Entering a Mahayana Scripture - the Gandhavyuha Sutra
Friday, August 14, 2009 at 02:34PM In previous posts, I have commented on my developing interest in how to read a Mahayana scripture, or sutra as they are known. Most recently, my attention has been drawn to the Gandavyuha Sutra and I have begun to explore some of its key themes.
Sudhana at the Feet of ManjushriWhile the Gandavyuha is not as well known as the Lotus Sutra or the Vimalakirti Sutra – at least in the West - it is nevertheless one of the great vaipulya sutras. Vaipulya means extensive and the Gandavyuha certainly is that: it runs to around 400 pages. Not just that but it forms the final chapter of an even larger text, the Avatamsaka Sutra, which in total is more than 1600 pages long.
Like most Mahayana sutras, the Gandavyuha began life in India and scholars believe that its core elements were composed between the 1st and 3rd centuries CE. Essentially, the Gandavyuha tells the story of a pilgrimage – that of the young man Sudhana who is on a quest for Awakening. Through the course of the text, Sudhana encounters a series of spiritual benefactors who each offer him a clue to help him on his journey. Ultimately, Sudhana approaches a mysterious and magical structure known as Vairochana’s Tower, which he enters to be transported into a mystical dimension, one in which all things mutually interpenetrate while, at the same time, maintaining their distinct individuality. This vision is at the heart of the Gandavyuha’s message and communicates the essential spiritual insight of Mahayana Buddhism – that all things are ultimately interconnected. The Gandavyuha, as many Mahayana sutras do, consolidates doctrine into image and this is key to its transformative power.
As we ‘read’ the text we are led along a visionary itinerary in the context of which miraculous scenes are disclosed. One scholar has suggested – I think persuasively – that these scenes prefigure the later visualisation exercises characteristic of Tantric Buddhism. In many of these practices, the meditator identifies him or herself with the visualised Buddha or bodhisattva figure. This pattern is seen in the Gandavyuha sutra where Sudhana resolves to cultivate a vision of the great bodhisattva Samantabhadra (Universally Worthy). He engages in some version of Recollecting the Deity and is ultimately blessed with a vision of the bodhisattva. As Sudhana contemplates this vision, clouds of light rays emanate from all the pores of Samantabhadra’s body, illuminating all worlds throughout the cosmos, relieving the pain of all beings.
Sudhana then sees in every pore of Samantabhadra’s body untold numbers of buddha lands, each filled with buddhas. He then enters Samantabhadra’s body, which contains infinite worlds, in the context of which he leads innumerable beings towards awakening. Ultimately, he attains equality with the bodhisattva as he fulfils his quest. This final phase – entering and becoming equal to Samantabhadra – may be compared with the self-identification with the deity characteristic of some Tantric visualisations.
In the Gandavyuha, as in many Tantric practices, transformation is accomplished through a process of imaginative identification. Reading the text then is a matter of opening up to its magical universe, soaking in its visionary atmosphere, even entering the text as an active participant. Through this visionary immersion, our own universe is reconfigured as we begin to see our seemingly humdrum lives framed within an infinitely greater spiritual drama.
Read my Visions of Mahayana Buddhism.
Nagapriya
The scholar who I was referring to here was David McMahan. This topic has also been considered by Douglas Osto in "‘Proto-Tantric’ Elements in the Gandavyuha Sutra," Journal of Religious History 33.2 (June 2009): 165-177
McMahan's article can be accessed via this link:
http://www.shin-ibs.edu/academics/_pwj/three.six.php
scriptures in Dharma, Mahayana