Immortal Buddhas and their indestructible embodiments The advent of the concept of vajrakāya

Immortal Buddhas and their indestructible embodiments

The advent of the concept of vajrakāya

Michael Radich

Nevermore shall I return; Escape these caves of ice – For I have dined on honeydew, And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Introduction

An important ideal of amata (Skt. amṛta, cf. “ambrosia,” “immortal” etc.; “the undying,” “the deathless”) is broadly distributed through the Pāli canon. I have argued elsewhere that the characterisation of the Buddhist goal as amata is related to a number of other senses in which early Buddhism asserts dominion over death.

Here, I study doctrines that can be taken as later developments on that ground. These doctrines eventually propose that the Buddha is completely immortal, and that his immortality is refl ected in his embodiment in an utterly indestructible substance (Skt. vajra, Ch. jin’gang 金剛, “adamant”).5 I will argue that these ideas are an important part of the development of a broader range of ideas about the Buddha’s special embodiments – the corporeal concomitants of his liberated state. In scholarship to date, however, the emergence of the idea of the immortal Buddha embodied in adamant has been somewhat neglected, in favour of attention to (sometimes related) ideas like dharmakāya, rūpakāya and classic Yogācāra “three bod-

building Buddhist institutions on funerary sites; the incorporation of funerary symbolism in narratives of the Buddha’s awakening; accomplished Buddhist personages claiming powers of dominion over spirits of the dead; and (possibly) the use of quenched fi re as a symbol for the liberated state. On amṛta/amata, see von Thieme 1968; Gonda 1965; Olivelle 1997; Nakaso 1981: 45–51; Rhys Davids 1938–1939; Kumoi 1955; Nishi 1969; Vetter 1988 1995; Kim 1994; Fujita 1988a 1988b 1988c. On Māra, see Boyd 1975. On other aspects of the Buddhist conquest of death, see DeCaroli 2004. On the trope of the quenched fi re, see Thanissaro 1993.

5 According to Monier Williams, vajra means both “diamond (thought to be as hard as the thunderbolt or of the same substance with it)” and also, as an adjective, “adamantine, hard, impenetrable;” Monier-Williams, s.v. vajra. The existence of locutions like “a body like vajra” (身如金剛 etc.), in addition to the compound *vajrakāya, suggests strongly that even in the compound, vajra must be construed as a noun. For this reason I have eschewed the adjectival “adamantine.” I have also rejected “diamond,” which is favoured by some English translators of Buddhist texts. The OED explains “adamant:” “Name of an alleged rock or mineral, as to which vague, contradictory, and fabulous notions long prevailed. The properties ascribed to it show a confusion of ideas between the diamond (or other hard gems) and the loadstone or magnet … [after the 17th century,] the word was … often used by scientifi c writers as a synonym of ‘diamond.’ In modern use it is only a poetical or rhetorical name for the embodiment of surpassing hardness; that which is impregnable to any application of force.” These symbolic associations, and the specialisation for the fabulous, render it a more apt translation than “diamond.” Finally, since the distinction is key, I have adopted the somewhat artifi cial convention of regularly translating “body like adamant” for phrases that include an element that makes the simile explicit (as in 身如金剛 etc.), but “adamant body,” “body of adamant” etc. for the compound vajrakāya/金剛身 etc., where the element of explicit comparison is absent.

(trikāya) doctrine.

This study will fi rst sketch some background to these concepts. It will then trace the emergence of the idea that the Buddha of the present world and age, Śākyamuni, is immortal, a development which falls into three rough phases. We will then look at two broad phases in the emergence of the idea that the Buddha’s body is adamant, spanning the same rough period in which the idea of the Buddha’s immortality emerges. In closing, I will consider some of the implications of the history I trace here for the broader history of ideas about bodies of the Buddha.

The following study is based primarily on the Chinese canon, with a focus on determining approximately when each relevant idea fi rst appears in the Chinese textual record. There are some obvious potential pitfalls in using the Chinese translation record to date ideas in Buddhist history at large. It is clear that many texts were translated centuries after they were fi rst written, and we must not confuse the happenstance order of translation of ideas into Chinese with the order of their original genesis and development. However, the argument below is based upon a sudden proliferation in the Chinese record of instances of certain new ideas in key periods, especially around 400 C.E. These ideas are diffi cult to fi nd before a certain point, but then suddenly seem to be everywhere. I believe this is a phenomenon worth observing, and such cases, in which ideas appear in sudden waves, may provide us with an eff ective way of using the Chinese canon for the study of the history of Buddhist ideas.

We turn fi rst to the background for the developments studied here. Texts from the late Pāli-canonical period and onwards take up and modify the theme of exemption from death (amata, “the deathless” etc.) and related ideas. The Buddha, and other beings who master the ṛddhipāda (supernormal powers), are said to be able to control their lifespan at will. This idea appears already in certain Pāli canonical texts, and may be traced further into Abhidharma discourse and early Mahāyāna materials.

Pāli canonical antecedents

In the Pāli canon, cosmological theories hold that lifespans are much longer elsewhere in the cosmos (i.e. outside Jambudvīpa). Long lifespan is particularly ascribed to various gods. Lifespan is also very long in the Paduma and other hells. It is in these connections that we fi rst fi nd the use of elaborate conceits to convey the idea of enormous spans of time. These conceits perhaps form a remote antecedent for the ideas we see below in texts like the Sukhāvatīvyūha.

Lifespan can also be much longer for humans, at times remote from us in the cosmological cycle. This tradition is found most fre-

quently in connection with the ages of past Buddhas: from 80,000 years for Vipaśyin to 20,000 years for Kāśyapa.12 These texts say that the lifespan of all people was longer in the time of these former Buddhas, not just the lifespan of Buddhas themselves.13 However, over time focus may have concentrated on the extraordinary length of the lifespan of the Buddhas in particular.

The Pāli canon also contains the idea that the Buddha has voluntary control over his earthly lifespan, and could, if he so chose, live an extraordinarily long time. (In theory this power is available to any master of the supernormal powers resulting from meditation, i.e. the iddhipādas/ṛddhipādas.) The locus classicus for this claim is the Mahāparinibbāna-sutta, where the Buddha tells Ānanda that anyone who has mastered the four iddhipāda and is secure in their mastery “could undoubtedly live for a kalpa or more than a kalpa.”14 The Cakkavattisīhanāda-sutta also asserts that not only the Buddha but also any “monk [who] develops the road to power which is concentration of intention accompanied by eff ort of will” etc. “can, if he wishes, live for a full kalpa, or more than a kalpa.”15

ages in which lifespans were 80,000 years, 40,000 years, 20,000 years etc., and predicts that in future the cycle will be reversed; DN 3:58–79, Walshe 1995: 395–405.

12 I am grateful to Jan Nattier for drawing my attention to this connection (personal communication). See also Nattier 1991: 19–20. 13 See DN 14, Mahāpadāna-sutta, which mentions the lifespan of Vipassī and people in his age in particular several times: DN 2:4, Walshe 1995: 200; DN 2:11, Walshe 202; DN 2:50, Walshe 219, etc. Some of these past Buddhas, and their lifespans, are also mentioned in “Mount Vepulla,” and this passage confi rms that all beings, and not just the Buddhas, of the past, were very long-lived; SN 2:191, Bodhi 2000: 659–660. AN 4:136ff . relates a tale about a former teacher called “Wheelwright,” in whose age people lived 60,000 years, Woodward and Hare 1995: 4:91–94. 14 kappaṃ vā tiṭṭheyya kappāvasesaṃ vā: DN 2:103, Walshe 1995: 246, translation modifi ed. This claim is repeated three times, but Ānanda fails to take the hint. A little later in the text, when Ānanda fi nally asks the Buddha to remain, the assertion is repeated a further three times; DN 2:114–118, Walshe 251–252. The formula also occurs at a number of other loci: “The Shrine,” SN 5:258–263, Bodhi 2000: 1723–1725; AN 4:308–309, Bhūmicalasutta, Woodward and Hare 1995: 4:206; Masefi eld 1997: 120. 15 DN 3:77, Walshe 1995: 404–405, translation modifi ed.

A closely associated idea is that the Buddha has the power to decide at will when he will die. In the Mahāparinibbāna-sutta, the Buddha is sick but decides to “hold this disease in check by energy and apply [him]self to the force of life.” This claim is also found in a few other related texts. The two powers of prolonging life or dying at will were later (e.g. in Sarvāstivāda Abhid harma) paired as “the power(s) to prolong or abandon life” (āyuru tsar gādhi ṣṭhānavaśitva).

Another related doctrine is found in the Lakkhaṇa-sutta. The marks (mahāpurisalakkhaṇa) of projecting heels, long fi ngers and toes, and a divinely straight body are allegorically interpreted as related to untroubled long life, and to the claim that it is impossible for the Buddha to be killed. The implication seems to be that the Buddha could only die when he chose to give up his life, since nothing else can force him to relinquish it. Similar ideas about the Buddha’s voluntary control over lifespan lived on in the period after the Pāli canon: for instance, pos- 

sibly in reliquary inscriptions; in the Upagupta Avadāna; the *Ekottarikāgama; Mahāsāṃghika doctrine as reported by Vasumitra; and in Vaibhāṣika scholasticism.

Actual very long or eternal life

In a broad range of early Mahāyāna texts, the Buddha’s (or a Buddha’s) potential ability to live very long is parlayed into actuality. However, the idea of the Buddha’s literal and absolute immortality seems to emerge by stages. La Vallée Poussin pointed out long ago that ideas about the unusual lifespan of the Buddha can be divided into two types. On one theory, the Buddha will live for an inordinately long time, but will still eventually enter parinirvāṇa. On the other theory, the Buddha remains in the world literally for all eternity. These two types are not necessarily coeval, but may rather represent two successive phases in a historical development. We must therefore be careful to distinguish between: (1) extreme lon- 

gevity; and (2) strict immortality. Further, I will argue that we also need to distinguish between the longevity or immortality of cosmically remote Buddhas, and the same ideas applied to Śākyamuni, the Buddha of this world system.

Using these criteria, the ideas studied here develop in three rough phases. (1) We fi rst see only extreme longevity, attributed only to Buddhas cosmically remote from us (with one possible signifi cant exception). (2) Around the time of Dharmarakṣa, Buddhas in general are exempt from parinirvāṇa, i.e. strictly immortal. (3) Finally, beginning with Dharmarakṣa’s translation of the Lotus, the idea of the actual immortality of Śākyamuni appears and becomes common. We will turn fi rst to the earliest phase, in which extreme longevity is attributed to cosmically remote Buddhas.

Nattier discerns in the earliest (proto-)“Pure Land” literature a phase of development in which the lifespans of Buddhas may be extremely long, but the stereotyped career of a Buddha still nonetheless includes an eventual parinirvāṇa. The Buddha thus eventually “steps aside” and makes room for an heir or heirs. This is the case, for example, in the career of Akṣobhya Buddha as represented in the Akṣobhyavyūha-sūtra. Akṣobhya eventually enters into pari nirvāṇa, an event which is described in considerable detail. Extremely long life for cosmically remote Buddhas may thus be an earlier development than absolute immortality.

