhasa Tibet by a team of Japanese scholars provides the following Sanskrit: te dharmaratnanidhānaprāptā bhaviṣyanti, yeṣām ayaṃ dharmaparyāyo hastagato bhaviṣyati / Those who have this Dharma-discourse in their hand will obtain a precious treasure of the Dharma. 20 All extant Tibetan and Chinese versions of this section support a similar translation. 21

19. As noted by Ng (2007: 238), the “word chi 持 (‘to hold’, ‘to maintain’, or ‘to support’) is frequently used to translate words derived from the [[[Sanskrit]]] verb dhṛ . . .” Copp (2008: 493) notes in his discussion of medieval Chinese dhāraṇīs, that the term dhāraṇī is translated into Chinese with variants of the verb chi 持 ‘to grasp’ and that the “primary usages of the term . . . [are] . . . to hold . . . and to understand.” If one examines the basic anatomy of the Chinese character chi 持, the left radical indicates shou 手 ‘hand’, and its right radical si 寺 is a phonetic marker that is

semantically understood as zhi 止 ‘to stop, to retain or to keep’, which also appears with the radical shou 手 in a Chinese bronze inscription of chi 持 (Kamada and Yoneyama 2004: 591). Thus the basic literal meaning of the character chi 持, which Kumārajīva frequently uses in his translations, is “to hold [things] in one’s hand.” 20. See Taisho Daigaku 2004: 462. Harrison (2010) provides notes on the Sanskrit version in comparison with the Chinese versions. Note that, after comparison with the Sanskrit manuscript discovered in the Potala Palace in 1999, the vast majority of Lamotte’s reconstructions are

inaccurate. 21. Tib. D 234b2: chos kyi rnams grangs ’di gang dag gi sug par gyur pa de dag kyang rin po che’i gter rnyed par ’gyur ro /. Zhi Qian, Weimojie jing 維摩詰經, translated between 223 and 228 c.e., T. no. 474, 8. 535b5–6: 如 有手執翫習諷讀。是為得佛行念。 “[Those who] take [this dharma] in [their] hands, study, and recite [it] will attain a Buddha’s deeds and mind.” Kumārajīva, Weimojie suoshuo jing 維摩詰所說經, translated 406 c.e., T. no. 475, 8. 555c22–23: 若有手得是經典者。便為已得法寶之藏。 “Those who obtain this scriptural roll in [their] hands will obtain the storehouse of the Dharma jewel.” McRae’s translation (Harrison and McRae 2004: 169) of

The other occurrence in the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa is accurately represented by Lamotte (1976: 271) and Thurman. Lamotte’s translation reads, “As for the sons and daughters of good family who, in the future, will practice the Mahāyāna and will be worthy recipients of the true Law, I will place in their hands this profound Sūtrānta.” 22 The Gilgit version of the Sarvadharmaguṇavyūharājasūtra mentions having the Dharmadiscourse in the hands and the conditions of its circulation when the text states: (nā)||yaṃ kulaputra dharmaparyāyo alpapuṇyānāṃ satvānāṃ viṣaye pracari(ṣ)y(a)|ti, nāyam alpapuṇyāḥ satvāḥ śakṣyanti

likhituṃ likhāpayituṃ, nāyam alpa|puṇyānāṃ satvānāṃ saṃśrāvaṇaṃ bhaviṣyati, na hastagato bhaviṣyati; yasya |(kasyac)i(d bu)ddhānubhāvena hastagato bhavet⟨,⟩ saṃśrāvayet⟨,⟩ tenaiva likhitavyaḥ (t)e(n)ai(va |likhāpayitavyaḥ vāca)yitavyaḥ. 23 Son of good family, this Dharma-discourse will not circulate in the area of living beings with little merit, they will not be able to write it or have it written down, nor will living beings with little merit hear this [Dharma-discourse], it will not be in their hands. He who gets [it] by the power of the Buddha into his hands, [or] acquires by hearing, should write it, should have it written, and recite it. A number of other Mahāyāna sūtras will also state a relationship between acquiring the sūtra and having the sūtra, as a textual object, in one’s hands. The Dharmasaṃgītisūtra, in its ninth-century Tibetan Kanjur version, states that one will hold the Dharma-discourse as a

“dharma treasure” in his hands just as in the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa. 24 The Sarvapuṇyasamuccayasamādhisūtra, recently identified by Paul Harrison with the Sanskrit found in chapter ten of Śāntideva’s Śikṣāsamuccaya and traced back to Dharmarakṣa’s late-third-century version, 25 indicates that dharma-treasures (i.e., Mahāyāna sūtras) will be deposited in the interiors of mountains, caves, and trees for bodhisattvas and mahāsattvas wanting the dharma and that “endless dharma-teachings in book-form come into their hands” (dharmamukhāny anantāni pustakagatāni karatalagatāni bhavanti). Section 12C of

Zimmerman’s translation of the early-fifth-century Chinese Tathāgatagarbhasūtra repeats three times at the end of the discourse that “one in whose hand the sūtra is found” is worthy of worship and veneration. Furthermore, several sūtras use a form of prediction (vyākaraṇa), an essential idea in the formulation of the bodhisattva path (Dayal 1932: 67–75; Fronsdal 1998: 249–70), to foretell that those who have faith and devotion to a particular Dharma-discourse will receive it in their hands on a future occasion. The Tibetan version of the Ratnajālīparipṛcchāsūtra (D. 163, fol. 150b1–3) states:

Kumārajīva provides a different nuance from the literal phrase: “Those who get hold of this sutra will attain the [entire] storehouse (i.e., treasury) of the Dharma jewel.” Xuanzang, Shuowugoucheng jing 說無垢稱經, translated 650 c.e., T. no. 476, 14. 585b29: 若諸有情手得如是殊勝法門。便為獲得法珍寶藏。 “Various sentient beings who obtain a supreme dharma teaching like this in [their] hands will attain a storehouse of a rare jewel of dharma.” 22. Cf. Thurman (1976: 102): “In the future, I will place in the hands of noble sons and noble daughters who are worthy vessels of the holy Dharma this profound teaching.” Taisho Daigaku 2004: 502, §12.20: teṣāṃ cānāgatānāṃ kulaputrāṇāṃ kuladuhitṛṇāṃ bhājanībhūtānām imān evaṃrūpān sūtrāntān hastagatān kariṣyāmaḥ / 23. von Criegern (2012: 83); cf. Kanjur Tibetan (idem, p. 137): . . . lag tu ’ong bar mi ’gyur ro/ / sangs rgyas kyi mthus gang gi lag tu ’ongs . . . 24.

