Visualization/Contemplation Sutras (Guan Jing) David Quinter, Departments of East Asian Studies and Religious Studies, University of Alberta https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.770 Published online: 29 September 2021 Summary The “visualization/contemplation sutras” (Ch. guan jing觀經) refers to six scriptures in the modern Sino-Japanese Buddhist canon Taishō shinshū daizōkyō大正新脩大藏經 (“T”). The six scriptures are each devoted to particular buddhas and bodhisattvas, and in some cases, the pure lands or heavens linked to them. They include: (a) Sutra on the Sea of Samādhi Attained through Contemplation of the Buddha (Guan fo sanmei hai jing觀佛三昧 海經; T 643); (b) Sutra on the Contemplation of the Buddha of Immeasurable Life (Guan Wuliangshoufo jing觀無量壽佛經; T 365); (c) Sutra on the Contemplation of the Two Bodhisattvas Bhaiṣajyarāja and Bhaiṣajyasamudgata (Guan Yaowang Yaoshang erpusa jing觀藥王藥上二菩薩經; T 1161); (d) Sutra on the Contemplation of Maitreya Bodhisattva’s Ascent to Rebirth in Tuṣita Heaven (Guan Mile Pusa shangsheng doushuaitian jing觀彌勒 菩薩上生兜率天經; T 452); (e) Sutra on the Contemplation of the Cultivation Methods of the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra (Guan Puxian Pusa xingfa jing觀普賢菩薩行法經; T 277); and (f) Sutra on the Contemplation of the Bodhisattva Ākāśagarbha (Guan Xukongzang Pusa jing觀虛空藏菩薩經; T 409). All six scriptures use the Chinese term guan觀 (or kuan) in their titles. All also feature instructions on contemplative techniques, which include fantastic visual imagery and other visionary phenomena. Due largely to these visual qualities, in English-language scholarship since the late 1950s, the most common translation for guan in their titles has been “visualization.” There is, however, no scholarly consensus for an Indic-language equivalent to guan in these scriptures, and the “visualization” designation has been increasingly questioned since the 2000s. Thus many scholars prefer the translation “contemplation,” while some opt for “discernment.” Further complicating study of the visualization/contemplation sutras are persistent questions of their provenance. The traditional translator attributions preserved in the Taishō canon all credit Indian or Central Asian monks for the “translations.” However, all six scriptures are extant only in Chinese or in translations based on the Chinese, and those translator attributions have been widely contested. Scholars thus variously posit Indian, Central Asian, or Chinese origins for the individual scriptures. The consensus as of 2020 is that, as Chinese texts, they all date to around the first half of the 5th century CE, and many scholars do accept the influence of Indian or Central Asian meditation masters active in China then. Such influence receives support in the near-contemporary emergence in China of meditation manuals that share distinctive terminology with the visualization/contemplation sutras and are often grouped with them in modern studies. Further research into the sutras should thus enrich the understanding of scriptural translation processes, the emergence of specific deity cults in East Asian Buddhism, and interlinked developments in the devotional, visionary, and contemplative practices associated with those cults. Page 1 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 Keywords: visualization, meditation, contemplation, recitation, repentance, Pure Land, devotional cults, images, apocrypha, East Asian Buddhism Subjects: Buddhism Modern studies typically treat the six visualization/contemplation sutras as a specific group or genre of Mahayana scriptures in East Asia Buddhist canons. Doing so can help to frame their study in a way that cuts across typical sectarian boundaries. It is important, however, to also recognize the sutras as individual narratives, each featuring different objects of devotion and showing varied approaches to practice. This article will thus first address three themes— contemplation/visualization, recitation, and repentance—that occur repeatedly across them, then summarize the narratives and some key points for each sutra individually. The six sutras will be identified from here by abbreviated English titles and their individual scripture 1 numbers in the Taishō canon (T). In addition to these six sutras, visualization/contemplation sutras devoted to Mañjuśrī and Avalokiteśvara (or Avalokitasvara) are listed in premodern Chinese Buddhist catalogues as lost scriptures. However, a few studies since 2010 have investigated evidence among extant scriptures for their possible preservation in whole or in part, and these will be addressed in the “Review of the Literature” section. Visualization, Meditation, Contemplation How best to render the key term guan 觀 in the visualization/contemplation sutras—which is fundamental to their scholarly identification as a specific group—is a vexed question. Among East Asian-language Buddhist scriptures more broadly, the term often renders “insight” (Sk. vipaśyanā) in a common twofold classification of meditation methods as calming (Sk. śamatha; Ch. zhi 止) and insight. However, few