This same logic also seems to be partly in evidence in the two

earliest versions of the Larger Sukhāvatīvyūha. Some Buddhas – at least Amitābha and his successor, the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara – still follow the pattern established by the career of Śākyamuni and ultimately enter into parinirvāṇa. This implies that the lifespan of a Buddha is inconceivably long but not infi nite.

However, the close of a passage cited by Nattier seems to indicate clearly that the last Buddha in this chain, Mahāsthāmaprāpta, in fact does not enter parinirvāṇa:

Like Amitābha Buddha, [[[Mahāsthāmaprāpta]]] will remain for an infi nite number of kalpas, [but he will] still nevermore enter parinirvāṇa (尚 復不般泥洹); rather, he will continue on, teaching the way of the scriptures with great clarity, his land exceedingly good. In this same manner, his Dharma will thus be forever without end and illimitable. It seems, then, that the chain of Buddhas will stop with Aval okiteśvara’s successor, Mahāsthāmaprāpta, who will not enter parinirv āṇa, but will endure forever. Thus, already in Lokakṣema, we

have a hint that absolute immortality is the property of at least one Buddha. That Buddha, however, is at a double remove from us – spatially remote, in the distant world of Amitābha; and temporally remote, since he will only exist in the very distant future.35 The temporal distance between our own world and an immortal Buddha seems to be closed in what Nattier identifi es as the next stage of the development of the Sukhāvatīvyūha literature. Avalokiteśvara and Mahāsthāmaprāpta are relegated to vestigial roles, with all mention of them inheriting Amitābha’s position excised; all reference to Amitābha’s death (parinirvāṇa) also disappears. Thus, it is possible for a Buddha (Amitābha) to be immortal in the present, so long as he is spatially remote.

It is already diffi cult to distinguish between the extreme hyperbolically long lifespans of Buddhas in these texts and utter immortality, except in a very abstract sense. For example:

35 Nattier has apparently overlooked this claim about Mahāsthāmaprāpta. She understands that even in the later versions of this literature, “the idea that all living beings – including all living Buddhas – must eventually pass away, however distant that date may be, is left in place;” Nattier 2003: 192.

The Buddha said to Ananda, “The length of the life span of the Buddha of Measureless Life cannot be calculated. Do you want to know to what extent? If, for example, all the numberless living beings in the world systems in ten regions of the universe were to obtain a human body and were all caused to be in full possession of the state of a disciple or solitary Buddha, and if they then all gathered and assembled in one place and in deep meditation single-mindedly used the power of their knowledge to determine the length of the life span of this Buddha, and, during a hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand cosmic ages, counted, all of them together, they would not succeed in knowing the limits of his life span, even if they counted for many cosmic ages. The same is true of the length of the life span of the assemblies of disciples, bodhisattvas, gods, and humans in that land, which cannot be known by counting or by analogy.”

Further passages in both versions of the text reiterate these same doctrines. The greatest conceivable aggregation of intellectual power in the universe, given an eff ectively limitless amount of time in which to count, could not count high enough to measure the lifespans in question. A lifespan this long, surely, becomes extremely diffi cult to distinguish from complete immortality, and is somewhat diffi cult to reconcile with the claim that Amitābha eventually does enter parinirvāṇa. This may have created an inherent

tension in the doctrine, which was quick to crumble at the next phase of development, as we will see immediately below. Similar doctrines are also found in a number of other texts translated by Lokakṣema, Zhi Qian and Dharmarakṣa. Texts claim that there are Buddhas with extremely long or infi nite life remote in time and space, or that all beings in certain kalpas, buddhalands, continents etc. have hyperbolically long lifespans. In some versions of the Prajñāpāramitā texts, it is also taken as read that bodhisattvas can attain to such lifespans. In other cases, we fi nd the same combination seen in earlier versions of the Longer Sukhāvatīvyūha: Buddhas have extremely long lifespans, but the texts also clearly speak of their eventual parinirvāṇa.

In sum, as early as we can see after the Pāli canon, the idea had already developed that cosmically remote Buddhas had inordinately long lifespans. The Akṣobhyavyūha may indicate that this is an older stage in the development of the ideas that concern us here. Even in Lokakṣema’s earlier Sukhāvatīvyūha, however, we  

may also fi nd the notion that one Buddha (Mahāsthāmaprāpta) might even be entirely exempt from parinirvāṇa, and therefore effectively immortal. Certainly, by Dharmarakṣa’s time (the middle of the third century), the idea is current that a Buddha, or Buddhas in general, do not in fact enter parinirvāṇa. Thus, excepting the anomaly of Lokakṣema’s Mahāsthāmaprāpta, the general pattern is of two phases of development: 1) Buddhas in other world-systems are extremely long-lived but ultimately mortal; 2) Buddhas are exempt from parinirvāṇa and entirely immortal.

All these texts are still dominated by their attention to the situation “a long time ago” or “in galaxies far, far away.” By contrast, another current of thought began, perhaps from this same period, ascribing immortality to Śākyamuni himself – the Buddha of our age and our world. We now turn to those ideas. The fi rst apparent ascription of immortality to Śākyamuni in Dharmarakṣa’s Lotus

An important development, related to the claim that Buddhas are immortal, is seen at least as early as Dharmarakṣa (late third century). The same texts already cited above on lifespan also assert outright that the parinirvāṇa is a mere docetistic show. For example, in Dharmarakṣa’s Tathāgatotpattisaṃbhava-nirdeśa (a part of the

proto-Avataṃsaka corpus),48 we are told that the Buddha does not really enter into parinirvāṇa, because he is completely identical to and interfused with the dharmadhātu (of all dharmas; 如來皆入一切法界). His apparent parinirvāṇa is a mere show (recalling the docetistic Buddhalogy of e.g. Lokānuvartanā-sūtra T807, LAn), like a magician’s illusion; so, too, the very body that apparently dies is also a docetistic show (猶如幻化現如來身).49 Other examples of this doctrine, in contexts also echoing LAn-style docetism, are found in Dharmarakṣa’s *Lokottara(parivarta)-sūtra T292 (also part of the proto-Avataṃsaka corpus);50 and in Dharmarakṣa’s *Sarva puṇyasamuccayasamādhi-sūtra.51

speak uncomplicatedly of the parinirvāṇa of the Buddha. It is striking that more than one of our examples is drawn from the protoAvataṃsaka corpus. It seems possible that the Avataṃsaka corpus took up with particular enthusiasm the docetistic Buddhalogy that fi rst appears in LAn.

The link between these doctrines of a docetistic parinirvāṇa, etc., and the identity of all dharmas/the dharmadhātu with original nirvāṇa is also extremely interesting. I have argued elsewhere that Dharmarakṣa’s protoAva taṃ saka texts are connected to the emergence of the fully-fl edged Mahāyāna conception of the dharmakāya in the same layer of our record. See Radich 2007: Ch. 4.5, where I argue that even rūpakāya, and its opposition to dhar makāya, may originally be a Mahāyāna notion.

This may in turn suggest that the notion of rūpakāya is originally associated with the docetistic interpretation of the Buddha’s last earthly existence and body; rūpakāya may thus place more emphasis on the Buddha’s fi nal earthly body as visible rather than material and tangible body; and this may be connected to the frequent use of the concept in the context of the concern with darśan, classically articulated in the Vakkali-sutta.

51 T381: 12.980b01–02, 986c07–08. These ideas are combined with the exposition of the originally pure dharmadhātu (or originally pure sarvadharma) as a kind of original nirvāṇa, T381: 12.982c14–15, 983a13, 984b29– c01, etc. When the Buddha says he will die in three months, and Ānanda laments, the text says that for anyone who upholds the dharma, the Buddha does not enter parinirvāṇa and the dharma is not extinguished; and that “for one who is equipped with this dharma, the Buddha exists for ever.” This 241

The immortality of the Buddha is the logical corrollary of a docetistic interpretation of his apparent death. It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that around the same time (in the Chinese record), the “Lifespan” chapter of Dharmarakṣa’s Lotus Sūtra (ca. 286) contains the earliest statements I have found yet that the lifespan of the current Buddha of this world-system is in fact measureless or infi nite. There, though the Chinese is a little diffi cult to make out in places, it seems clear that Śākyamuni himself is in fact immortal, and his apparent parinirvāṇa is a docetistic show.52 We fi rst learn that the Buddha Śākyamuni’s lifespan is in fact immense:

All the devas, nāgas, asuras, and men in all the worlds think that they know, and believe to themselves, that the World-Honoured One, Śākyamuni, set out from the land of the Śākyas, renouncing kingdom and kingship; travelled to the bank of the river; betook himself to the seat of awakening (bodhimaṇḍa) and sat under the tree; and attained to the unsurpassed correct path and realised supreme perfect awakening. And yet, [in fact,] I already attained to true, unsurpassed awakening in the very remote past, countless myriads of millions of nayutas of kalpas ago.53

This declaration is followed by a particularly mind-boggling analogy for the incalculable number of years that have passed since the Buddha in fact attained his awakening;54 through all this time he has been teaching constantly in this Sahā world and in countless

is then combined with the Vakkali-sutta notion that one does not see the Buddha in his rūpa or his marks, but in the dharma (without any reference to the corporeal conceit): T381: 12.988c06–17. In other words, it seems that the emphasis in this old narrative has shifted to the idea of the Buddha’s ongoing, permanent survival of his (therefore apparent) nirvāṇa.

52 In the following, I will describe these ideas precisely as they appear in Dharmarakṣa, but will provide cross-references to Skt. versions and English translations for the reader’s convenience. 53 T263 9.113b01–06; Kern and Nanjio 1912: 316; P. L., Vaidya 1960: 189; Hurvitz 1976: 237; Watson 1993: 225. 54 T263 9.113b06–27, Kern and Nanjio 1912: 316–317; Vaidya 1960: 190–191; Hurvitz 1976: 237–238; Watson 1993: 225. 242 other worlds also.

We are then informed that the apparent parinirvāṇa of Buddhas like Dīpaṃkara was merely a docetistic show, an expedient means manifested by Śākyamuni himself, just as he manifests the teaching of the Dharma in this world. The Buddha then begins to expound upon the nature and operation of expedient means (upāya), and the fi rst example he gives is that he “speaks of [pari-]nirvāṇa, even though I do not enter into extinction” (亦不滅度而說泥洹). Thus, not only is the Buddha’s lifespan incalculably long, and the parinirvāṇa of other Buddhas like Dīpaṃkara a docetistic show; Śākyamuni’s own parinirvāṇa is a show, and therefore he is in fact immortal.