Dharmasaṃgītisūtra, Derge, mdo sde Sha 97b: byang chub sems dpa’ gang dag chos kyi rnam grangs ’di thos par ’gyur ba de dag ni rnyed pa chen po ’byor bar ’gyur ro/ /chos kyi rnam grangs ’di gang dag gi lag tu song ba de dag ni chos kyi gter chen po thob par ’gyur ro / “Those bodhisattvas who hear this Dharma-discourse will be endowed with a great acquisition. Those who have this Dharma-discourse in their hands (lag tu song ba = hastagata) will obtain a great Dharma-treasure.” 25. Harrison (2003: 125): “Nārāyana-paripṛcchā—it is in fact the Sarvapuṇya-samuccayasamādhi-sūtra (Spss), which survives only in Chinese (T. no.381 and no.382) and Tibetan translation.”

Once I explain [the Dharma-discourse] in this manner, those who have previously heard this [[[discourse]]] will obtain the sūtra in their hands (de yi lag tu ’di ’thob) at a later time in the future. For whoever has heard the teachings of this holy sūtra of mine, due to previous worship and veneration, will obtain this [[[sūtra]]] in their hands. Those who have made devoted prayers, in the future, the latter times, will obtain in their hands (mdo ’di lag tu ’thob pa) this sūtra which was spoken by the king of dharma. The same text continues in a later section (D. 163, fol. 156a1–2): Those who see the perfect Buddha, venerating and paying homage, will obtain in their hands (de yi lag tu ’thob pa) this sūtra in the future. The Tibetan version of the

Āryāvalokananāmamahāyānasūtra (D. 196, 258a) states: Whomever the Teacher, the one endowed with ten powers, the god among gods, teaches this sūtra in front of, that person will obtain at a future time a sūtra like this in their hands (mi de lag tu mdo sde ’di ’dra ’di/ /phyi ma’i dus kyi tshe na thob par ’gyur). The phrase “in the hands” therefore signifies that the Dharma-discourse was a tangible object that could be perceived and acquired. A solid example illustrating this is found in section 76 of Lamotte’s translation of the Śūraṃgamasamādhisūtra. Lamotte translates Kumārajīva’s fifth-century Chinese version as follows: The bodhisattva Dṛḍhamati asked the Buddha: Bhagavat, from which buddhakṣetra did this devaputra *Matyabhimukha come to this [Sahā]

universe? The devaputra said: What is the point of that question? Dṛḍhamati said: I would like to turn towards that place and pay homage to it, for it is the place travelled through and inhabited by such satpuruṣas. The devaputra said: It is those who hold this Śūraṃgamasamādhi in their hands that the whole world with its gods and mankind (sadevamanuṣyo loka) should venerate. 26 If there is a question regarding the literal or figurative understanding of the phrase “hold this Śūraṃgamasamādhi in their hands,” the Tibetan version is quite explicit: The devaputra said: Dṛḍhamati. It is those sentient beings who have in their hands this explanation of the Śūraṃgamasamādhi itself written in a book that the whole world along with its gods should venerate. 27 A final example, found in a sūtra known in Tibetan as the Mahāmokṣa (thar pa chen po), 28 provides a striking example of scripture as an embodied person of a Buddha as well as of the tactile power of holding the object in one’s hands:

26. Lamotte 1998: §76, p.168, Kumārajīva, T no. 642, 15. 636c22–26: 堅意菩薩白佛言。世尊。是現意天 子。從何佛土來至此間。天子謂言。問作向*等。堅意答言。我今欲何彼方作禮。以是大士遊行住處。天 子謂言。若人手得是首楞嚴三昧者。一切世間諸天人民皆應禮敬。 (*Read 向 xiang instead of 何 hé based on the “Three Editions of the Sung, Yuan and Ming.”) McRae’s rendition of the relevant portion of this section omits “in the hands” 手得. It reads: “The god answered, ‘One who attains this Śūraṅgama Samādhi will be personally reverenced by all the gods and people of all the worlds.’” (Harrison and McRae 1998: 44). 27. D.0133, vol. 055,

mdo sde, da 282b-283a; P, mdo sna tshogs, thu 308b1–4: lha’i bus smras pa/ blo gros brtan pa dpa’ bar ’gro ba’i ting nge ’dzin bshad pa ’di nyid glegs bam du bris nas gang dag gi lag tu song bar gyur pa’i sems can de dag kyang lha dang bcas pa’i ’jig rten gyis phyag bya ba yin no. The Tibetan version exhibits the “reiteration with additional examples” type of interpolation as discussed by Nattier (2003: 51–59). 28. In some Tibetan catalogs this sūtra is

considered a translation from a Chinese apocryphal version. A Tibetan manuscript kept at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (BSB Cod.tibet 922) at folio 211b–213a has a colophon that attributes the translation to Jinamitra and Yeshe sde, but then explains that there are problems with this attribution and that the sūtra may be from China instead of India. This sūtra was popular among Chinese and Tibetans at Dunhuang. On this sūtra and its Dunhuang versions see Stein (2010: 96, 226 with n. 56), Imaeda (2007: 117), Lindtner (1985: 8), Mala and Kimura (1988: 40).

Son of good family, those who read and bear in mind this sūtra will completely purify heavy afflictions of countless [lifetimes in] cyclic existence. Those who hear this sūtra will hear the name of the Buddha. Those who see this sūtra will see the face of the Buddha. Those who hold this sūtra, hold the body of the Buddha. Those who practice this sūtra, practice the deeds of a Buddha. Those who explain this sūtra, explain the deeds of a Buddha. Those who understand the meaning of this sūtra, understand the meaning of the Buddha. Those who perform the deeds of a Buddha and clearly realize the meaning of the Buddha will not have any afflictions at all. Why is that? Because those who have this sūtra in their hands are completely purified of afflictions. 29