researchers think that this is the context here, and there is no consensus on an Indic-language equivalent for guan in the visualization/contemplation 2 sutras. That said, guan does commonly indicate an active “looking” and related concepts, such as viewing, observing, contemplating, and discerning. In this regard, the term is similar to “seeing” and its cognates in English, which can refer variously to sensory and cognitive processes linked to sight, whether physically or metaphorically. This is surely part of the basis for rendering guan in the sutras as “visualize” or “visualization,” which became the most common English-language renderings after art historian Alexander Soper’s seminal 1959 analysis of the sutras. There, Soper explicitly defines guan (or kuan) as “a systematic buildingup of visual images, each as complete and precise as possible, in a sequence from the simple 3 toward the complex.” Influenced in part by Soper, many subsequent art historians have examined paintings, sculptures, inscriptions, and other material evidence for Buddhist practices at cave sites in China and Central Asia with reference to the visualization/contemplation sutras. Among those Page 2 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 studies, many characterize the practices using the rubric of “visualization.” Such characterizations may be correct, and there certainly is material evidence from the caves that 4 points that way. However, the common understanding of guan as “visualization” gets more complicated when the individual sutras and the Chinese texts themselves are analyzed. For example, Soper, Nobuyoshi Yamabe, and Cuong Mai all argue that the Maitreya Contemplation Sutra does not offer any particular program of “visualization,” even while they 5 primarily use that term to render guan for the visualization/contemplation sutras. But the Maitreya Contemplation Sutra does recognize what it teaches as guan, however the term is chosen to be rendered in English. This can be seen in both the outer and an alternative interior title for the scripture (T 452 14:418b4; 420c17–18). It can also be seen in the sutra’s use of a stock phrase that is considered characteristic of the visualization/contemplation sutras, on “performing the guan this way . . .,” to punctuate certain sections, as well as in 6 other injunctions to “perform this guan” (419c7; 420b25). More broadly, Yamabe argues that among the six visualization/contemplation sutras, only two can really be considered practical visualization manuals, the Samādhi Sea Sutra and the Amitāyus Contemplation Sutra. Even here, Yamabe’s own painstaking analyses of the Samādhi Sea Sutra show that the “visualization-manual-proper portion” is concentrated in just one of the twelve chapters (chapter 3). He further argues that, there and elsewhere in the text, any visualization 7 processes are often fragmentary or obscured by the profuse narrative elements. Such caveats notwithstanding, the relative presence of “concrete techniques of visualization” serves all the same as one of the yardsticks by which Yamabe (and Soper before him) assesses the relative dating of the visualization/contemplation sutras or their status as “primary” or 8 “secondary/later” sutras within the group. To be clear, Yamabe is a skilled and careful philologist, and this is not the only criteria he uses. But the question merits asking: if only a minority of the guan sutras actually display the characteristics of a “visualization program,” how valuable is “visualization” as a standard for measuring where individual sutras fit within the group and what guan means in this context? Further challenges to understanding guan as “visualization” are raised by Robert Sharf’s provocative 2001 essay, “Visualization and Mandala in Shingon Buddhism,” and recent studies by Eric Greene. Sharf contests a widely held notion in the study of East Asian esoteric Buddhism that mandalas function as aids to visualization. Sharf refers primarily to the idea that Shingon practitioners use, or should use, the mandala as a kind of prop to help fix images of the contemplated deities in their “mind’s eye” during rituals. He argues instead that this notion is supported by neither the ritual manuals nor the ethnographic evidence for Shingon 9 rituals. Sharf does qualify his remarks by noting that images and other physical objects are used as foci for “meditative visualizations” in different Buddhist contexts, and his analysis in 10 that study centers on different contexts than the visualization/contemplation sutras. That the study does, however, have ramifications for research on the sutras is evidenced by Sharf’s argument that “visualization” is a dubious rendering for guan (Jp. kan) and related SinoJapanese Buddhist terms that use the character as part of a compound. He argues that such terms often refer to procedures that are “more discursive, literary, or tropical than they are visual or graphic,” and he accordingly opts instead for such terms as think, imagine, 11 contemplate, or discern to designate the “mental component” of the rites he examines. Page 3 