As Dharmarakṣa’s version of the chapter progresses, the claim that the Buddha has in fact been awakened since time immemorial is repeated, in tandem with the explanation that he makes it appear a recent event only as an expedient teaching device. The Buddha says further that in accord with the dictates of upāya,

… wishing to make sentient beings plant the roots of the various virtues (sarvakuśalamūla), I discriminate and teach for them various dharmas (Skt. vividhān dharmaparyāyān vividhair ārambaṇair vyāharati); [and so,] although in fact [I have long since] accomplished all that a Tathāgata ought to accomplish, I make a show of attaining buddhahood here and now. [In reality] it is an immensely long time since I attained buddhahood and realised saṃyaksaṃbodhi; [my] lifespan is immeasurable; [I = the Tathāgata (Skt.)] endure forever, and do not become extinct (壽命無量常住不滅度; aparimitāyuṣpramāṇas tathāgataḥ sadā sthitaḥ; aparinirvṛtas tathāgataḥ).59

In fact, it would not be possible for me to fulfi l the limit of my lifespan even in all the time I have practiced bodhisattva practices through all my past lives, even from the very beginning; nor even in twice the enormous span of time since I became Buddha, as conveyed by the analogy I gave earlier. Nonetheless, I [say I] am “about to enter parinirvāṇa in the nirvāṇa[[[dhātu]] without remainder].” Why is this? In order to convert sentient beings.

59 欲令眾生殖眾德本。故為分別說若干法。又如來所當作者皆悉作之。現這得佛。又如來所當作者皆悉作之。現這得佛。成平等覺已來大久。壽命無量常住不滅度, T263 9.113c20–23. sattvānāṃ … kuśalamūlasaṃjananārthaṃ vividhān dhar maparyāyān vividhair ārambaṇair vyāharati / yad dhi kulaputrās tathāgatena kartavyaṃ tat tathāgataḥ karoti / tāvac cirābhisaṃbuddho ’parimitāyuṣpramāṇas tathāgataḥ sadā sthitaḥ / aparinirvṛtas tathāgataḥ. Skt. continues, in a claim not paralleled in Dharmarakṣa but not out of keeping with its spirit, parinirvāṇam ādarśayati vaineyavaśena, “I show a pari nirvāṇa out of an intent to convert [[[sentient beings]]];” Kern and Nanjio 1912: 318–319; Vaidya 1960: 190.

The Buddha explains that if he did not engage in this expedient, sentient beings would be complacent and distracted by the pursuit of sense-objects and worldly goods, and would not engage in religious practice. Even though the Buddha is in fact ever present, he thus preaches that the Tathāgata is rare in the world, in order to make sentient beings seize the moment and practise diligently.62

It is clear from this chapter that already in Dharmarakṣa’s time, the understanding that Śākyamuni himself is immortal had taken root, at least in the Lotus context. Śākyamuni is presented as the only real Buddha (or else perhaps it is more accurate to say that there is only one Buddha, of whom Śākyamuni and other Buddhas are mere emanations for expedient purposes), and he is in fact eternal. This is conjoined to the docetistic interpretation of the parinirvāṇa. Dharmarakṣa’s Lotus is thus, to my knowledge,63 the earliest text that takes the fi nal step in the development we are tracing here, and applies the idea of actual immortality to Śākaymuni himself. This may mean that the Lotus plays a particularly central role in generalising the doctrine of immortality of the Buddhas and cementing it in place. The idea of Śākyamuni’s immortality was not to remain a monopoly of the Lotus for very long. Around 400 C.E., there is nothing short of an explosion of the idea that Śākyamuni too is virtually or actually immortal. We now turn to those ideas.

the limit described in the analogy earlier in the chapter, but I believe this interpretation is erroneous. 62 T263 9.113c27–114a10, Kern and Nanjio 1912: 319–320; Vaidya 1960: 191; Hurvitz 1976: 239–240; Watson 1993: 227. Some of these ideas are repeated later in the chapter, especially in the verse summary, but this much will suffi ce for our purposes.

An explosion of new ideas about immortality in the Chinese record around 400 C.E. The new trend portraying the current Buddha as immortal is best exemplifi ed by various dedicated chapters on longevity in Mahāyāna scriptures. The most extensive treatment of the doctrine is found in the relevant chapters of the (Mahāyāna) Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra (M PNMS). Chapter Four is entitled “On Long Life.”

Some lengthy scene-setting fi rst depicts a vast cosmic panoply of beings wailing and gnashing their teeth in distress at the Tathāgata’s imminent demise. It is then revealed that the Buddha’s lifespan is in fact incalculably long: “You cannot calculate the length of my life.” The Buddha is asked how bodhisattvas can similarly attain such long life – and an adamant, indestructible body, immense strength, etc. – and replies that the bodhisattva should do as he himself has done in former lives, i.e. show compassion towards all beings as if they were his own children; teach them various good practices; save beings in various evil destinies, and  

so on. In other words, the Buddha’s extreme longevity is clearly understood as the fruit of the immense merit accumulated through countless incarnations of bodhisattva practices.

Kāśyapa confronts the Buddha with the apparent contradiction between these statements and the fact that he appears to be on the brink of death, before living even a hundred years in the world. The Buddha again asserts that his life is the longest of all: his life is to the lives of ordinary individual beings like the waters of the great ocean to the waters of all the rivers of the world and their tributaries, and so forth. This immense longevity of the Buddha is described in the same terms (“a kalpa …”) as in the Pāli Mahāparinibbāna-sutta, and as there, is also related to the superpowers. Such powers, it is explained, are accessible even to lesser beings, let alone the Tathāgata, and in fact, if the Tathāgata so wished, he could live for “half a kalpa, a kalpa, one hundred kalpas, one hundred thousand kalpas, or innumerable kalpas.” The text thus directly states that the present Buddha has the potential for virtually infi nite life.

Similar ideas are also found in a number of other texts from this period. In the Sūtra of Golden Light (Suvarṇabhāsottama-sūtra, fi rst translated into Chinese by *Dharmakṣema 曇無讖 [385–433]), Chapter 2, “The Measure of Life of the Tathāgata,” teaches,

Think not so, noble son, (that) the measure of life of the Lord Śākyamuni was so brief … We do not see anyone in the world of gods, [etc.] … who would be able to understand to the furthest end the limit of the measure of the life of the Tathāgata.

In fact, the Buddha’s life is more countless than drops of water in the ocean, atoms in Mt Sumeru, atoms on earth, etc. The Śūraṃgamasamādhi-sūtra (translated into Chinese by Kumārajīva [344– ca. 413, active as translator 401–ca. 413]) also features a short section on extreme longevity: the Buddha’s lifespan is “seven hundred asaṃ khyeyakalpa,” but he will then enter parinirvāṇa. Kumārajīva’s *Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa (MPPU) clearly teaches that the Buddha has an immeasurable lifespan in several passages, accounting for the apparent discrepancy in lifespan of various Buddhas by a doctrine that there are two forms of lifespan accruing to a Buddha, manifest and concealed, where the concealed, true lifespan of all Buddhas is limitless. The docetistic interpretation of these facts is explicitly stated. We also fi nd similar themes in Saṃghadeva’s (fl . 383–398) Āgama translations.  

In this layer of our record, these ideas are connected with the Buddha’s special body, even where they are not (as below) connected directly to a body of adamant. For example, a tiny text called the Shi shi hu wu fubao jing 施食獲五福報經 T132b, which on the basis of its colophon belongs to the Eastern Jin (317–420),81 lists immortality along with the major and minor marks, the ten powers etc. as characteristics of the dharmakāya.82 Guṇabhadra’s *Aṅgulimālīya-sūtra T120 (translated between 435 and 443) also has the Buddha tell Mañjuśrī that he has a body free of old age, birth-and-death, sickness and so forth, as a result of the countless meritorious practices he has engaged in through kalpa after kalpa of previous lives. Among the ways this body is described, it is said to be “deathless” 不死身.83 Likewise, Kumārajīva’s MPPU also explains that the body of the Buddha is supreme among rūpas, and therefore his longevity must also be supreme among all beings.84

These examples could certainly be further multiplied. They include the most signifi cant “lifespan” chapters of the Mahāyāna sūtra literature, and should show that in texts translated into Chinese in a few decades around 400 C.E., the idea that Śākyamuni is potentially, virtually or actually immortal is now common. His extreme longevity or immortality is often associated with the immense merit he has earned over aeons of bodhisattva practice, and the apparent

無窮。恒護其命; T125 2.592c13–15. Perhaps loosely connected are passages in Saṃghadeva’s version of the Madhyamāgama (but not in the parallel MN 97 Dhānañjāni-sutta), stating that various benefi ts will accrue to one who behaves in accordance with dharma and karma, including that his parents, wives, slaves, and Brahmans and śrāmaṇera will wish that he live forever 願令大家 … 壽考無窮; T26 1.457a25–b26. Further examples, in texts translated into Chinese later than those listed here are given by la Vallée Poussin: the *Tathāgatapratibimbapratiṣṭhānuśaṃsā-sūtra T694, the *Buddhabhūmisūtra-śāstra and *Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi; la Vallée Poussin 1928–1929: 804, 807, 810.

83 T120 2.536a01–08. Note that the *Angulimālīya may be connected to the MPNMS group of texts, as evidenced for instance in the fact that it features Sarvasattvapriyadarśana; Hodge 2006. 84 T1509 25.312a10–12, cited in la Vallée Poussin 1928–1929: 806.

contradiction between his short lifespan and his real lifespan is explained by direct appeal to docetistic doctrine. In the same period and texts, the Buddha’s extreme longevity or immortality is also frequently associated with special qualities of his body. We now turn to the examination of these accompanying doctrines of embodiment, and their emergence.

The body like adamant

We will now trace the emergence of the idea that a Buddha’s body is absolutely permanent, a notion of embodiment that emerges in parallel with the doctrine of his immortality. This doctrine seems to emerge in two broad phases, which may be loosely correlated with the phases we observe in the emergence of ideas about extreme longevity and immortality. (1) Prior to the fourth century, the Buddha’s body is said to be “like adamant (Ch. jin’gang 金剛, Skt. vajra etc.),” but it is not yet certainly said that his body is indeed “of adamant.” (2) In the fourth century, his body is said outright to be made of adamant.

First, let us glance briefl y at some possible background to this idea. The earliest place where a “body” of the Buddha is spoken of in terms of vajra is in connection with r elics. The earliest such characterisation of relics I know of is found not in the textual record, but in the “Inscription of Senavarma” (fi rst half of the fi rst century C.E.), which speaks of a “fi nal body” (*āntimaśarīra) as a “mass of vajra” (*vajrasaṃghaṇa). The earliest association between vajra and relics that I know in the textual record is the tradition that the Buddha creates his relics somehow by entering into

the vajropamasamādhi, already found in Mātṛceta.87 The same association is also found in the MPPU; Kumārajīva’s Pañca; and in Zhu Fonian 竺佛念 (fl . 365–after 399). We will return to this association between the vajropamasamādhi and r elics below. Relics are further directly described as like adamant (and gold) as early as MPPU and in Guṇabhadra’s LAS. Thus, a connection between relics and adamant is widespread in the textual record by the close of the period that concerns us here. On the evidence of the Senavarma Inscription, it is possible that this connection predates the other ideas we will study; but this evidence is tenuous, given that the Senavarma Inscription is only

Bailey assigns Mātṛceta to the fi rst to third century C.E. Mātṛceta describes the parinirvāṇa of the Buddha in part by saying, “Powdering your bones into tiny particles with the diamond of samādhi, you did not even at the end give up your habit of performing arduous works” (yas tvaṃ samādhivajreṇa tilaśo ’sthīni cūrṇayan/ atiduṣkarakāritvam ante ’pi na vimuktavān); Bailey 1951: 143; cited in Skilling 2005: 293. 

one piece of evidence, and is very diffi cult to interpret. At the very least, we can say that the idea that the Buddha is embodied in adamant was chronologically paralleled by similar ideas that the relics were adamant, and probably related to those ideas.94 Aside from this connection with relics, the idea that the Buddha (or Tathāgata) has a body that is “like adamant” (如金剛, 若金剛, 猶金剛 etc.) is old, and occurs in the layer of our record immediately after the Pāli canon. The oldest such idea is that the Buddha’s body is somehow “like adamant.” It is already attested in numerous earlier contexts, e.g. in Lokakṣema,95 Zhi Qian,96 and

94 This is one of many respects in which relics (śarīrāṇi, “bodies”) and other buddha-bodies are spoken of in similar terms. What we might call a “dialectic” between ideas about relics and ideas about other bodies is thus set up, and this dialectic itself, indeed, comprises one of the main arguments for interpreting relics as bodies among other bodies.