A cAse study in buddhist biblioficAtion I have so far documented textual evidence to support the claim that the occurrence of the expression hastagata (Tib. lag tu song ba) “in the hand” implies that a Mahāyāna-based Dharma-discourse was in the form of a book and that it was held as a textual object infused with the presence of a Tathāgata. I have suggested that a number of such texts also support the memorization of the Dharma-discourse and that these texts may have initially existed as oral discourses before being written down. In the following pages we can observe the gradual development of a Dharma-discourse from a core text that initially represents itself in oral idioms to a text that represents itself as a written, tactile object through the

accretion of more and more textual additions that point toward a concrete physical form of the text. A case in point for this type of development, although rather late in terms of Buddhist textual evidence, is the Vasudhārādhāraṇī. The Vasudhārādhāraṇī, as discussed by Jaini (1968), is a short work written in Buddhist Sanskrit that is preserved in Indian, Nepalese, Chinese, and Tibetan versions. The Indian versions include a recently identified fragment from Gilgit, Sanskrit manuscripts found in Nepal and kept in Russia, and three manuscripts found among Jaina communities in Gujarat. The Vasudhārādhāraṇī is

also known as the Sucandragṛhapatiparipṛcchā (“The Inquiry of the Householder Sucandra”), and Jaini indicates that one of the manuscripts from Nepal is called Vasudhārā-vrata-kathā. Three versions are preserved in Chinese, including a translation by Xuanzang 玄奘 (c. 654, T. no. 1162, 20. Chishituoluoni jing 持世陀羅尼經), a translation by Amoghavajra (c. 750, T. no. 1163, 20. Yubaotuoluoni jing 雨寶陀羅尼經), and a translation by Fatian 法天 (c. 982, T. no. 1164, 20. Dasheng shengjixiang chishituoluoni jing 大乘聖吉 祥持世陀羅尼經). The Vasudhārādhāraṇī is listed in the ninth-century Tibetan catalog of the Lhan kar ma (Herrmann-Pfandt 2008: 204, §356), and two Tibetan versions of the work, having only minor differences between them, are found in the Derge Kanjur,

one classified as a tantra (rgyud), the ’Phags pa nor gyi rgyun zhes bya ba’i gzungs (Tôh. no. 662), and the other classified as a dhāraṇī (gzungs), the ’Phags pa nor gyi rgyun ces bya ba’i gzungs (Tôh. no. 1007). We note all these versions, as the textual stratification found in the various Indic versions corresponds to textual developments found in the Chinese and Tibetan versions. As

29. Tibetan: ’phags pa thar pa chen po phyogs su rgyas pa ’gyod tshangs kyis sdig sbyangs te sangs rgyas su grub par rnam par bkod pa zhes bya ba theg pa chen po’i mdo, Sanskrit: ārya-mahāmokṣadiśunpuṣyakrokramtyap āpaṃśodhana-nāma-mahāyāna-sūtra, D 264, mdo sde, ’a (vol. 67), fol. 237b7–338a2: rigs kyi bu/ mdo sde ’di klog pa dang ’chang ba ni/ ’khor ba grangs med pa’i nyon mongs pa sdig lci ba kun ’byang bar ’gyur ro / /gang mdo sde ’di thos pa ni/ sangs rgyas kyi mtshan thos pa’o / /gang mdo sde ’di mthong ba ni/ sangs rgyas kyi zhal mthong ba’o / /gang mdo sde ’di ’dzin pa ni/ sangs rgyas kyi sku ’dzin pa’o / /gang mdo sde ’di spyod pa ni/ sangs rgyas kyi mdzad pa spyod pa’o / /gang mdo sde ’di bshad pa ni/ sangs rgyas kyi mdzad pa bshad pa’o / /gang mdo sde ’di’i don shes pa ni/ sangs rgyas kyi don shes pa’o / /gang sangs rgyas kyi mdzad pa spyod pa dang / sangs rgyas kyi don legs par khrol ba de ni/ nyon mongs pa gtan med par ’gyur ro / /de ci’i phyir zhe na/ mdo sde ’di lag tu ’ongs pa’i phyir nyon mongs pa yongs su spangs par ’gyur ro /

will be shown below, these developments indicate an increasing emphasis on the domestic use of the dhāraṇī as a protective object. We find this evidence in two places in the various versions of the dhāraṇī and I will focus first on the most explicit interpolation that places emphasis on having the discourse in written form. In all versions of the Vasudhārādhāraṇī the Buddha is approached in the Kaṇṭaka grove in the city of Kośāmbī by a householder named Sucandra. Sucandra discloses to the Buddha that he is impoverished and asks the Buddha for a method whereby he can gain wealth to support his family and the

community. The Buddha then tells Sucandra that he acquired a dhāraṇī from a previous Tathāgata named Vajradharasāgaranirghoṣa incalculable aeons ago. The Buddha utters the dhāraṇī and instructs Sucandra, upon having heard it, on how to uphold the dhāraṇī and practice it. Sucandra, overjoyed upon hearing these instructions, promises to teach others what he has heard, and departs to begin the practice of the dhāraṇī. The Buddha then sends Ānanda to visit Sucandra, and Ānanda discovers that the householder’s treasury is filled with riches. Ānanda then asks the Buddha how the householder had rapidly gained such wealth. The Buddha then proceeds to explain to Ānanda the power of the dhāraṇī and the advantages of its practice. At this point, the Buddha tells

Ānanda, as represented in the sixth/seventh-century Gilgit version of the dhāraṇī: tena hy ānanda tvam udgṛhṇīṣvemāṃ vasudhārādhāraṇīṃ dhāraya grāhaya / vācaya / paryavāpnuhi / parebhyaś ca vistareṇa saṃprakāśaya / tad bhaviṣyati bahujanahitāya bahujanasukhāya lokānukampāyair mahato janakāyasyārthāya hitāya sukhāya devamanuṣyāṇām [GBM 1430(fol. 38)r] With this, Ānanda, you should uphold this Vasudhārādhāraṇī, bear it, take hold of it, recite it, master it, and expound it to others in detail. That will lead to the welfare of many people, to the happiness of many people, with compassion for the world, to the

benefit, welfare, and happiness of a number of people, and to that of gods and men. The Gilgit version emphasizes in this section a number of practices affiliated simply with oral recitation, teaching, and dissemination. Like the Gilgit rendition, the early version in the Chinese of Xuanzang (667b14–25) also continues on with a discussion of how the dhāraṇī will increase happiness in the world and among gods and men. However, the later Indian versions from Gujarat (Jaini 1968) and Nepal (Handurukande 2009) have at this point the following sentence, all of which is an interpolation (with underlined points of emphasis): yasya gṛhapater ānandeyaṃ dhāraṇī hastagatā pustakagatā bhaviṣyati / hṛdayagatā dhāritā vācitā cintitā śrutimātragatā gṛhagatā pustakagatā

pūjitā ca bhaviṣyati / tasya durbhikṣabhayaṃ na bhaviṣyati The householder, Ānanda, who will have this dhāraṇī in his hands as a book, who has it in his heart, upheld, recited, or merely heard, and will worship it in his house as a book, for him, there will be no fear of famine. As we have seen in the previous discussion, interpolations related to holding the Dharmadiscourse in the hand signal the tactile presence of an embodied Buddha. In addition to the hands, interpolations related to “in the house” are also found in this discourse, which indicate the domestic location of a Dharma-discourse, a