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 Sharf’s arguments in turn have influenced Greene’s studies of the visualization/contemplation 12 sutras and the related 5th-century Chinese meditation manuals. Greene, however, takes the de-centering of “visualization” a step further. He does so through a kind of genealogical tracing of the term in Western-language scholarship, especially as it applies to the meditation manuals and visualization/contemplation sutras. Greene shows that, although there was at least one example before Soper of translating guan in the title of the visualization/ contemplation sutras as “visualizing” or “visualization,” Soper was the first to explicitly argue 13 that the practices in the sutras should be understood as “visualization.” Before this, guan was more typically rendered simply as “meditation,” which does not necessarily imply the kind of systematic and precise mental construction (or re-construction) of specified visual images that Soper’s definition does. Of course, the term “meditation” in Western-language analyses of Buddhism has also been scrutinized, with many scholars recognizing that it too does not correspond to any single 14 Indic-language equivalent. And as a translation of dhyāna, one of the Indic-language Buddhist terms most frequently rendered as “meditation,” “meditation” is a questionable 15 rendering for guan in the visualization/contemplation sutras. First, by the time of their compilation, dhyāna was commonly rendered by the Chinese transliteration chan 禪, the 16 translation ding 定, or their combination as chanding 禪定. Second, even when these terms are used in the visualization/contemplation sutras, there is little suggestion that they are synonymous with guan. For example, in the Maitreya Contemplation Sutra, the opening query by the monk Upāli specifically depicts Maitreya as not having practiced “meditative concentration” (chanding). That set-up for the Buddha’s ensuing delineation of the “contemplation” is significant because it exemplifies a difference between the visualization/contemplation sutras and the nearcontemporary Chinese meditation manuals with which they show affinities. Whereas the meditation manuals show much concern with meditation characterized as chan, or dhyāna, and most of the attributed translators of the visualization/contemplation sutras are recognized as chan specialists, the practice is not typically emphasized in the visualization/contemplation 17 sutras. The characterization of Maitreya in the opening query to the Maitreya Contemplation Sutra, for example (which the Buddha never explicitly denies), is clearly in the breach. Similarly, the opening questions to the Samantabhadra Contemplation Sutra frame the Buddha’s ensuing discourse as one for practitioners who do not “cut off the afflictions,” an achievement frequently posited as a fruit of meditative concentration. Shortly thereafter, the Buddha assures his audience that even practitioners who have not entered samādhi (meditative concentration) will be able to see Samantabhadra by reciting and upholding the 18 guan that he urges them to study. Thus, at various points in the visualization/contemplation sutras, the promoted practices are contrasted with the practices or achievements of meditative concentration. To be sure, this is not always the case. For example, the Samādhi Sea Sutra sometimes supports such a contrast 19 and other times recommends the practice of chan. In the Bhaiṣajyarāja Contemplation Sutra, the mind’s ability to “roam in meditative concentration” (chanding) is eighth among the ten blessings that monks, nuns, and male and female lay practitioners can attain through practice of the dhāraṇī taught by Bhaiṣajyasamudgata, one of the two brother bodhisattvas who is the object of devotion in the sutra. Later in that sutra, ordinary people bound by their afflictions who wish to see Bhaiṣajyarāja, the elder brother, after the Buddha’s nirvana are urged to Page 4 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 20 cultivate four things, with meditative concentration as the third. Such examples notwithstanding, there are enough instances among the visualization/contemplation sutras of distinctions drawn with dhyāna and other “meditation” practices to suggest the merit of Soper’s pursuit of an alternative translation for guan. Moreover, the sutras do emphasize visionary practices. Many passages urge practitioners to clearly contemplate, visualize, or discern (guan 觀); imagine or envision (xiang 想); and see (jian 見) the designated features of the deities and their pure lands or heavens, which are often depicted with vivid visual imagery. In that regard, a translation of guan related to “vision” makes sense. The problem, however, is that the guan taught in these sutras embrace more than visual phenomena, including auditory and didactic elements. Some passages do appear to urge the kind of precise visual replication of phenomena in the mind’s eye that is typically understood 21 by “eidetic contemplation,” and which is integral to many uses of “visualization” in English. But other