95 E.g. LAn, T807 17.752a08; Drumakinnararājaparipṛcchā T624

15. 349 c13–15, 350b14–17; *Ajātaśatrukaukṛtyavinodanā-sūtra, T626 15. 398c 26–28. The *Ajātaśatrukaukṛtyavinodanā passage in particular is remarkable. It plays on the simile of adamant very extensively. To paraphrase Lokakṣema’s diffi cult Chinese loosely, Mañjuśrī is describing the absolute after the conceit of a “wheel [of Dharma] that does not roll back” (*avaivar tikacakra, 阿惟越致輪), which does not “turn” any of the fi ve skandhas (i.e. make or allow them to function, /vṛt; a paradoxical play on the idea of “turning” the dharmacakra;

in Fatian’s 法天 parallel [Song] text, we are told explicitly that it is in not making anything “turn” that we speak of “turn the dharmacakra,” 其輪無轉相是名轉法輪). In fact, in it, all dharmas do not “turn”/“function” because “in *dharmatā/the *dharmadhātu [?] no dharmas ‘turn’” (法身無法轉). This wheel reaches everywhere, in a manner that is likened to the fact that space pervades all things. This is then likened in turn to the way vajra (a needle of vajra, 金剛句 in Fatian) penetrates and threads together 鑽穿 all the various gems; in the same manner, this ‘wheel’ penetrates and threads together all dharmas, just like space, and for this reason is called “dharma[-tā?].” This is the background for the assertion that

concerns us most centrally here: “*Sarvadharmas/the *dharmadhātu is/are like [the] vajra [in this analogy], comprising the principle that, like space, [runs as a common thread through] the confused variety [of phenomena?]. The Tathāgata is like [the] vajra, running throughout all [like/as] emptiness 法身者若金剛。諸所亂者而空理之。怛薩阿竭者如金剛。悉穿無所有; his liberation, like vajra, surpasses all unliberated [beings/states?]; [in his?] nirvāṇa he sees all self-originated dharmas 其脫如金剛過於諸不脫者。泥洹者見諸自然法,” T626 15.398c11–28. It is unlikely that fashen 法身 refers

Dharmarakṣa.97 and

We should be cautious about assuming that these “bodies like adamant” are already the vajrakāya more familiar to us from later contexts. In fact, it seems that the connotations of these bodies are on the whole quite diff erent. First, it seems that they are associated less with the Buddha than with broader classes of remarkable beings, to which the Buddha happens to belong. For example, this “body like adamant” is sometimes one of the marks of the

to dharmakāya; all instances of fashen in this text only ever correspond to *sarvadharma or dharmadhātu etc. in other versions; Harrison 1992: 63–64. (I cannot see that Harrison studies this particular passage, but the point still holds, as in Fatian, the “wheel that does not roll back” [*avaivartikacakra?] is the dharmadhātu 不退輪者即法界, T628 15.440a13–14; is associated with “the svabhāva of all dharmas” 諸法自性, 440a25, etc.; but is not called *dharmakāya.) Nonetheless, the analogy to vajra here hinges closely on the identity of the Tathāgata with the Buddhist “absolute” (dharmadhātu, sarvadharmadharmatā etc.) and the interpenetration of both Tathāgata and absolute into all things. This suggests that the conceit of vajra is still somehow being associated with the emergent proto-dharmakāya (on Mahāyāna predecessors of dharmakāya proper, see Radich 2007: Ch. 4.3). Finally, it is notable that the metaphor of vajra here hinges on extreme hardness (making it possible for it to “penetrate” anything), not on indestructibility or permanence, as when it is linked to the trope of immortality.

mahāpuruṣa.98 Such bodies are also sometimes said to be available not only to the Buddha alone, but also to bodhisattvas.99 There is even a whole world where all beings have such bodies.100

Further, the body like adamant in these texts is associated with qualities other than permanence and immortality. It is associated with purity in LAn101 and the Fenbie gongde lun 分別功德論 T1507; and it is also associated on occasion with strength. In Zhi Qian’s Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa it is associated with freedom from sickness and “bad dharmas.” The body like adamant has roughly the same associations, except immunity from sickness, in Dharmarakṣa’s *Candraprabhakumāra-sūtra. In Dharmarakṣa’s *Upā yak akauśalyajñānottarabodhisattvaparipṛcchā-sūtra, the

98 E.g. in Zhi Qian’s *Brahmāyur-sūtra, T76 1.883c27. 99 E.g. Dharmarakṣa’s Akṣayamati-nirdeśa, T403 13.589b03–05. 100 E.g. Dharmarakṣa’s Mukākumāra-sūtra T401 13.532b08–22. 101 LAn: 佛身如金剛淨潔無瑕穢無清便。現人大小清便。隨世間習俗而入。示

現如是, T807 17.752a08–09. Tib: sku mkhregs rdo rje ’dra ba’i phyir// zag pa dag ni mi mnga’ yang//gshang [D: bshang] ba’i sar ni gshegs mdzad pa// ’di ni ’jig rten mthun ’jug yin// (v. 33). Note that Tib. emphasises hardness, where Ch. emphasises purity and fl awlessness. Tib. says again that the Buddha has an adamant body (v. 76), but in a context which seems to me to have no direct Ch. equivalent: de bzhin gshegs pa rdo rje’i sku// sangs rgyas cung zad mi snyung [D: bsnyun] yang// dge slong byang chub yan lag smos// ’di ni ’jig rten mthun ’jug yin// Harrison correlates this Tib. verse with what he calls “§74” of the Chinese text; Harrison 1982.

body like adamant is used to convey the idea that the Buddha is merely impervious to physical harm (in a context rich with docetistic associations). In Dharmarakṣa’s Lishi yi shan jing 力士移山經 (a text in the Mahāparinirvāṇa corpus), the idea that the Buddha’s body is like adamant is even coupled to precisely the idea that he is not permanent; he is about to enter parinirvāṇa despite the fact that his body is adamant, and this proves that the greatest power of all is impermanence.

In these texts, then, there is as yet no clear association between the notion of the adamant body of the Buddha and any particular conception of his lifespan. However, in some of the texts examined above, in which cosmically remote Buddhas are long-lived or immortal, the body of the Buddha is also said to be like adamant. Indeed, bodies like adamant seem to be found often in texts that also include Buddhas exempt from parinirvāṇa: Druma kinna rarājaparipṛcchā, Sarvapuṇyasamuccayasamādhi, and Bhadrakal pita. However, the association between the body like adamant and immortality does not yet seem very strong. The association is closest in Drumakinnararājaparipṛcchā which claims at once that the body is like adamant and that the Tathāgata is unarisen and has no extinction because he “does not come and go” etc. Sarva-

puṇyas amuccayasamādhi emphasises rather strength.110 Bhadrakalpita emphasises that the body is like adamant and therefore “indestructible.”111 In all these instances, the various bodies at issue are “like adamant.” In this layer of the Chinese record, to my knowledge, the compound jin’gangshen 金剛身 = *vajrakāya never appears.112

110 得堅強力身如鉤鎖行如金剛, T381 12.986c12. 111 身無能壞堅如金剛, T425 14.26c03–04.

112 Two possible exceptions to the pattern I am claiming here may be found in the Aśokāvadāna, thought to date to the second century, with a terminus ante quem in Faqin’s 法欽 (fl . 281–306) translation; Strong 1992: 170; Mukhopadhyaya 1963: lx. (1) Aśoka says that he must go personally to see Upagupta (described elsewhere as “a Buddha without the marks,” Strong 1992: 174), because Upagupta is an excellent being, and it would be insulting for Aśoka to summon him. In describing Upagupta’s excellence, the Sanskrit has Aśoka say, in part: “I think that Upagupta’s

body is made of vajra,/ harder than a rock (manye vajramayaṃ tasya dehaṃ śailopamādhikaṃ);” Strong 1992: 240; Mukhopadhyaya 1963: 77. However, Faqin’s Chinese does not match: “[It is I who] must go to see him, because I have not yet attained to the mind of vajra; how, then, can I force him into submission [to me], [he] who is a man like the Buddha?” 彼應往見。何以故我今未得金剛心故。云何屈彼如佛之人, T2042 50.102c03–04; cf. Przyluski 1923: 247. Saṃghavarman’s sixth century translation also does not mention a “body made of adamant,” but rather says that Upagupta has a mind made of adamant; 處世同如來/ 名

優波笈多/ 若不受其教/ 其心金剛造, T2043 50.135c15–16. (2) Elsewhere in Faqin, a verse states “even a body and mind of adamant is nonetheless heir to destruction; how, then, could frail bodies and minds escape it?” 金剛之身心/ 猶尚有壞敗/ 況危脆身心/ 而當不破壞, T2042 50.127b20–23; cf. Przyluski

1923: 406. However, it is not clear who is attributed with this adamant body and mind; there is no extant Sanskrit for this chapter, Strong 1992: 170; and no parallel to this chapter in Saṃghavarman, Przyluski 1923: 399 n. 1; there is thus no further evidence we can examine upon whose basis to substantiate a fi rmer reading of the passage. For these reasons, this passage cannot be regarded as a fi rm exception to the chronological pattern I identify here.

Another possible exception is in Dharmarakṣa’s Akṣayamati-nirdeśa, dating to 308 C.E; Braarvig 1993: II, xli. The bodhisattva resolves, “I will attain that body of the Tathāgatas, the body of [all] moments of existence, the adamant body, the uncrushable body, the fi rm body, the body distinct from the threefold world;” Tib. bdag gis de bzhin gshegs pa’i sku, chos kyi sku, rdo rje’i sku, mi shigs pa’i sku, brtan pa’i sku, khams gsum thams cad las khyad par du ’phags pa’i sku de sgrub par bya’o; Braarvig reconstructs Skt. ahaṃ

Further, even worded in other terms, the proposition is rarely put that the Buddhas have an “adamant body” per se. I am only aware of two possible exceptions: 1) one in the Fenbie gongde lun;113 2) one in the Xingqi xing jing 興起行經, ascribed to Kang Mengxiang 康孟詳 (fl . ca. 190–220?).114 Notably, the attribution and dating of both these texts is uncertain.