location that is typical in Mahāyāna literary sources (Schopen 2010: 49). As Jaini notes, the Vasudhārādhāraṇī is used by the Jaina community of Gujarat to propitiate the goddess of wealth on the New-Year day, and evidence indicates that the three manuscripts from Gujarat studied by Jaini were not recited in public places but were recited “in private homes and by non-Jaina teachers or priests” (1968: 33). Although we cannot

be sure how medieval Buddhists practiced this dhāraṇī, Shaw (2006: 251) comments that Tāranātha’s History of Buddhism in India describes the use of this dhāraṇī among tantric monastic preceptors such as Buddhajñāna for their own benefit, and she also explains that modern Tibetan Buddhist teachers, much like the Jainas, perform the rites of the goddess “at the behest of laypersons” (Shaw 2006: 260), as Vasudhārā is looked upon as a benefactress of the laity. This evidence coalesces with Schopen’s (2010: 49) arguments that written texts for medieval Indian Buddhists had a protective power that “resides simply in the physical presence of the book” and typically had a domestic location. This type of evidence represents what I will term “Buddhist bibliofication,” that is, the transvaluation of fixed oral discourse, along with its written representation of oral metaphors, ideals, and practices, to include concrete

reference to the sacred power of the book as a protective and/or prophylactic object. 30 We can observe the process of bibliofication in the Vasudhārādhāraṇī through a brief comparison of the seven extant exemplars in Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan. Although each of the seven versions has specific philological differences, all of them share a similar narrative structure. As mentioned above, there are two places in the shared narrative structure where interpolations related to the use of books are found. The first place in the narrative is where the Buddha explains to the householder

Sucandra how to practice the dhāraṇī. 31 The second location is where the Buddha explains to Ānanda how to practice the dhāraṇī. 32 In all versions in both places the idioms of orality that declare that the dhāraṇī must be “heard, taken up, preserved, mastered, recited, and declared to others” are preserved. However, interpolations related to bibliofication are increasingly found as the dhāraṇī textually develops through its history as preserved in Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan. The additions related to the process of Buddhist bibliofication are the additions of terms related to the use of books (Skt. pustakagata, Tib. glegs bam du chud pa, Ch. jing), having the dhāraṇī in one’s hand (Skt. hastagata, Tib. lag na yod pa, Ch. shou chi), and keeping the

dhāraṇī in a house (Skt. gṛhagata, Tib. khyim na yod pa, Ch. zai wu shezhai or jia). The chart below depicts the process of bibliofication through the occurrence of these additions. Although this case study from the Vasudhārādhāraṇī is textually rather late and consists of a set of textual versions related to only one example, it does give insight into how the process of Buddhist bibliofication may have taken place. This example suggests that concrete discourse on the sacred power of the book was a gradual development; that books were held like a relic of embodied presence of Buddhahood in one’s hands;

and that the location of the sacred presence of the dharmaparyāya was a domestic one, either in a domestic household, or as Schopen (2010: 49) suggests, the private room of a monk that was considered non- public space. This evidence also matches well with texts like the Aparimitāyuḥ Sūtra that repeat “having made it into a book, they will keep it and they will read it at home . . .” (pustagatām api kṛtvā gṛhe dhārayiṣyanti vācayiṣyanti) 33 or the Lalitavistara stating that “The Tathāgata always dwells

30. Although I initially thought that I had coined this term, a definition for bibliofication in the study of religion is found in Esmail (2011: 57) as “the transcription of oral, spontaneous discourse, uncomposed and inconclusive, into a compiled and conclusive book or scripture.” 31. Vasudhārādhāraṇī, Gilgit (GBM 1428, fol. 37r- GBM 1429, fol. 37v), Xuanzang (T. no. 1162, 20. 666c29– 667a06), Amoghavajra (T. no. 1163, 20. 668a16–18), Fatian (T. no. 1164, 20. 670b2–8), Tibetan (Derge 662, vol. BA, fol. 187b4–5), Nepal (Handurukande 2009: 55), Gujarat (Jaini 1968: 39). 32. Vasudhārādhāraṇī, Gilgit (GBM 1430, fol.38r), Xuanzang (T. no.1162, 20. 667b14–25), Amoghavajra (T. no.1163, 20. 668b25-c04), Fatian (T. no.1164, 20. 671b14–18), Tibetan (Derge 662, vol. BA, fol. 189a5–7), Nepal (Handurukande 2009: 56), Gujarat (Jaini 1968: 43). 33. See the edition of Konow 1916: 299, 301.

in the house of him where this jewel of a sūtra should stay” (Lefmann 1902: 444.5–6, 27.8cd: gṛhe sthitas tasya tathāgataḥ sadā tiṣṭhed idaṃ yatra hi sūtraratnam).

the biblioficAtion of entrustment As mentioned above, entrustment vignettes that occur in Mahāyāna sūtras are important locations for thinking about how the dharmaparyāya was transmitted in the context of South Asian textual culture. In Schopen’s (2010: 43) study on the book in medieval Indian culture, where he compares Hindu purāṇas with Mahāyāna sūtras, he notes Pratapaditya Pal’s statement that “Usually, the last chapter of a purāṇa . . . is devoted to extolling the merits of reciting, writing, donating, and worshipping the text” (Pal and Meech 1988: 29) and mentions Donald Lopez’s (2004) observation that “It is typical for a Mahāyāna sūtra to conclude with a description, often of considerable length, of the extraordinary benefits to be received by those who in some way revere the sūtra.” In the case of many Mahāyāna sūtras, the end section or chapter of the particular sūtra is entrusted to some worthy person

(Rawlinson 1977: 7), and the wondrous benefits that will accrue to anyone who copies, reads, recites, etc., are announced to the audience of the sūtra. Lamotte (1954: 383) provided a brief summary of the end section of a Mahāyāna sūtra, or what he termed a Vaipulya: On voit à peu près comment elle s’est formée: à la différence des anciens sūtra, les Vaipulya se terminent généralement par un dédicace (parīndanā) où le Buddha dédie et confie à l’un ou

l’autre de ses auditeurs le sūtra qu’il vient de prêcher ‹de façon à ce qu’il ne disparaisse pas›. Ainsi les Prajñāpāramitā sont confiées à Ānanda, le Saddharmapuṇḍarīka à une troupe de grands bodisattva, le Tathāgataguhyanirdeśa, section du Ratnakūṭa, au bodhisattva Guhyaka Vajrapāṇi, la Vimalakīrti à Maitreya, le Saṃdhinirmocana à Mañjuśrī, etc. The key term found in this end section, or quite often chapter (parivarta), 34 of a Mahāyāna sūtra is parīndanā and its hybrid variants. As note by Edgerton, the related verb parindāmi