passages, as Greene has argued, point more toward any resulting vision as confirmation of the success of one’s practice, and these visions do not always mirror the phenomena described. In other words, visions that differ from the described characteristics or 22 specific object of one’s contemplation can also confirm one’s progress along the path. For 23 these various reasons, many scholars prefer to render guan as “contemplation.” This article also suggests that “contemplation” has the advantage of a rubric for guan that could include, but not be limited to, practices commonly understood as “visualization.” Recitation Scholars have long recognized that the visualization/contemplation sutras are intimately connected to the development in China of practices of calling on (nian 念) and reciting the names of buddhas and bodhisattvas. An emphasis on such practices is clear in all of the sutras, including the Ākāśagarbha Contemplation Sutra, which is sometimes omitted from 24 comparative analyses due to its brevity. Moreover, Fujita Kōtatsu argues for the Amitāyus Contemplation Sutra and the remaining sutras: one should note the Chinese-tinged terms that can be detected in these passages—for example, “reciting the name” [chengming 稱名] of the buddha or bodhisattva. Since the same term also appears in the Ākāśagarbha Contemplation Sūtra . . ., the idea of reciting such a name is common to all the contemplation sūtras under discussion. However, as most of the occurrences of name-recitation cannot be traced back to Sanskrit texts, the idea is considered to have originated primarily within the religious 25 milieu of Chinese translations of Buddhist scriptures. There are also increasing suggestions in Western-language scholarship of the significance of recitation more broadly for interpreting guan in the sutras. This article suspects that the late Luis Goméz formed an important link in this development, even though he is not often cited for this in the scholarship on the visualization/contemplation sutras. In a telling footnote to his 1996 introduction to the Chinese versions of the “Larger” and “Shorter” Sukhāvatīvyūha sutras, when referring to the Amitāyus Contemplation Sutra (“the Meditation Sutra”), Goméz suggests: Page 5 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 Again, the term “meditation” (guan) is at best problematic. In this case, the term guan is often translated as “visualization.” As I read the sutra, it is not about visualization or mental concentration, but about dedicated and constant repetition of verbal imagery— a sort of narrative rehearsal (anusmṛti?). This practice overlaps with certain forms of meditation but also overlaps with other rituals of remembrance and devotion. In practice, the Meditation and the Shorter Sutras often provide the content for chanting and recitation, rather than for silent meditations. The ritual and devotional context in which one finds these sutras fits somewhere between reciting or rehearsing a 26 narrative, chan[t]ing a litany, imagining a narrative setting, and meditating. These keen observations prefigure related ones on guan (or kuan) in Sharf’s 2001 essay “Visualization and Mandala” and on the visualization/contemplation sutras in his 2002 book, Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism. In the conclusion to the 2001 essay, Sharf pointedly notes for Shingon rituals that “the kansō [觀想], or ‘contemplative,’ material in the rites is often more discursive than visual. These contemplations are treated not so much as guided 27 meditations, but rather as liturgical recitations.” In the 2002 book, Sharf comments on “the centrality of invocation in the so-called kuan-ching 觀經, or ‘discernment sūtras,’” which “describe elaborate invocation procedures involving the use of icons, mantra, visualization, 28 and other elements often associated with Tantra.” Again here, Sharf’s sights are principally set on different contexts than the visualization/contemplation sutras themselves, and he does not deny elements of “visualization” within them. But the shared challenging of the translation of “visualization” for guan and related compounds, paired with the emphasis on recitation, invocation, and other liturgical procedures for practices understood as guan, do suggest continuity with Goméz’s views. It seems likely that some of these same concerns then extend, at least in part, via Sharf to Greene. Increasing recognition of the importance of chanting and recitation for the visualization/ contemplation sutras (beyond the issue of “reciting the names”) comes from other directions as well. For example, Yamabe investigates a chanting manual found in Dunhuang, the Sūtra on the Major and Minor Bodily Marks (Xianghao jing 相好經), which was based on the Samādhi Sea Sutra. Examining the evidence from this and similar liturgical texts, including a chanting manual based on the Pratyutpanna-sūtra and the Amitāyus Contemplation Sutra, he argues that visualization and chanting were inseparably connected in Dunhuang, Turfan, and 29 elsewhere. Similarly, regarding the Maitreya Contemplation Sutra (“MVS”), Mai