By contrast, in the layer of our record refl ected by Chinese translations from the decades around 400 C.E., jin’gangshen = *vajra kāya suddenly appears in a number of contexts. We now turn to that evidence. The advent of vajrakāya in the Chinese record ca. 400 C.E.

We already began looking at the (Mahāyāna) Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra (MPNMS) above (p. 245).115 Kāśyapa asks about the apparent contradiction between the Buddha’s assertion that he is in truth immortal, and the decrepit, moribund body his worshippers

taṃ tathāgatakāyaṃ dharmakāyaṃ vajrakāyam abhedyakāyaṃ dṛḍhakāyaṃ sarvat raidhātuviśiṣṭakāyaṃ pratipatsye; Braarvig I, 126; II, 483–485, cf. Dharm a rakṣa T403 13.606b04–08. Braarvig’s vajrakāya is reasonable from Tib. rdo rje’i sku. However, in Dharmarakṣa we fi nd only “the sacred body of the Buddha, the limitless dharmakāya that is like adamant and indestructible” (佛聖體無極法身猶如金剛不可破壞). Dharmarakṣa likely refl ects an earlier stage in the composition of the text, and the outright *vajrakāya in Tib. probably found its way into the text later.

113 See the fi rst passage cited above in n. 102. As noted there, this text is conventionally assigned to the later Han; however, it is a commentary on EA, which was not translated into Chinese until the late fourth century; and the tradition gives little information about its translation (or production). 114 我從如來所聞，佛身金剛，不可毀壞, T197 4.169a13–14. This text is not regarded by Nattier (2008) as an authentic Kang Mengxiang translation.

115 In what follows, I usually base my argument at each point on evidence found in at least two of the *Dharmakṣema (treating the “Southern” version T375 as identical to *Dharmakṣema for this purpose), Faxian and independent Tibetan translations of MPNMS (with reference also to Skt. fragments). As is often the case, *Dharmakṣema’s version of the text contains much that is not found in the other versions; this evidence is of dubious value in discussing developments in Buddhism outside China, and where relevant, I mainly mention it in footnotes only.

see before them. This question elicits an overtly docetistic explanation.

Key for our purposes is the fact that this docetism is couched in terms of a doctrine of bodies. On the one hand, the ordinary body seen by the crowd is illusory: “The Tathāgata’s body is a transformed body (變化身, Tib. sprul pa’i lus, *nirmitakāya or *nairmāṇi kakāya?) and not one supported by various kinds of food.” On the other hand, the extremely long lifespan that we already saw is ascribed to the Buddha is closely

associated in following portions of the text with the claim that his true body is an “adamant body” (jin’gangshen 金剛身, *vajrakāya). We take up the tale where we left off , at the end of the “Long Life” chapter. That chapter ends with a coda on the links between extreme longevity and embodiment. First, the Buddha asserts that nirv āṇa is “the dharmatā of the Buddhas.” The Buddha then ex plains118 this dharmatā (Ch. faxing 法性) in confusing but signifi cant terms:119

What is meant by “the dharmatā of the Tathāgata”? Dharmatā means “abandoning the body” (捨身, śarīratyāga, lus yongs su ’dor ba), [but] there is no such thing as “abandoning the body.” [But]121 given that

there is no such thing, in what sense does a body continue to exist (身云何存)?121[And] if a body still exists, how can we say that body “has dharm atā”? If the body “has dharmatā,” how can the body still exist? How should we understand this doctrine? Most important for us here is the way Kāśyapa’s question already links the Buddha’s attainment of dharmatā to his embodiment (or disembodiment). The initial problem, the dharmatā of the Buddha, does not explicitly mention the body, but it seems dharmatā here may already be implicitly understood in terms of a dharma[tā]kāya of the Buddha.

the sense that “there is no such thing” (as abandoning the body, i.e. it is an incoherent proposition). However, Stephen Hodge suggests there may be a problem with the text here (personal communication).

121 At this point Tib., Skt. and Faxian have the speaker change again, back to Kāśyapa. Kāśyapa then asks a somewhat diff erent question in Faxian and Tib.: If (the Tathāgata) abandons the body, does he then appropriate another one, or not? de bzhin gshegs pas sku bor nas slar yang sku len tam mi len pa; 如來捨身更受身耶, T376 12.865c03 (following “Palace” and Shōgozō).

Almost immediately following this, the text opens onto Chapter Five,124 “On the Adamant Body” 金剛身品,125 which is dedicated entirely to the “adamant body,” and which Shimoda Masahiro identifi es as “the core chapter” of the entire proto-MPNMS. This chapter thus provides the answer to the second part of the question that launched Chapter Four on “Long Life:”

How can [one] obtain long life And an adamant body imperishable?

further from other versions). Faxian says Mahākāśyapa should ask: 汝應當問 etc. T376 12.865c07–08. 124 Enumeration of chapters diff ers in diff erent versions; in Faxian, which Shimoda follows, this is Chapter 6. 125 That the term here is indeed *vajrakāya is confi rmed by BongardLevin’s Skt. Fragment no. 5, which preserves a colophon to this chapter: vajrā bhedakāyo nāma dvitīya skandhaḥ sam[āp]t[aḥ]; we thus see that the Skt. title of the text was Vajrābhedakāya, “The Indestructible Adamant Body;” Bongard-Levin 1986: 24. 

Chapter Five opens with the Buddha declaring to Kāśyapa:

O good man! The body of the Tathāgata is an eternal body, an indestructible body, an adamant body; it is not a body sustained by various kinds of food. That is to say, it is the Dharma Body.129

However, Kāśyapa says that he sees no such body before him, but rather a body epitomising the Buddha’s vulnerability and imminent death: [We] see only an impermanent body, “destructible, [composed of] dust and earth, sustained by various kinds of food,” and so on.130 The Buddha replies, Do not say that the body

of the Tathāgata is soft, can easily be broken, and is the same as that of common mortals. O good man! Know that for countless billions of kalpas, the body of the Tathāgata has been strong, fi rm, and indestructible. It is neither the body of man nor of god; it is not a body susceptible to fear; nor is it a body sustained by various kinds of food …131

bathing Buddha, “How can one gain the body of adamant?” 云何而得金剛之身, 769b29, Y 2:660. 129 如來身者是常住身(Tib. rtag pa’i sku, *nityakāya), 不可壞身 (mi shigs pa’i sku, *abhedakāya), 金剛之身(rdo rje’i sku, *vajrakāya), 非雜食身(Tib. only an inexact equivalent, sha’i sku “a body of fl esh,” as elsewhere for the same term; but cf. below n. 147), 即是法身 (chos kyi sku, *dharmakāya); T375 12.622c14–16, Y 1:75; D Tha 46b5; my translation. Skt. reconstructions from Shimoda 1993: 254.

130 唯見無常破壞(Tib. gzhig tu rung ba’i sku, *bhedakāya) 塵土 (thal ba’i sku, *rajaḥkāya) 雜食等身 (sha’i sku); T375 12.622c17–18, Y 1:75; my translation; Skt. cf. Shimoda 1993: 254. This statement resonates with a very old formula for the inadequacies of the ordinary given physical body, dating back as far as the Sāmaññaphala-sutta: “This my body is material (rūpī), made up from the four great elements, born of mother and

father, fed on rice and gruel, impermanent, liable to be injured and abraded, broken and destroyed, and this is my consciousness which is bound to it and dependent on it;” ayaṃ kho me kāyo rūpī cātummahābhūtiko mātāpettikasambhavo odan akumm ā sūpacayo aniccucchādanaparimaddanabhedanaviddhaṃsanad hammo. idaṃ ca pana me viññāṇaṃ ettha sitaṃ ettha paṭibaddhanti; DN 1:76, Walshe 1995: 104; see Radich 2007 §2.3.3. Here, doubtless 等 “and so forth” indicates the whole formula is meant. 131 汝今莫謂如來之身不堅 (Tib. sob sob po’i lus) 可壞如凡夫身。善男子。 261

and so on, through a long paean to the marvellous qualities of the dharmakāya in numerous respects. Kāśyapa professes that he will “henceforth regard the Tathāgata’s body as the eternal dharmakāya, the body of peace and bliss (安樂之身) … Yes, indeed, the Tathāgata’s Dharma-Body is adamant and indestructible.” Kāśya pa then asks how this could be so, and the Buddha answers, “This adamant body is perfected by keeping and upholding the true Dharma.” At the end of the chapter, the Buddha summarises by declaring again that “the body of the Tathāgata is the indestructible vajra body;” a bodhisattva should practice to attain the correct view that this is the case, which will

allow him to see the indestructible vajra body of the Buddha as clearly as he sees shapes in a mirror. The notion that the Buddha possesses a vajrakāya also occurs outside this chapter, for example in the context of obscure glosses 汝今當知。如來之身無量億劫堅牢難壞 (Tib. mi shigs pa’i sku)。非人天身非恐怖身非雜食身; T375 12.622c19–21, Y 1:75; translation modifi ed. Tib. at this point inserts an interesting assertion, playing on two diff erent terms for “body:” “The body (sku) of the Tathāgata is incorporeal (lus med pa)” (de bzhin gshegs pa’i sku ni lus med pa), D Tha 46a1.

on the letters of the Sanskrit syllabary;137 and again, in passing, at the end of the chapter on the analogy of the birds.138 Particularly telling is the mention of vajrakāya in discussions of docetism;139 it occurs during a docetistic interpretation of the Buddha’s apparent illness, and is there also explicitly linked to his eternity. This theme in turn is centrally related to the docetic interpretation of his apparent parinirvāṇa that, on one level, comprises the eponymous central theme of the entire text. Vajrakāya is mentioned also quite a number of other times in *Dharmakṣema only.

137 Nirvāṇa itself is even said to be identical with the vajrakāya, T375 12.653c23–654a01, Y 1:201; Tib. diff ers slightly, but *vajrābhedakāya follows shortly afterwards, de bzhin gshegs pa ni rdo rje’i sku mi phyed pa yin te, D Tha 115b1.

138 Here, *vajrakāya is mentioned only in Faxian, T376 12.890a04–05; *Dharmakṣema rather has abhedakāya 不破壞身 T375 12.656c07; T 1:213; Tib. does not mention the body at all. 139 In *Dharmakṣema only, this link is stronger. Immediately after the comparison of the two off erings (see n. 141 below), the text explicitly explains that the apparent earthly body of the Buddha is a docetic illusion: “Through innumerable, limitless asaṃkhyeyas of kalpas, the Tathāgata has already not had a body [nourished by] food, a body affl icted by the affl ictions. [He has rather] an infi nite body, an eternal body, a dharmakāya, an adamant body,” 如來已於無量無邊阿僧祇劫。無有食身煩惱之身 etc. T375 12.611c21–23ff ., Y 1:31–32. The Buddha then goes on further to give a docetic interpretation of his acceptance of food off erings and his apparent ingestion of food.