34. The term parivarta can mean ‘exposition’, ‘discourse’, or ‘chapter’, and is quite often translated in Chinese as pin 品 or Tibetan as le’u. There is no scholarly consensus on whether chapter titles were added to Mahāyāna

Bibliofication in the Vasudhārādhāraṇī Text First Citation Second Citation 7th century, Gilgit, Sanskrit Oral idioms Oral idioms 7th century, tr. Xuanzang, Chinese Oral idioms Oral idioms 8th century, tr. Amoghavarja, Chinese Oral idioms Hand Oral idioms House 9th century, Tibetan Oral idioms Book House Oral idioms Book House 10th century, Fatian, Chinese Oral idioms House Hand Oral idioms House 16th century, Nepal, Sanskrit Oral idioms House Hand Book Oral idioms House Hand Book 17th century, Gujarat, Sanskrit Oral idioms House Hand Book Oral idioms House Hand Book

(1953: 326, col.1), or parīndāmi (1953: 333, col.1), is an unexplained formation peculiar to Buddhist Sanskrit that can literally mean “I present, I hand over.” 35 As indicated in the following notes, the Tibetan translation is lag tu gtang kyis “through placing in the hand(s),” indicating a tactile object as the result of the verb. As discussed by Lopez (2004: 37–38, 350–52, 423–24) and argued by Schopen (2010: 43), a concern among a number of modern scholars is whether the end section that is found in a Mahāyāna sūtra is an interpolation added to an earlier text, an “add-on,” or a type of advertisement intentionally placed at the end from the time of the sūtra’s compilation. Schopen argues for the latter and states: “Rather than add-ons, these passages, in fact, could just as easily be taken as intended to represent, in every sense of the term, their compilers’ or authors’ final words, and were

intentionally placed where they were to mark their importance.” Whether as an add-on or intentional compilation, a question that cannot be pursued further here, the end section or entrustment chapter statement in Mahāyāna sūtras has not been systematically studied and is often not considered worthy of attention. So, for example, Honda’s (1968) annotated translation of the Daśabhūmikasūtra does not even include the entrustment chapter

(parīndanāparivarta). Here I will limit myself to drawing attention to the gradual bibliofication of entrustment statements at the end of Mahāyāna sūtras and focus upon formulaic statements that occur in a number of such entrustment sections where emphasis is given to placing the dharmaparyāya in someone’s hands. The development of the most common, formulaic, entrustment statement that is found in number of Mahāyāna sūtras is clearly exemplified in the entrustment chapter (anuparīndanāparivartaḥ) of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra, which is in the twenty-seventh chapter in the preserved Sanskrit versions and the twenty-second chapter of Kumārajīva’s Chinese version translated in 406 c.e., known as the Miaofalianhua jing (T. no. 262, 9). In Kumārajīva’s Chinese version, which may be based on the oldest textual recension of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka, 36 the formulaic entrustment statement given to innumerable

bodhisattvas-mahāsattvas is translated by Kubo and Yuyama (2007: 331–32; cf. Hurvitz 1976: 291) as follows: For immeasurable hundreds of thousands of myriads of koṭis of incalcuable kalpas, I practiced this Dharma of highest, complete enlightenment, which is hard to attain. I now entrust it to you. You should wholeheartedly spread this teaching and so extensively benefit others. Like the earlier entrustment vignette from the Ugraparipṛcchā, this version of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka represents the entrusted dharmaparyāya as one that is orally given, as there are no markers for bibliofied entrustment. However, the versions of Kern and Nanjio, as well as most, if not all, later Sanskrit exemplars, provides an add-on of the locative singular of hasta to form the crucial entrustment phrase yuṣmākaṃ haste parindāmi, “I put into your hand.” 37 A similar formulaic entrustment phrase to this one in the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka is also

sūtras by Chinese translators such as Dharmarakṣa or chapter titles and sections initially appeared in early Indian versions. Nattier (2003: 13 n. 3, 33 n. 54, 35 n. 57, 318 n. 763) discusses the complexities of the polysemic term parivarta and its occurrence in Mahāyāna sūtra literature. 35. Karashima and von Hinüber (2012: §4.11 n. 3) discuss the formation of parinda- in their recent study of the Abhisamācārikā Dharmāḥ. 36. Kajiyama (2000: 74) notes the work of Karashima on the relationship between these two Chinese versions as follows: “. . . with regard to the problem of precedence between Z [Dharmarakṣa’s

Zhengfahua jing] to L [[[Kumārajīva’s]] Miaofalianhua jing], judging from the format (chapter divisions, etc.) of the Sanskrit original relied on by L, I would hypothesize that L is older than that of Z. . . .” Karashima’s claim is also backed by the fact that while Dharmarakṣa’s Zhengfahua jing includes the episodes of both Devadatta and the Dragon King’s daughter, Kumārajīva’s Miaofalianhua jing initially did not include these episodes. See Fuse 1934, Tsukamoto 2007: 411–24, and Shioiri 1989. 37. Kern and Nanjio 1908–12: 484.4–5: imām ahaṃ kulaputrā asaṃkhyeyakalpakoṭīn ayutaśatasahasrasamudānītām anuttarāṃ samyaksaṃbodhiṃ yuṣmākaṃ haste parindāmi anuparindāmi nikṣipāmi

found in a number of preserved Sanskrit parīndanā sections of Mahāyāna sūtras, including the Daśabhūmika (Rahder and Susa 1932: 82) and Lalitavistara (Lefmann 1902: 443.5–10). Tibetan versions of Mahāyāna sūtras also contain this formulaic entrustment statement including the Tathāgatasaṅgītī (D 229, mdo sde, dza 226b1–265b7) and the Mahākaruṇāpuṇḍarīka (Derge, mdo sde cha, fol. 113b3–4), a Mahāyāna sūtra where the Buddha instructs the monks to write down his teachings (Skilling 2009: 61). A variant of this formulaic entrustment phrase occurs in the early Sanskrit fragments of the Śrīmālādevīsiṃhanāda from the Schøyen collection as tava haste parindāmi “I shall entrust to your hand.” 38 Another variant also occurs at the end of the Karuṇāpuṇḍarīkasūtra