argues that “Recitation of the MVS is not opposed to visualization of Tuṣita, in whatever way the latter may have been 30 carried out.” That said, his analysis of the text emphasizes recitation as the likely means by which the guan was actually carried out. Mai argues that “The ritual recitation of the text is itself the method of ‘constantly keeping Tuṣita in mind,’” and he offers a broader sense of guan in the text as referring to such recitation before an image of Maitreya while making 31 vows to direct the ensuing merit. Here, however, it should be recognized that the Maitreya Contemplation Sutra never explicitly refers to recitation of the guan or to the performance of it before an image. These elements are instead inferred by Mai based on his assessment of the likely ritual context and more general injunctions in the text. By contrast, the Samantabhadra Contemplation Sutra does refer to reciting the guan, as will be seen in the section Page 6 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 “Samantabhadra Contemplation Sutra.” That passage thus lends support to recitation as part of what it means to “perform this guan correctly” in the visualization/contemplation sutras (to invoke their common refrain). Repentance All six visualization/contemplation sutras celebrate, to varying degrees, the efficacy of the practices they promote for repenting and extinguishing sins. For example, Fujita’s charts of distinctive terminological affinities among them feature “eliminating the sins” of tremendous numbers of eons of “birth and death” as the second key phrase, immediately following the one 32 on “reciting the names” of the buddhas or bodhisattvas. Like the “reciting the name” emphasis, this holds true for the Ākāśagarbha Contemplation Sutra as well, which is omitted from Fujita’s charts due to its brevity. Moreover, turning to the terminology of “repentance” (chan 懺 or chanhui 懺悔), one can point to several salient passages among the sutras. For example, chapter 3 of the Samādhi Sea Sutra, on the “Contemplation of [the Buddha’s] Bodily Marks,” refers to monks, nuns, and male and female lay practitioners who commit such grave sins as the four fundamental offenses (Sk. pārājika) or the five heinous crimes. Such people are urged to practice repentance single-mindedly six times per day. Prostrating themselves before the Buddha, they should eulogize him and his virtuous deeds, then “recite the repentance rite.” However, true to the nature of the chapter, that section devotes the most attention to contemplation of the light from the mark of the white curl between the Buddha’s eyebrows as the means to extinguish the sins, deferring details of formal proceedings (jiemo 羯磨) for expiation to 33 “separate records.” Given the Amitāyus Contemplation Sutra’s well-known emphasis on extinguishing sins, it is somewhat surprising that the specific language of “repentance” does not come up much. The term only appears twice. First is during the frame story, when two ministers of King Ajātaśatru chastise him for intending to kill his mother, Vaidehī. After hearing their reproach, 34 he repents and locks her up rather than killing her. The second is when Vaidehī first entreats the Buddha to show her a place of rebirth that will be free of sorrows and afflictions, a land of “pure karma.” In doing so, she prostrates herself before the Buddha, begs him to take pity on 35 her, and repents. Similarly, the Maitreya Contemplation Sutra, although also promoting its practices for overcoming sins, only refers to “repentance” once: the Buddha explains to Upāli that those who violate the precepts and perpetrate evil deeds can quickly have those deeds purified by hearing Maitreya’s name, prostrating themselves, and sincerely repenting. The sutra then adds that “It will be the same for the various groups in future generations” (T 452 14:420b6–9). The pace of references to repentance picks up, however, in the Bhaiṣajyarāja Contemplation Sutra. The sutra links repentance to the dhāraṇīs taught by the two brother bodhisattvas, as well as to devotion to many of the same sets of buddhas and bodhisattvas designated in the Ākāśagarbha Contemplation Sutra. The Buddha calls attention to sentient beings who want to extinguish transgressions of the four grave precepts, obtain repentance for the five heinous crimes or the ten evil deeds, or extinguish the grave sin of slandering the Dharma. He first urges such beings to diligently recite the spells of the bodhisattvas Bhaiṣajyarāja and Page 7 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 Bhaiṣajyasamudgata. He then exhorts them to also pay reverence to the buddhas of the ten directions, the fifty-three buddhas, the thousand buddhas of this auspicious eon, and the thirty-five buddhas. Following this, practitioners should “universally venerate all the countless buddhas of the ten directions.” They are then ready to perform the actual repentance rites: “At the six times of day and night, with their minds and imaginations clear and sharp like flowing water, they should perform the repentance rites. Following this, they should