The vajrakāya is also related to broader uses of the notion of vajra in the text, which links it to many of the sūtra’s major themes. In keeping with the equivalence MPNMS draws between buddha-nature and the Tathāgata himself (i.e. full-blown buddhahood), buddha-nature is said to be like an adamant layer of bedrock below the ordinary earth, which cannot be broken or dug up, nor destroyed by sword or axe. Vajra (though not the vajrakāya per

made by Cuṇḍa before the Parinirvāṇa is vastly superior to that made by Sujātā before the attainment of bodhi, and one reason given is that the former was

received by “the body of defi lement, sustained by various types of food, the fi nal (limited) body, which is an impermanent body;” the latter, however, is received by “the body free of defi lements, the vajrakāya, the dharmakāya, the infi nite body,” T375 12.611c09–12; Y 1:31 (this entire portion of the text is missing in Faxian and Tib., and though parts of the surrounding text match Habata’s Sanskrit Fragment 5, Habata 2007: 27–33, this particular passage does not appear there either). *Vajrakāya is also mentioned in giving a docetistic explanation of apparent sickness and eating (once more missing in corresponding

Faxian and Tib.), T375 12.669a21–23; Y 1:261 (Yamamoto mistakenly translates “Adamantine Mind”). In unparalleled passages from the *Dharmakṣema text, one of the things the bodhisattva knows by his wisdom is that “the Tathāgata certainly never enters into nirvāṇa; the Tathāgata’s body is adamant and indestructible, and is not a body constituted by defi lements; neither is it a stinking, corruptible

body,” T375 12.704c09–13, Y 2:402. The “stinking, corruptible body” here recalls the pūtikāya of the Nikāyas, e.g. the Vakkali-sutta; SN 3:120, Bodhi 2000: 939; Radich 2007 §3.2.6. Vajrakāya is used as an interesting example of what is meant by the formula “originally did exist,” “originally did not exist” etc. (本有, 本無), T375 12.707b07–13, Y 2:413; 707b27–28, Y 2:413. The Tathāgata’s adamant body is characterised by the marks, and the result of aeons of good practice; T375 12.712c01–06, Y 2:433 (Yamamoto omits to translate the word 金剛之身). The bodhisattva attains a “body like adamant and a mind like space” 身如金剛心如虛空, T375 12.744a01–05, Y 2:555. The bodhisattva will “discard this body, which is not sturdy, and obtain the vajrakāya;” T375 12.692c16–20, Y 2:354–355.

se) is also associated with MPNMS itself. One of the claims the MPNMS makes about its own virtues as a text is that the “ground” and the people wherever the MPNMS is disseminated are adamant or like adamant. Elsewhere the sūtra says of itself that it is like a vajra treasure, perfect and without blemish. Thus, the trope of adamant more generally, and especially the adamant body of the Tathāgata, is one device by which MPNMS conveys its central teachings that the Buddha is eternal and indestructible; that there is a similarly eternal core of potential buddhahood in every sentient being; that the apparent demise of

the Buddha is therefore merely a docetistic show. MPNMS thus identifi es the absolute immortality of the universal Buddha with a particular understanding of his embodiments. The apparently earthly body, about to die in the mise-en-scène of the text, is merely a docetistic show; the

Buddha’s true embodiment is the dharmakāya; and this dharmakāya is an “adamant body” (*vajrakāya) and utterly indestructible. Thus, the notion of vajrakāya is elaborated at some length in MPNMS, in close organic connection with other central themes of the text, in a chapter which may be the heart of the work. This connection can be traced further afi eld in the larger corpus of Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra texts. Perhaps most signifi cantly, the version of MPNMS contained in Saṃghadeva’s *Ekottarikāgama T125 (EA) proclaims that despite the brevity of Śākyamuni’s life,

the dharma will endure even after the passing of his fl eshly body, and this is related to the indestructibility of the dharmakāya. In a further passage, the same text adds that the Buddha’s life is “extremely long” precisely because it is only his “fl eshly body” that enters nirvāṇa, while the dharmakāya survives. Elsewhere, the text then links the endurance of the Buddha in the world to his body: The body of the Tathāgata is akin to adamant (金剛之數). It is my will that this body be ground up [into grains as small] as mustard seeds, and spread throughout the worlds (ages), in order that in future times, believing donors will still be able to make off erings even without seeing the bodily form (*rūpa) of the Tathāgata.

Elsewhere, the text proclaims that “the body of the Tathāgata is made of adamant 如來體者金剛所成,” before associating it with the ten powers and the four “confi dences,” which are included in the āveṇikadharmas (qualities unique to a Buddha), often identifi ed with the dharmakāya. Again, the text states that the body of the Buddhas is like adamant 諸佛形體皆金剛數, and therefore exempt from age, sickness and death.151 Elsewhere, however, even this adamantine body (explicitly identifi ed with the relics, called “mustard-seed body [[[bodies]]?]” 芥子之體) is said to be ultimately mutable, a fact which is supposed to drive home the much greater

impermanence of ordinary bodies.

These EA passages are particularly signifi cant given that they come from a text in the broader Mahāparinirvāṇa corpus, and thus are related to MPNMS itself. We can trace this pattern of relation even further in our materials. Shimoda has noted that this EA text also generally agrees with the Lishi yi shan jing T135 (Lishi). However, as we already saw briefl y above (p. 254), in Lishi the Buddha’s body that is like adamant is not coupled with his corporeal permanence, but impermanence rather claims the victory over him. It is thus of special interest that in both Lishi and EA, a key

moment in the plot (indeed, its culmination in the short Lishi) is the division of the Buddha’s diamond-like body into multiple relics, and their distribution throughout the world to secure the continuity of the Buddha’s power (presence, teachings) in the world. Thus, the passage in the Mahāyāna MPNMS, discussed above, stands in the overall textual development of the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra corpus as a moment at which the strictly adamant “body” (vajrakāya) equated with the dharmakāya is substituted for the physical relics (“bodies,” śarīrāṇi) of the

Buddha, as the primary form in which buddhahood overcomes the power of impermanence to endure in the world. I will return to this important link between vajrakāya and relics in my concluding remarks below. This link between longevity or immortality and embodiment is also found in many other texts from the same period. A complex of very similar ideas is also found in the Mahāmegha-sūtra T387, also translated by *Dharmakṣema – unsurprisingly, given the extremely close links between the Mahāmegha and MPNMS. The body of

the Tathāgata is said to be like adamant, and also to simply be of adamant and indestructible. Other passages give more detail about the complex doctrine of multiple buddha-bodies held by the text. In one passage, the Buddha is asked how aspirants can attain the “adamant dharma body” (金剛法身 *vajradharmakāya); the same list of questions also asks about the “true birth body and true dharma body” 真實生身, 真實法身 of the Tathāgata, his *vajrakāya 金剛之身, and his “destructible gross body” 破壞雜身. A more lengthy description of the true nature of the Buddha’s body states,

The Tathāgata’s dharmakāya is not a fl eshly body; the Buddha’s body is of adamant, and is not a destructible body; [it is] brought to perfection by countless meritorious acts. The body of expedient means is not a body nourished by food. How can such a body be said to “become extinct”?

“Longevity” chapter (Ch. 5), i.e. T376 12.853a07–863b20, 866a15–868a17; (2) Ch. 8 only in Faxian, i.e. T376 12.868a25–875c21; (3) Faxian’s Ch. 5, “Longevity,” i.e. T376 12.863b22–866a14, and Ch. 9 onwards, i.e. 875c29– end. Building on this analysis, Suzuki has proposed that the two later strata bear the mark of recomposition under the infl uence of the Mahāmegha-sūtra; Suzuki 2001: 34–38. If correct, this analysis means that the “Vajrakāya” chapter of

MPNMS precedes the Mahāmegha, but not the “Longevity” chapter, so that chronological priority between the two texts is diffi cult to decide for the complex of ideas that concerns us here as a whole. Apparently equivalents of vajrakāya are found in all of Shimoda’s MPNMS layers, however, so that on Shimoda and Suzuki’s theories, vajrakāya would be in MPNMS before the composition of the Mahāmegha. According to Suzuki, “the discourse on buddha kāya [in the Mahāmegha] is almost identical with that in Chapter 6 of MPNMS (i.e. the Vajrakāya chapter), with almost the same passages shared by both sūtras.”

Because the vajrakāya is the true body of the Tathāgata, and is indestructible, there is actually no such thing as relics; this is connected (as in the Golden Light Sūtra; see below) to the fact that the Tathāgata’s real body actually has no such things as bones and blood, either. As in MPNMS, the text also promises that other “sentient beings” who uphold the text itself, recite it, copy it etc. will themselves obtain the vajrakāya.

We also fi nd this motif in even more texts from the same stratum in the Chinese textual record. In the Golden Light Sūtra (like MPNMS and the Mahāmegha, translated by *Dharmakṣema), the doctrine of the Buddha’s infi nite lifespan is linked to a denial of the reality of relics (dhātu), which are shown to be a mere expedient. There can be no relic where the body has no real bone or blood, and the body of the Tathāgata is not of such a nature:

His body, which is a mass of adamant, manifests [another] body by magical transformation … the body of the Law (dharmakāya) is the one fully enlightened; the element of dharma (dharmadhātu) is the Tathā gata. Such is the Lord’s body; such the exposition of the Law. In closing, the chapter draws this link between the eternity of the Buddha’s lifespan and the nature of his embodiment more tightly still: “The Buddha does not enter complete Nirvāṇa (and) the Law does not disappear … The Tathāgata has an eternal body.”

Again, Buddhabhadra’s Avataṃsaka explains that the Buddha’s body and life-force are impervious to all manner of hyperbolic threats: e.g. even if all the sentient beings in the entire cosmos were to rain vajra down upon his body, the Buddha would be utterly fearless, and the threat would “not raise even a single hair” on him.167 Elsewhere in the text, a perfect indestructible body like adamant and infi nite life are listed together as gifts of those born into the clan of the Buddha.168 Kumārajīva, explicating the Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa, comments

that there are three kinds of dharmakāya, and one of them is the vajrakāya.169 In this same period, the “adamant body” is also inserted into the Sukhāvatīvyūhasūtras, a key context for the idea of extreme longevity or immortality. The early fi fth-century “Saṃ ghavarman” version of the “long” sūtra170 states that bodhisattvas in Amitābha’s land will have “the adamant body of Nārāyaṇa 金剛那羅延身.”171 Nothing equivalent is found in the earlier versions of the text.172 An adamant body is also attributed to the Buddha in a verse uttered by a nameless monk in a Dīrghāgama account of the Tathāgata’s parinirvāṇa;173

taḥ; Emmerick 1970: 8, Nobel 1937: 19. In the Chinese translation record, however, it is not until Yijing 義淨 (635–713) that the Buddha’s body here has become an adamant body, 獲此最勝金剛身; T665 16.444c16; 世尊金剛體/權現於化身; 406c09; no such notion is mentioned in *Dharmakṣema’s T663, or the mixed translation T664.

167 T278 9.597c26–598a08. 168 T278 9.704b03–08. cf. also 513a24–b7; 518b04–05. 169 In the Zhu Weimojie jing 注維摩詰經: “[The root text reads:] ‘Ānanda, you should know that the Buddha has dharma for his body;’ Kumārajīva says: ‘There are three kinds of dharmakāya. (1) The body produced from the dharma kāya by magical transformation 法化生身; this is the vajrakāya. (2) The fi vefold dharmakāya. (3) The true aspect of all dharmas in their totality comprise buddhahood, and thus the true aspect [of all dharmas] is also called dharmakāya’;” T1775 38.359c19–22. 170 See n. 36.