(Yamada 1968: 418; Tibetan, Mdo sde Cha 296b4), where the Buddha asks kasya haste imaṃ dharmaparyāyaṃ parindāmi? “In whose hand should I place this discourse on dharma?” The Drumakinnararājaparipṛcchāsūtra (Harrison 1992: 297–98), in its section on the entrustment (屬累 shulei) of the sūtra to the Bodhisattvas Maitreya and *Devamauli (Lha’i cod pan), provides an interesting set of developmental “snapshots” in the Chinese and Tibetan versions. The second-century version of Lokaṣema and early-fifth-century version of Kumārajīva entrust the sūtra without the mentioning of hands, while the ninth-century

Tibetan version explicitly has the Buddha state “I establish and entrust into the hands of you two.” The Chinese version attributed to Lokaṣema reads: The Buddha said to Maitreya and the bodhisattva *Devamauli, “Since incalculably long aeons ago I have practiced the bodhisattva path. Now, in order to let this dharma stay forever [I] will entrust [it to you].” 39 The ninth-century Tibetan version and revision by Dpal gyi lhun po and Dpal brtsegs reads: Then the Bhagavan said to the bodhisattva Maitreya and the bodhisattva *Devamauli (lha’i cod pan), “Satpurusas, this awakening perfectly achieved after countless immeasurable aeons by me, so that it may last long and not disappear, [I] entrust and establish into the hands of you two. They both replied, “Bhagavan, we will teach this dharmaparyāya extensively after your parinirvāṇa. We two will ensure that this dharmaparyāya will come into the hands of dharma preachers and those sons or daughters of good family who produced roots of virtue. . . .” 40

upanikṣipāmi. Cf. Toda 1983: 224, 456a5. Cf. Tibetan, D, mdo sde Ja, fol. 179b1: /rigs kyi bu dag ngas bskal pa grangs med pa bye ba khrag khrig brgya stong du yang dag par bsgrubs pa bla na med pa yang dag par rdzogs pa’i byang chub ’di khyed kyi lag tu gtad do / /yongs su gtad do rjes su gtad do / /bzhag go / /gtams so / 38. Matsuda 2000: 72: || r2 [i]maṃ khu kauśika śrīmālādevīsiṃhanādanirdeśaṃ dharmaparyāyaṃ tava haste parindāmi y[ā]vat saddharma tiṣṭhati loke tāv’emaṃ sūtraṃ daśadiśi loke deśeyahī saṃprakāśayāhīti || Tibetan given as: | kau shi kh lha mo dpal phreng gi seng ge’i sgra bstan pa’i chos kyi rnam grangs ’di ni nges khyod kyi lag tu gtang kyis ’jig rten na dam pa’i chos ji srid gnas pa de srid gnas pa de srid du phyogs bcu’i ’jig rten

thams cad du yang dag par sgrogs shig ston cig |. Matsuda’s translation: “O Kauśika, I shall entrust to your hands this scripture called ‘The Lion’s Roar Teaching of Queen Śrīmālā.’ As long as the true doctrine (saddharma) exists in this world, to that extent you shall proclaim and preach this sūtra to the world in the ten directions.” 39. 伅真陀羅所問如來三昧經, T. no. 624, 15. 367a9–16: 佛語彌勒。提無離菩薩。我從阿僧祇劫。而行菩 薩道。今以法而相屬累令得久住。 40. Harrison 1992: 297–98: [15H] de nas bcom ldan ’das kyis byang chub sems dpa’ byams pa dang / byang chub sems dpa’ lha’i cod pan la bka’ stsal pa / skyes bu dam pa dag ngas bskal mtha’ yas grangs med par yang dag par bsgrubs pa’i byang chub ’di ci nas yun ring du gnas par ’gyur ba dang / nub par mi ’gyur bar bya ba’i phyir / khyed gnyis kyi lag du bzhag go gtad do // de ngyis kyis gsol pa / bcom ldan ’das bdag cag gnyis kyis bcom ldan ’das yongs su mya ngan las ’das pa’i slad na chos kyi rnam grangs ’di gsung bar bgyi’o // rgyas par bgyi’o // chos kyi rnam grangs ’di chos smra ba dang / dge ba’i rtsa ba bskrun pa’i rigs kyi bu ’am / rigs kyi bu mo de dag kyi lag tu mchi bar bgyi’o //

Through the chronology of Chinese and Tibetan versions, such snapshots of entrustment indicate a development from oral to written entrustment, where the dharmaparyāya is either verbally entrusted to someone or a written text is placed in someone’s hands. If we place these entrustment statements within the context of the evidence presented in this article, then it is possible to imagine that the bestowal, or transmission, of a Mahāyāna sūtra may have

involved, for the devotees of a particular dharmaparyāya, receiving the entrustment of a book that was considered to be infused with, as well as embodying, the dharmic force and power of awakening achieved after aeons of time within the tactile presence of one’s hands. Indeed, the written dharmaparyāya may have been handled in an equivalent fashion to what Schopen (2004: 296) has called “the most sacred of Buddhist ‘objects’ . . . relics” that were “permeated, saturated, infused, and enlivened” with the embodied qualities of Buddhahood and treated in a manner comparable to the treatment of relics in the history of Christianity. 41

the distribution of dhArmA books in the hastikakṣyasūtra The interpretation of the evidence I have presented so far suggests that a dharmaparyāya could be transmitted orally or through writing, that the dharmaparyāya was equal to a Tathāgata, and that it granted status to those who embodied the dharmaparyāya through memory or who carried it with them as an emblem. The dharmaparyāya was also entrusted and transmitted to those who were devoted to its embodied presence as a protective force and to those who might also have been attracted to a dharmaparyāya’s purported prophylactic function. All these factors are brought together in the following “antecedent story” (pūrvayoga) and entrustment vignette found in the ninth-century Tibetan version of the