fix their thoughts and call to mind the pure material bodies of the two bodhisattvas Bhaiṣajyarāja and Bhaiṣajyasamudgata” (T1161 20:664a29–b8). Toward the end of the sutra, after delineation of the sutra’s names, a much simpler method is taught for “purifying” many of those same evil deeds. Here, the Buddha tells Ānanda: After my nirvana, if there are monks and nuns who hear this sutra and sincerely take joy in it, even for a moment, the four grave evil deeds will all be purified. If there are male or female lay practitioners who hear this sutra and sincerely take joy in it, even for a moment, if they have violated the five precepts or broken the eight precepts of abstinence, this will quickly be purified. If there are kings of countries, great ministers, kṣatriyas, householders, vaiśyas (merchants), śūdras (peasants or serfs), brahmans and the like, or any others who hear this sutra, if even for a moment they sincerely take joy in it, the five heinous crimes and ten evil deeds will all be purified. (T1161 20:666b8–14) In light of these passages—as well as the fact that the first two names the Buddha provides for the sutra’s teachings are “Elimination of the Sins and Obstructions” and the “Divine Spell of Repentance for Evil Deeds”—the significance of repentance and purification of sins for 36 understanding this “Contemplation” is clear. Among the six visualization/contemplation sutras, however, repentance and purification of sins come most clearly to the fore with the two attributed to Dharmamitra, the Samantabhadra Contemplation Sutra and Ākāśagarbha Contemplation Sutra. Whether or not either of those texts are properly attributed to Dharmamitra, their attribution to the same translator may reflect not only their general status as visualization/contemplation sutras—or Dharmamitra’s renown as a meditation specialist—but their shared emphasis on repentance. The basic process in the Samantabhadra Contemplation Sutra is that practitioners are repeatedly enjoined to contemplate the wondrous forms and transformations of Samantabhadra and the other stipulated buddhas and bodhisattvas and to “see” them and their teachings. The contemplations proceed in stages, whose success is determined by the resulting visions and encounters. Yet each success along the way is only partial, revealing particular deities or aspects of them, but with more still to come. At those points, practitioners are urged to redouble their acts of veneration, repentance, and scriptural recitation and study. After doing so, they can then see the next aspect, deity, or set of deities in the sequence and/ or hear their teachings more directly. The central role played by repentance is evident not only in the sutra’s repeated injunctions to confess and repent, but in the very structure of successively purifying the sins of the six sense organs. In subsequent Buddhist traditions, most notably the Tiantai master Zhiyi’s 智顗 (538–597) influential systemizations of meditative practices, the repentance for purifying the sense organs would become one of the most celebrated aspects of the sutra. Page 8 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 Zhiyi famously classified and systemized diverse meditation traditions for his monastic community as four types of samādhi: constantly sitting, constantly walking, both sitting and walking, and neither sitting nor walking. As Daniel Stevenson explains, the Samantabhadra Contemplation Sutra and the chapter on the “Exhortations of the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra” in the Lotus Sutra formed the basis for Zhiyi’s twenty-one-day “Lotus 37 Samādhi” practice. Zhiyi grouped this within the category of both sitting and walking. Repentance practices from the Ākāśagarbha Contemplation Sutra also receive mention within Zhiyi’s fourfold system, in this case under the category of neither sitting nor walking. Specifically, Zhiyi mentions an “Ākāśagarbha” practice of cleaning the latrines for 800 days that is featured in the sutra. The category within which this is embedded centers on samādhi and repentance practices that do not readily fit into the preceding three categories, and Zhiyi explains these as the cultivation of samādhi “wherever one’s mind is directed” (sui ziyi 隨自 38 意). In the Ākāśagarbha Contemplation Sutra, the latrine-cleaning practice only comes as a kind of last resort after a series of other penitential and contemplative acts are undertaken (T 409 13:677c16–c18). These include, among others, paying reverence to the buddhas of the ten directions, calling on the names of the thirty-five buddhas and Ākāśagarbha, and envisioning or imagining (xiang) the bodhisattva’s form as well as the sounds that his transformations produce. Only when practitioners do not receive visionary confirmation of the extinction of sins in dreams, in seated meditation, or through perception of a “voice in the sky” are they enjoined to undertake the longer penance of cleaning the latrines. Many of those preceding practices—which are all framed in the context of repentance—may strike contemporary readers as more clearly