171 See e.g. Gómez 1996: 169; T360 12.268b23–24. 172 This is part of a larger pattern, in which several vows from the later “standard” list are missing from earlier versions; Gómez 1996: 129. 173 佛得金剛身/猶為無常壞/諸佛金剛體/皆亦歸無常, T1 1.27b11–14, translated by Buddhayaśas and Zhu Fonian ca. 408–412, Hōbōgirin 238; naturally 270 in Guṇabhadra’s Saṃyuktāgama;174 in Kumārajīva’s Lotus;175 in Kumā rajīva’s Pañca;176 and in Buddhaśānta’s *Daśadharmaka.177 In sum, in a large number of Chinese translations from the decades around 400 C.E., we see the sudden emergence of a new twist on the idea that the Buddha’s body is like adamant, and texts begin saying that he has an “adamant body” (*vajrakāya). As we have seen, this is the same period in which we also see the sudden new emergence of the claim that despite appearances, Śākyamuni himself was extremely long-lived or immortal. Finally, in the same period and often in the same texts, the Buddha’s longevity or immortality is explicitly linked to various ideas about the special nature of his body, including the idea of *vajrakāya.

Conclusions and implications

In this paper, I have shown that through a long process, the idea emerged by the fourth century at the latest that the Buddha was immortal, and embodied in an absolutely permanent and indestructible body of adamant. From the perspective of a certain understanding of the basic nature of Buddhism, the concept of an immortal Buddha might be regarded as an aberration. Many scholars have admired Buddhism for its “consistency” in including the Buddha and the Dharma under the basic teaching of impermanence – for

enough, nothing corresponding to this verse occurs in the Pāli versions of the text. In text corresponding to DN 26 Cakkavattisīhanāda-sutta, Dīrghāgama has the Buddha promise monks long life as one of the fruits of practice leading to the attainment of the fi ve superpowers, 42a27–b01.

174 汝見金剛身/我師無疇匹 etc.; T99 2.167b03–05; Guṇabhadra arrived in Canton in 435, Hōbōgirin 252. 175 應以執金剛身得度者。即現執金剛身而為說法; T262 9.57b17–19. Note that this *vajrakāya is missing from Dharmarakṣa’s earlier translation. 176 入金剛三昧中。碎金剛身作末舍利, T223 8.293b06–10. The same notion is also found in Xuanzang’s Mahāprajñāpāramitā-sūtra, T220 5.165c03, 708c30. Here, the idea of “smashing [the vajrakāya] to smithereens” is expressed as “smashing it into tiny relics” (舍利, śarīra), which seems to be connected to the idea of relics as adamantine; see above pp. 249–250.

177 T310(9) 10.155b12–15. Buddhaśānta was active in 525–539 in Luoy ang and Ye, Hōbōgirin 238.

holding that even Buddhas die, and even the Dharma ultimately fades away. However, in a broad, long-term perspective, the developments traced here have a good deal of internal logic, and are not mere aberrations. The immortal permanence and adamant body of the Buddha are best understood as part of the larger history of ideas about the Buddha’s embodiments.

Even in earliest Buddhism, the concept of the “undying” (amṛta) was an important aspect of the conceptualisation of the religious ideal. As I have argued elsewhere, this concept was connected with a range of other respects in which early Buddhism fi gured itself as the conquest or evasion of death. Moreover, the ideal of the undying is arguably predicated on an implicit critique of the ordinary body, and

the realisation of this ideal of undying was often associated with disidentifi cation from the given, fl eshly body. Also in Pāli materials, beings in spatially or temporally remote reaches of the cosmos are already understood to have much longer lifespans than beings of our world. In this connection, we fi rst see the use of elaborate analogies to convey the mind-bending scale of long lifespans, which analogies were later used for Buddhas and beings in their buddha-lands. The Pāli canon also claims that the Buddha has his lifespan under voluntary control, and could “live for a kalpa or more than a kalpa;” and that the Buddha chooses the moment of his own death. These ideas continued in later texts.

In the development of the ideas studied here, ideas about relics (śarīrāṇi, “bodies”) seem to occupy a potentially important place, but one diffi cult of analysis due to the scant and diffi cult nature of the evidence. We can say, at least, that relics were widely characterised as adamant or like adamant (*vajrasaṃghana etc.). The Senavarma Inscription also refers to the relic as the “undying

relic/ element” (*amṛtadhātu). The same inscription, and various other sources, commonly claim that the relic contains or is animated by the essential qualities of buddhahood, including pivotally fi ve “pure aggregates.” These and similar factors suggest that relics, as “bodies” in which buddhahood is presenced in the world after the physical death of the Buddha, may have been an important parallel or even predecessor to other ideas about long-lived or immortal (“undying”) Buddhas embodied in adamant.

Turning to the post-Pāli-canonical textual record, already in Lokakṣema, Buddhas in distant worlds are inordinately longlived. Mind-boggling analogies expressing vast stretches of time are applied to the lifespans of cosmically remote Buddhas (and Lokak ṣema’s Mahāsthāmaprāpta-become-Buddha may already be completely exempt from parinirvāṇa and immortal). This newfound longevity of the Buddhas may in part have been allowed by the development of cosmically remote buddha-worlds. However, a tension apparently persists between inordinately long lifespan and parinirvāṇa, and eventually one side gives way. By Dharmarakṣa (third century), parinirvāṇa is reinterpreted in docetistic terms.

The connection to docetistic Buddhalogy points us to other important connections. I have argued elsewhere that docetistic Buddhism probably emerged in conjunction with nascent, as yet unnamed developments that ultimately coalesce under the term dharmakāya. Broadly speaking, docetism about the Buddha’s earthly life can be linked to a kind of “metaphysical docetism,” that is, the Mahāyāna claim that the entire world

is not as it seems either. More specifi cally, docetism about the Buddha’s fi nal lifetime and body is an answer to the question: “If the Buddha is most veritably embodied in his gnosis (prajñāpāramitā, sarvajñatā etc.)/ its object (dharma, dhar ma tā, dharmadhātu, tathatā), what was that apparent body in which he walked around the Gangetic Plain?”

The emergent Mahāyāna “absolute” carried from soon after the outset strong and logical overtones of immutability, stasis, selfidentity, permanence and related qualities (articulated most vividly, but not exclusively, in the Tathāgatagarbha tradition). It is a short step from the notion that the Buddha is identical with this “absolute” (dharmatā, dharmadhātu, tathatā) to the notion that he also must in truth be immutable, static, self-identical – and indeed permanent. Indeed, around the same time as the docetic interpretation

of the parinirvāṇa emerges, actual immortality is attributed at least to cosmically remote Buddhas. It is also not coincidental, I believe, that in roughly the same layer of our record, we see the emergence of the notion of the dharmakāya so-named, i.e. the explicit articulation of the Buddha’s full identity with the “absolute.”

Where such qualities are ascribed to cosmically remote Buddhas, it is diffi cult to imagine that they could have endured for long without being applied to Śākyamuni as well. Otherwise other Buddhas would be better than our Buddha, and such a proposition is fundamentally at odds with the notion that all Buddhas are ultimately identical (in virtue of their identity with the “absolute”). It should thus not surprise us that these ideas are already applied to Śākyamuni in Dharmarakṣa, in the Lotus. These ideas are exceptional in Dharmarakṣa’s period, but by the fourth century, the idea that Śākyamuni is immortal is suddenly found in many texts.

Alongside this trajectory, which leads to common acceptance of the idea that Buddhas including Śākyamuni are immortal, we see the gradual coalescence of the closely related idea that the Buddha’s body is adamant (vajrakāya), which I contend must be understood against the background sketched above. We saw that this idea develops in two stages. First, as early as Lokakṣema, the body of the Buddha is like

adamant. At this stage this trope is used in a variety of connections to emphasise the Buddha’s strength, purity, immunity to physical harm, and identity with the “absolute;” I have been unable to fi nd direct connections with any particular doctrine about his lifespan. In the next stage, represented most strikingly by MPNMS, the body is of adamant, and the trope comes to express the immortality of the Buddha. In related developments, some texts state that it is the dharmakāya that is made of adamant, that is

immortal, etc. It is worth pausing to consider another broader context for the assertion that the Buddha’s body is of adamant. I have already noted above that the idea of adamant seems to connect vajrakāya discourse with ideas about relics. In another direction, it is also relevant for us to consider the possible relations between the “body like adamant” or the “body of adamant” and various terms for adamantine states of mind in Buddhist doctrine. Full study of this problem would require an independent careful study, but even a few preliminary observations are suggestive.

The term vajira itself is relatively uncommon in the Pāli canon, and in most cases, is used either to refer to diamond, sometimes as a substance that can cut all other substances; or to the special throwing weapon of deities like Indra and Vajirapāni. This double set of associations is unsurprising, both being common in the use of the word vajira/vajra in Indic languages and contexts. However, most signifi cantly for our purposes, even this early, Buddhist texts already describe certain types of mind or mental state in terms of adamant. In the Apadāna, samādhi (in general) is said to be like adamant; and a passage found in both AN and the Puggal apaññatti of the Abhidhamma describes a “person with

a mind like a diamond” (vajirūpamacitto puggalo; Pāli vajirūpama = Skt. vajropama), associating the attainment of this type of mind with the destruction of the “outfl ows” (āsava/āsrava) and complete liberation. In Peṭakopadesa v. 368, the mind of one who is free of lust (i.e. the Non-Returner), which state allows freedom from further rebirth, is compared to vajira, but here, seemingly, in the sense of a bolt of lightning (which falls on a log or tree and splits or burns it). Variations on these early ideas then continue to occur through a range of post-Pāli-canonical texts, where we see various ideas about mind, special gnosis, or states of mind that are “adamant.” Using the same yardstick used in this paper for body concepts as evidenced by the Chinese canon, some of these adamant kinds of mind seem likely to have emerged approximately in tandem with the notion of vajrakāya. For example, *vajracitta 金剛心 occurs rarely in Dharmarakṣa, and then more frequently in translators around the time vajrakāya emerges, i.e. around 400 (Zhu Fonian, *Dharmakṣema, Buddhabhadra, etc.). Also around 400, we seem  

to see the emergence of an idea of *vajrajñāna 金剛智.190 However, the concept that seems most signifi cant in this regard is that of a samādhi like or of adamant. We have already seen above that in Mātṛceta and Chinese texts from M PPU onwards, this samādhi is closely connected with adamant relics by the conceit that the Buddha enters into it in order to produce his relics. On its own, however, the term vajropamasamādhi, by the yardstick used here, seems likely to be

earlier than comparable body concepts. A *vajrasamādhi, translated 金剛三昧 (without explicit mention of “likeness”) is already mentioned once in Lokakṣema. The same term also occurs quite plentifully in Dharmarakṣa. Around the same time as the emergence of vajrakāya proper, we fi nd this same term more plentifully, for instance in EA, the translations of *Dharmakṣema, and Zhu Fonian.196 This same *vajrasamādhi, it