Hastikakṣyasūtra (glang po’i rtsal gyi mdo). The Hastikakṣya, which locates itself on Gṛdhrakūṭa mountain, begins with the Buddha dwelling together with five hundred monks and sixty thousand bodhisattvas. The sūtra contains a number of dialogues between the Buddha and the primary interlocutors Śāriputra and Mañjuśrī. The sūtra discusses topics such as the qualities of a bodhisattva, the nature of things and space (Tib., D. 100a4–100b), the handling of sixty conceited monks (Tib., D. 101a3), the nature of the unconditioned (Tib., D., 103a), and the nature of non-existence (Tib. D. 103b-104a). The Buddha then

enumerates twenty glorified benefits (phan yod bsngags, Tib., D. 107a5–107b5) for those who uphold, read, recite, and master the Dharmadiscourse. At this point, Mañjuśrī prompts the following antecedent story from the Buddha, which brings together several factors in our discussion. Then Mañjuśrī said to the Bhagavan: Bhagavan, it is like so, for example, all trees of medicine pacify all the sicknesses of sentient beings. Likewise, this dharmaparyāya should be viewed as pacifying all sickness. The Bhagavan said: It is so. Mañjuśrī, it is so. Why is that? Mañjuśrī, at a time countless and immeasurable aeons ago

there appeared in this world a Tathāgata, Arhat, complete Buddha named *Siṃhagatigamana. He explained this dharmaparyāya for a long time to many thousands of living beings. On one occasion, in the audience was the bodhisattva *Vajradhvaja who was present in the assembly. He listened to this dharmaparyāya from that Tathāgata. Since he did not have a distracted mind, did not have doubt, was not pessimistic, he accepted this dharmaparyāya together with its praises of its [[[own]]] qualities. He understood this dharmaparyāya, and through his understanding he became one empowered with devotion. He went in the villages, towns, provinces, countryside, kingdoms, and capitals, saying I am a

41. On tactile presence in the study of Christian relics see Miller 2009: 8, 51–52; for an understanding of tactile piety, the concept that “holiness is transmitted through touching” in Western religious formations, see Wilken 1992: 115–16.

doctor and pretending “I am a doctor.” Then, immediately, many thousands of sentient beings tormented with various sicknesses who were seeking protection came to the location of bodhisattva *Vajradhvaja. Then, the bodhisattva *Vajradhvaja, with a mind standing firm in the power of devotion, distributed this dharma book to those sentient beings. The vidyāmantras which appeared from this dharmaparyāya preserved, protected, and upheld them. 42 As is often the case in Mahāyāna sūtra literature, a story that takes place in the distant past is utilized to negotiate issues of authority and persuasion at the time of the authorial communities who compiled such literature, a technique that I call narrative displacement. This vignette brings out several points of

interest. At the beginning of the story the prophylactic function of the Dharma-discourse is emphasized: it is compared to medicine, the individual who was devoted to this discourse thought of himself as a healer, and a protective healing formula was extracted from the Dharma-discourse and upheld by the audience. At this point in the dharmaparyāya a vidyāmantra is given (Tib., D. 108a5). The listing of benefits or advantages of the dharmaparyāya, followed with an antecedent story and an actual healing or protective formula, is a pattern found in sūtras such as the Aṣṭasāhasrikā and Śūraṃgamasamādhi and is

traceable back to early Kharoṣṭhī manuscripts from Bajaur (Strauch 2008: 41–47). But the story also tells how the dharmaparyāya could be transmitted and disseminated. As previously mentioned, Dharma-discourses could oscillate between oral and written forms as they became embodied within individuals. In this story the bodhi sattva *Vajradhvaja listened to the Dharma-discourse from a Buddha and then traveled about distributing it as a book (Tib. chos kyi zhung ’dis khrims). We can also observe processes of Buddhist bibliofication in this Tibetan version of the story when compared against the earlier Chinese

versions of the sūtra. In the late-third-century version translated by Dharmarakṣa, the Wuxiwang jing 無希望經 (T. no. 813, 17. 781a13–24), the same story of *Vajradhvaja is repeated except that, instead of distributing the vidyāmantra as a dharma-book, the bodhisattva repeats the Dharma-discourse as a mantra to the audience. Likewise, in Dharmamitra’s fifth-century version preserved in Chinese, the Xiangye jing 象腋經 (T. no. 814, 17. 786c14– 25), *Vajryadhvaja repeats passages from the Dharma-discourse as a dhāraṇī. As with the Hastikakṣya’s antecedent story (pūrvayoga), its entrustment vignette also points toward bibliofication where the Dharma-discourse is described as arriving in the hands of a bodhisattva in the form of books or in a chest in its ninth-century Tibetan version.

42. Hastikakṣyasūtra (glang po’i rtsal gyi mdo), Tib., D. 107b5–108a4: /de nas bcom ldan ’das la ’jam dpal gzhon nur gyur pas ’di skad gsol to / /bcom ldan ’das ’di lta ste/ dper na sman gyi shing thams cad ni sems can rnams kyi nad thams cad zhi bar bgyid do/ /de bzhin du chos kyi rnam grangs ’di yang nad thams cad rab tu zhi bar bgyid par blta bar bgyi’o/ /bcom ldan ’das kyis bka’ stsal pa/ de de bzhin no/ /’jam dpal de de bzhin te/ khyod kyis tshig ’di legs par smras so/ /chos kyi rnam grangs ’di nad thams cad rab tu zhi bar byed pa’o/ /de ci’i phyir zhe na/ ’jam dpal sngon ’das pa’i dus bskal pa grangs med cing shin tu grangs med pa de’i tshe de’i dus na/ gang de bzhin gshegs pa dgra bcom pa yang dag par rdzogs pa’i sangs rgyas seng ge’i stabs su ’gro ba

zhes bya ba zhig ’jig rten du byung bar gyur te/ des srog chags stong phrag du ma rnams la rgyang ring po nas [108a]chos kyi rnam grangs ’di bshad do/ /de’i tshe ’khor der byang chub sems dpa’ rdo rje’i rgyal mtshan zhes bya ba ’dus te ’dus par gyur to/ /des de bzhin gshegs pa de las chos kyi rnam grangs ’di mnyan to/ /des sems g.yeng ba med pa dang / the tsom med pa dang / nem nur med pas chos kyi rnam grangs ’di yon tan bsngags pa dang bcas par bzung zhing kun chub par byas te/ kun chub par byas nas kyang mos pa’i mthu dang ldan par gyur te/ grong dang grong khyer dang / ljongs dang / yul dang yul ’khor dang / pho brang ’khor du ’ongs nas bdag ni sman pa’o/ /bdag ni sman pa’o zhes bdag nyid khas ’che ’o/ /de nas de ma thag tu srog chags nad sna tshogs kyis gzir ba stong phrag du ma srog gi skyabs kyi phyir byang chub sems dpa’ rdo rje’i rgyal mtshan ga la ba der lhags so/ /de nas byang chub sems dpa’ rdo rje’i rgyal mtshan mos pa’i mthu la gnas pa’i sems kyis sems can de dag la chos kyi gzhung ’dis khrims so/ /chos kyi rnam grangs ’di las gang rig sngags ’byung ba de dag gis kyang bsrungs pa dang / bskyabs pa dang / yongs su bzung bar byas so/

Ānanda, this Dharma-discourse will be extremely joyous for bodhisattvas and will be provided (’byung bar byed pa = anupravartaka) to the bodhisattva. After I have passed away, [this