meditative, contemplative, or visionary than the latrine cleaning that Zhiyi cites as an example of samādhi “wherever one’s mind is directed.” But even within the Ākāśagarbha Contemplation Sutra itself, continuity, rather than rupture, with the preceding practices is suggested by the conclusion to the latrine cleaning. At this point, the penitents are instructed to bathe, pay reverence to the thirty-five buddhas, and chant Ākāśagarbha’s name for an additional twenty-one days, then to retake the precepts while calling on Mañjuśrī and the bodhisattvas of the current “auspicious eon” to serve as 39 witnesses. Although Zhiyi’s classification of the latrine practice stands as an example of a later, creative reformulation, it helps underscore a more general point about the visualization/ contemplation sutras. While the sutras at times tout the rewards of their practices for those not specifically cultivating dhyāna or samādhi, the contemplations they preach remain intimately joined to such traditional categories of meditative practice and attainment. That even the apparently mundane practice of latrine cleaning could be considered “samādhi” drives this point home. The Six Visualization/Contemplation Sutras This section examines each of the six sutras in turn, summarizing their translator attributions and their narratives, with a focus on what is covered by the term guan in the sutras. Page 9 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 Samādhi Sea Sutra, T 643 The translation of the Samādhi Sea Sutra into Chinese is attributed to the Indian monk Buddhabhadra in the early 5th century CE. As with all the traditional translator attributions for the visualization/contemplation sutras, however, modern scholars have questioned that attribution. That said, the early-5th-century dating for the Chinese text tends to be supported. Although various earlier scholars posited a Gandhāran (northwest India) origin for the text, Yamabe—the leading specialist of the sutra in Western-language scholarship—raises strong doubts on that hypothesis. He contrastingly suggests that the sutra was likely written originally in Chinese, but composed in the Turfan area of Central Asia, where Indian and 40 Chinese Buddhist traditions mixed freely in the 5th century. The Samādhi Sea Sutra is by far the longest of the six visualization/contemplation sutras. Partly due to its length and the challenges posed by many unusual passages, the sutra has not yet been translated into any Western language. However, Yamabe’s 1999 PhD dissertation, the most comprehensive study to date, and Soper’s 1959 art historical study provide valuable 41 summaries. The text is divided into twelve chapters, with the titles of most featuring particular objects of meditation or contemplation. The twelve chapters, along with their starting points in the Taishō edition, are: (1) “The six similes” (T 643 15:645c6); (2) “Enumeration of the Objects of Contemplation” (647b15); (3) “Contemplation of [the Buddha’s] Bodily Marks” (648c24); (4) “Contemplation of the Buddha’s Heart” (668b15); (5) “Contemplation of the Four Types of Limitless Mind” (674b5); (6) “Contemplation of the Four Types of Deportment [of the Buddha]” (675b16); (7) “Contemplation of [the Buddha’s] HorseKing Organ” (683b5); (8) “Past-Life Deeds” (687b5); (9) “Contemplation of Images” (690a2); (10) “Calling to Mind the Seven Buddhas [of the Past]” (693a11); (11) “Calling to Mind the Buddhas of the Ten Directions” (693c28); and (12) “Secret Practice of the Contemplation of 42 the Buddha” (695b8). This framework largely adopts the form of the 5th-century Chinese meditation manuals. However, as Yamabe’s analysis suggests, so many narrative elements are interspersed within the discussions of the Buddha’s bodily marks and other objects of contemplation that the 43 structure of the underlying meditative practice is often obscured. To highlight a few narratives that have received particular scholarly attention, chapter 6, on the Buddha’s four types of deportment—walking, standing, sitting, and lying down—includes discussion of knowing the seated Buddha by contemplating (guan) his “emanation” (xing 影). Notably, this discussion does feature the kind of systematic build-up of visual images that scholars often understand guan to mean in the visualization/contemplation sutras. Here, this includes contemplating or observing an image (xiang 像) of the Buddha—likely referring to a physical image—and creating a mental image (xiang 想) or vision of the seated Buddha. But any lines between the two kinds of images are well blurred when the practitioner “invites” the physical image to sit down, then creates further visions of a pure white rock cave and a rock wall into which the Buddha leaps (T 643 15:681b15–22). And to get to this specific contemplation, the sutra first takes the audience through longer stories of the Buddha’s subjugation of nāgas (snake-like deities) and female demons at what became the famous Buddha “Emanation” or 44 “Shadow” cave of Nagarahāra, in the Gandhāra area. Page 10 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 Similarly, chapter 