190 E.g. Karuṇāpuṇḍarīka T157 3.188c19–189a21 (etc.); Buddhacarita T192 4.3b13, 52b03; 僧伽羅剎所集經 T194 4.115c12–13; a number of times scattered through Buddhabhadra’s Buddhāvataṃsaka T278; MPNMS T375 12.721a13; etc.

seems, is also translated jin’gangding 金剛定, and this translation is also found196in Dharmarakṣa,197 and then more plentifully in translators around 400.198

Most of the time in these texts, there is no explicit mention of these samādhis being “like” adamant; in contrast to the trajectory traced by body concepts, the assertion seems to be made straight away that they simply are of adamant. It might seeem that this appearance may in part be an artifact of translation, as the translation jin’gangyuding 金剛喩定 (vajropamasamādhi, “samā dhi like adamant”) does not seem to appear until Xuanzang. However, even prior to Xuanzang, the translation jin’gangyusanmei 金剛喻三昧 does appear, but only rarely. It features three times in a single Dharmarakṣa text, his Pañca.199 It also features once each in *Ūrdhvaśūnya and in the anonymous Tathāgataguṇajñānācintyaviśa yāvatāra-nirdeśa, but in these contexts it is listed alongside a plain *vajrasamādhi, suggesting that the two were, sometimes at least, conceived of as diff erent states.200

Perhaps the most seminal exposition of this important concept of “samādhi like adamant” is found in various parts of Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośa and Bhāṣya (which of course dates to around the same period, ca. 400, although it was not translated into Chinese until later). In AKBh’s elaborate analysis of the detailed process by which buddhahood is attained, this samādhi is intimately linked

entire world into vajra, and another bodhisattva called “Vajra Navel” cannot destroy even a single atom of it, even though his superpowers are normally such that he can destroy absolutely everything, T397 13.82c18–83a16.

196 T309 10.1022a18–19 1035a17. 197 E.g. Anavataptanāgarājaparipṛcchā-sūtra T635 15.506a03–06. It is odd that the translation here, 金剛定, diff ers from that in other Dharmarakṣa texts. The same term is also in T288 10.584c20, but this text may not have actually been translated by Dharmarakṣa. 198 E.g. Buddhāvataṃsaka T278 9.461c29; 金剛定意三昧 in the Dharmapada/*Udānavarga, T309 10.1022a18–19, 金剛定意 1035a17; MPNMS T375 12.753c06–13, 818a21–22; *Antarābhava-sūtra T385 12.1067b17; Tathāgatam ahākaruṇā-nirdeśa T397(2) 13.27c19–20, etc. 199 T222 8.165b27–28, 191c07–09. 200 T231 8.710b28, T302 10.916c02–03.

to the very moment of fi nal attainment. The “path of seeing” (darśanamārga) is followed by a so-called “irresistible path” (ānantarya mārga), which is comprised by the kṣāntis (“endurances,” “patience”); this path is in turn followed by the fi nal “path of liberation,” at which point the various kinds of special gnosis (jñāna) arise. The “irresistable path” is called “like adamant” (vajropama-) because it irresistably destroys all the defi lements and latent tendencies [towards rebirth] (anuśaya); further, it is also called precisely vajropamasamādhi. Thus, vajropamasamādhi is the meditative state that immediately precedes and produces full buddhahood, and

immediately following it, kṣayajñāna (the special gnostic awareness that all defi lements have been destroyed) arises. Further, at the moment of vajropamasamādhi, immediately preceding bodhi, the bodhisattva fulfi ls the perfections of dhyāna and prajñā; it is associated with the state of mind in which the aspirant no longer has anything to practice or learn (aśaikṣacitta), which is free of all obstacles (āvṛti); and the text also says that a concentration that is for practical purposes called vajropamasamādhi is produced in the fourth dhyāna, and destroys all “outfl ows” (āsrava).206 The moment of the attainment of bodhi is further described by saying that the bodhisattva seats himself on the adamant seat (vajrāsana) in the middle of Jambudvīpa in order to realise the vajropamasamādhi, and so become Buddha and Arhat, and this is only possible for such a person in such a place. In sum, vajropamasamādhi is the most elevated meditative state possible, and is directly associated with

the arising of full buddhahood and the full and fi nal elimination of all kleśas, āsravas, obstacles to awakening, etc. It is diffi cult to say how much earlier than AKBh this doctrine of vajropamasamādhi may have been expounded among the Sarvāstivādins, and therefore what might be the relative chronological relations between it and the doctrine of adamantine bodies. It is discussed at

length in the *Mahāvibhāṣā. However, so far as I can see, vajropamasamādhi cannot be traced back any earlier in the Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma corpus (e.g. it is not found in the Jñānaprasthāna or any of the “six limbs” of the Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma). The best we can say, then, I believe, is that this doctrine may have emerged among the Sarvāstivāda in roughly the same period as the body doctrines studied in this paper, though the other evidence surveyed above suggests it may have circulated earlier, in part, at least, in M ahāyāna texts.

It is very interesting to observe that such a samādhi is variously said to be like adamant, or simply of adamant, though these assertions cannot, seemingly, be separated chronologically, as comparable body concepts can. I believe that in these observable parallels between notions about *vajra(-upama-)kāya and *vajra(-upama-) samādhi, and between vajrakāya and notions of adamant states of mind or jñāna more generally, we see a kind of dialectic interplay or contestation between ideas about special buddha-bodies and special buddha-mind. Be it

adamant body, mind or gnosis, each such concept holds that the special property of buddhahood in question is intimately related to the Buddha’s realisation of dharma (in the case of body, through the association with dharmakāya); that it arises simultaneously with the attainment of buddhahood; that it is intimately linked to purity specifi cally articulated as the elimination of āsravas (or kleśas, anuśayas etc.). In its turn, I believe, this dialectical interaction between adamant bodies and minds is part of an even broader theme running throughout much

of the emergence of buddha-body doctrine, whereby that doctrine seems to have been conditioned by (and perhaps to have conditioned in its turn) discourses about the special nature of buddha-mind. Demonstration of this broader claim, however, is obviously beyond the scope of the present paper, and must await further work.

It is also worth lingering briefl y to consider the possible centrality of the MPNMS in the elaboration of the doctrine of vajrakāya. We already saw above that vajrakāya appears many times throughout MPNMS, including in the layers identifi ed by Shimoda as the earliest. We also saw that it is intimately and logically connected to other central themes of the text, including the actual eternity of the Buddha-cum-buddha-nature/tathāgatagarbha, and the concomitant docetism about his earthly body and particularly its apparent demise (parinirvāṇa).

The theme of vajrakāya may also be connected to the theme of relics in MPNMS. It has been suggested that the notion of an innate kernel-of-buddhahood or “buddha-nature” (possibly *buddhadhā tu) may be connected to an attempt in MPNMS to substitute it for Buddha-relics (dhātu), as a way in which

buddhahood is present to the practitioner/worshipper internally in opposition to the external presence of the relic in the stūpa. Thus, the text sets up an ambiguity in the claim that the Buddha “enters into the domain/element of nirvāṇa (nirvāṇadhātu),” and then plays upon that ambiguity in its polemic to substitute for relic worship a diff erent kind of cult and practice. On the other hand, as I noted above (p. 249), relics are said to be adamant and are connected to the theme of deathlessness (amṛta), perhaps from as early as the

Senavarma Inscription. Thus, if Shimoda is right about the polemic against worship of relics in stūpas in MPNMS, the ascription of a vajrakāya to the Buddha may be an integral part of its polemical programme. It is as if the text says:

If you are so enamoured of “bodies” (śarīrāṇi, relics) or “elements” (dhātu) of the Buddha, which are adamant, deathless etc., let me tell you – the true “body” (kāya) in which the Buddha is adamant (vajra), eternal (nitya) etc. is his dharmakāya, which is identical with the element (dhātu) of potential buddhahood innate in all sentient beings, etc.

The lost Indic original of MPNMS may date, at least in part, as early as the second century, and this could obviously have important implications for dating the emergence of the idea of vajrakāya. Moreover, the extensive elaboration of the theme of vajrakāya in MPNMS, in combination with

the manner in which it is integrated with central themes of the text, might suggest to us that the notion of vajrakāya originates in MPNMS itself. If this were true, and the text could be dated with any confi dence, we would therefore know even more about the date at which vajrakāya was fi rst elaborated. However, the stratifi cation and dating of MPNMS is a complex and uncertain matter, and at this stage at least, any reasons I can suggest that it might have been the fi rst text to expound vajrakāya are speculative at best. I thus prefer to rest my conclusions on the less informative but more reliable information about the dating of the idea that can be derived from the Chinese canonical evidence, in

line with the primary methodology I have pursued in this study. Regardless of the date at which it was fi rst elaborated, then, we can conclude that the idea of an immortal Buddha with a body of adamant was elaborated by the late fourth century at the latest. This fact, I believe, has a number of important implications. First, the notion of vajrakāya was

eventually to become signifi cant in Tantrism and related “inner alchemical” practices. The history related here may reveal part of the perhaps erratic path by which prototypes of such ideas emerged. Second, the emergence of vajrakāya is part of a much wider ferment of ideas about special buddha-bodies that characterises this same approximate period, which I have attempted to survey elsewhere. Studies of buddhabodies to date have tended to focus too exclusively on the eventually dominant “three body” (trikāya) doctrine, which emerges in the same period, and to correspondingly overlook other ideas, such as vajrakāya. Even the import of trikāya doctrine itself can arguably only be fully understood, however,

against the backdrop of this broader trend. Third, if I am right in suggesting that vajrakāya emerged in part from a polemical dialectic with the terms of relic worship, this may only be one part of a broader sense in which relics were regarded as buddha-bodies among other buddha-bodies, and the very idea of buddha-bodies may have been signifi cantly conditioned by understandings and practices relating to relics. Relics may thus constitute an important “missing link” in the history of buddha-bodies, and the connection to relics at the root of the idea of vajrakāya may be one of the most important pieces of evidence for their status as such. Full exploration of these implications, however, must await further research.

Abbreviations

AK(Bh) Abhidharmakośa (and Bhāṣya) AN Anguttara Nikāya Ch. Chinese D Derge DN Dīgha Nikāya EA *Ekottarikāgama T125 IBK Indogaku bukkyōgaku kenkyū 印度学仏教学研究 LAn Lokānuvartanā-sūtra T807 LAS Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra Lishi Lishi yi shan jing T135 MN Majjhima Nikāya MPNMS Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra MPPU *Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa T1509 Pañca Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā prajñāpāramitā PTS Pāli Text Society. Reference to PTS editions of canonical texts by volume and page number. Skt. Sanskrit SN Saṃyutta Nikāya T Taishō shinshū daizōkyō. References to the Taishō follow the order: Text number, volume number, page, register and line number. Thus e.g. T225 8.483b17 is text number 225, volume 8, page 483, second register, line 17. Tib. Tibetan XZ Xuanzang 玄奘 Y Yamamoto trans. of MPNMS

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