Dharma-discourse] will be in the hands of a bodhisattva. It will be a bodhisattva book and will be in a bodhisattva chest. It will not be in the hands of outcaste (gdol ba = caṇḍāla) bodhisattvas; it will not be [in their hands] as a book nor in a chest. 43 In the version of Dharmarakṣa this exchange between the Buddha and Ānanda occurs in an earlier section of the sūtra and the episode only mentions that the Dharma-discourse will be taken into the hands of bodhisattvas. 44 Likewise, this episode does not occur at the end of the sūtra in the version of Dharmamitra. Although Dharmamitra’s version mentions taking up the Dharma-discourse with one’s hands and writing, it does not mention chests, but advocates placing the Dharma-discourse on a throne. 45 This evidence points toward the increasing bibliofication of the Dharma-discourse as the Hastikakṣya develops over its history.

conclusion This brief selection of texts illustrates that reciters of subsequently classified and selfproclaimed Mahāyāna sūtras initially entrusted the Dharma-discourse orally to their listeners. The evidence also suggests that the differences within entrustment episodes between the chronological “snapshots” of the Chinese and Tibetan versions demonstrate a transition from predominantly oral transmissions to entrusted transmissions of written texts. I would suggest that this transition from oral to written follows a pattern similar to that recently proposed by Richard Salomon for the oral to written development of Gāndhārī and Kushana-period Kharoṣṭhī documents in the later second or third centuries c.e. through to the sixth- to seventh-century

Buddhist Sanskrit manuscripts of Gilgit and Turfan (Salomon 2006: 374). This evidence also indicates that the use of the book develops and becomes more predominant after the fourth century, a time period that falls in line with developments of worshipping the book in the Gupta era (300–600 c.e.), as indicated in Schopen (2010). The predominantly post-fourth-century dharmaparyāya entrustment episodes in these sūtras indicate that the dharmaparyāya was tangible in book form and could be held in someone’s hands. Quite often the discourse within the text consists of a rhetoric that “the text is to be worshiped as a Buddha and that having the text turns one into a Buddha” (Cole 2005: 227). Such Dharma-discourses were “trying to create a Buddha who pours buddhahood right back into the text as object” since the text “is that which makes buddhas and which ought to be venerated as a Buddha” (p. 227). The

evidence that we have presented indicates that the physical representation of a Dharma-discourse in the form of a book that had sacred power was a gradual development; that holding the Dharma-discourse in one’s hands transmitted a presence of Buddhahood comparable to holding a relic; and that the sacred presence of the Dharma-discourse was located either in the domestic space of a household or

43. Hastikakṣyasūtra (glang po’i rtsal gyi mdo), D. 208 (vol. 62), 109a: /kun dga’ bo chos kyi rnam grangs ’di byang chub sems dpa’ rnams rab tu dga’ ba dang / byang chub sems dpa’ ’byung bar byed par ’gyur ro/ /nga ’das pa’i phyin byang chub sems dpa’i lag tu ’ong par ’gyur ro/ /byang chub sems dpa’i glegs bam du ’ong ba dang / byang chub sems dpa’i sgrom du ’ong bar ’gyur ro/ /byang chub sems dpa’ gdol ba rnams kyi lag tu ’ong bar mi ’gyur/ glegs bam du ’ong ba dang / sgrom du ’ong bar mi ’gyur ro / 44. Wuxiwang jing 無希望經 (T. no. 813, 17. 776a27-b04): 佛告阿難。此經典要悦諸菩薩。是經法教順菩 薩衆。應當諮受。本宿功徳現於目前。我逝之後。此經典者歸諸菩薩。令手執持。志靜意定所以歸空。口 誦心思是菩薩藏。不歸薄徳闇塞菩薩。不歸懷毒諂僞菩薩之身也。亦復不歸多願妄想菩薩之手也 45. Xiangye jing 象腋經 (T. no. 814, 17. 782c03-c07): 阿難。此經典者當來菩薩能愛樂之。阿難。此經能 令菩薩勇猛。我去世後。當來菩薩手得此經。手書此經。此經床座。非旃陀羅菩薩手所執持。亦非戲論菩 薩手得。亦非假名菩薩手得。(The Taishō punctuation has been modified.)

in a monk’s private room. These South Asian Buddhist cultural understandings of textual discourses resulted in individual and group domestic worship of texts, the veneration of copies of sūtras owned by dharmabhāṇakas, and the veneration of dharmabhāṇakas as Buddhas who embodied the Dharma-discourse. Moreover, Dharma-discourses in South Asian Buddhist textual culture underwent a gradual process of bibliofication that is detectable in the layers of accretion found within the comparative analysis of textual exemplars. This process of bibliofication, particularly illustrated in the entrustment (parīndanā) episodes of Mahāyāna sūtras, demonstrated that textual discourses had a sacred tactile presence. Recent scholarship has shown that the equivalence of bodily relics and “dharma-relics,” the Buddha’s teaching embodied in a manuscript, was culturally understood as far back as the early second century. This is demonstrated by a Gandhāran manuscript of the Senior Collection that was found in a large clay pot with a donative inscription that considered the manuscript “to be functionally equivalent to bodily relics of the Buddha” (Salomon 2009: 26; cf. Allon 2007: 4). However, as discussed by Lamotte (1954: 383), it is only the Dharma-discourses that came to be classified as Mahāyāna sūtras that contain entrustment (parīndanā) episodes. The

purported pragmatic power of the text to heal, as well as the tactile presence of the Dharma-discourse would be a quality that would have been attractive to ordinary people, who might not be literate or have the time to memorize the Dharma-discourse. This would also explain the Dharma-discourse’s domestic location as well as its mobility. As Teiser and Stone (2009: 6) state in their discussion of the composition of the Lotus Sūtra, “texts in written form were easy to transport over long distances and could be useful in forging a consensus or articulating a vision shared between widely separated groups.” This mobility of the Dharma-discourse, a sacred object that was handled like a relic, should be considered a contributing factor to gaining explanatory

purchase for why Mahāyāna forms of Buddhism reached areas like Tibet before mainstream forms of Buddhism. One may recall legends in Tibet of books coming from the sky, indicating that books were treated as holy objects before any Tibetan could even read them (see, for example, Stein 1972: 51). As the evidence of bibliofication and later entrustment vignettes has demonstrated, the dharmaparyāya as a written copied-out book was something that could be held, entrusted, transmitted, and transported by bodhisattva followers who trafficked in what became known as Mahāyāna sūtras.

Bibliography

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