7 is ostensibly devoted to contemplation or visualization of one of the Buddha’s bodily marks, his “horse-king organ,” referring to his usually hidden male organ. But virtually the entire chapter is devoted to entertaining stories of court ladies and prostitutes who doubt his potency and endowments (and are variously pleasantly surprised or ashamed by what they find) and of rival Jain ascetics who had similar doubts. The Jains, who would go naked as part of their ascetic practices and had initially challenged the Buddha, are also ashamed when the Buddha out-endows them. They thus repent, and they too become his 45 disciples. These examples help show that, here and elsewhere in the sutra, one may question how much the focus really is on “visualization”—at least as that term is typically understood—and how much instead is on storytelling. Even so, Yamabe, who well recognizes these caveats, does consider “Buddha visualization” (as he renders guanfo 觀佛) to be the sutra’s main topic. And there is no doubt that the sutra’s discussions of guanfo and nianfo 念佛 (calling the Buddha to 46 mind) influenced many later Tiantai, Pure Land, and other East Asian Buddhist masters. Yamabe interprets guanfo as referring to visualization of the Buddha, primarily through use of 47 a statue, and he offers that definition more generally for Chinese Buddhist texts. There certainly are passages in the Samādhi Sea Sutra that lend themselves to such an interpretation. The instructions on contemplating the Buddha’s cave emanation provide one such example. Other prominent examples include injunctions to enter a stupa and to contemplate or make offerings to buddha images as an aid to one’s repentances and contemplations, which are often interlinked. One such instance completes the contemplation of the Buddha’s emanation, or the seated Buddha, for those who still cannot see it; another occurs within an entire chapter devoted to the “Contemplation of Images” (or the 48 “Visualization of Statues,” as Yamabe renders it). As suggestive as such passages and sections are in the Samādhi Sea Sutra, however, for interpreting the use of guan more broadly across the visualization/contemplation sutras, a closer look at the remaining ones is warranted. Amitāyus Contemplation Sutra, T 365 The Amitāyus Contemplation Sutra is the best known of the visualization/contemplation sutras, and there are numerous Western-language translations. This is in part due to the scripture’s adoption as one of the three fundamental Pure Land sutras by Japanese Pure Land schools that emerged in the Kamakura period (1185–1333). Those schools ultimately produced a vast amount of sectarian scholarship, a tradition that continues to influence interpretations of the visualization/contemplation sutras. As Kenneth Tanaka points out, however, at least forty commentaries on the Amitāyus Contemplation Sutra were produced from the Sui (c. 581–618) to the Song period (960–1279), the majority of which were compiled 49 before 800 CE. In addition, at least 150 copies of the sutra have been identified from the 50 Dunhuang cave archives, whose manuscripts only date up to the early 11th century. Deep interest in this particular visualization/contemplation sutra thus clearly has roots in China well predating the emergence of the Japanese Pure Land schools. Page 11 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 The Chinese translation is traditionally attributed to Kālayaśas between 424 and 442, and Kālayaśas was apparently one of many meditation specialists from “the Western regions” (India or Central Asia) teaching in south China in the Liu Song dynasty (420–479 51 CE). This translation attribution has also been contested, however. Fujita, whose analyses of the provenance of this and the other visualization/contemplation sutras have been influential, 52 suggests that “there is as yet no compelling reason to reject this claim.” But even here, similar to Yamabe’s theories on the Samādhi Sea Sutra, Fujita suggests that while the foreign translator orally transmitted a Central Asian contemplation practice, perhaps from the Turfan area, the sutra in its written form was composed in China. He thus adopts what he calls a 53 “compromise” Central Asian and Chinese compilation theory. The Amitāyus Contemplation Sutra centers on a sequence of sixteen contemplations. Śākyamuni Buddha is said to have taught these to Queen Vaidehī, after she had been imprisoned by her evil son Ajātaśatru and requested instruction on rebirth in a place free of sorrows and afflictions. In doing so, she beseeches the Buddha to teach her how to 54 contemplate (guan) such a “place of pure karma.” When the Buddha manifests such pure lands presided over by all the buddhas of the ten directions, Vaidehī conveys her wish to be reborn in Amitāyus’s Land of Utmost Bliss (i.e., his Pure Land). In response, the Buddha 55 instructs her to “fix your thoughts and clearly contemplate that [buddha] land.” Elaborating, he explains: I, the Thus Come One (Sk. tathāgata), shall now teach you, Vaidehī, and all sentient beings of the future how to contemplate the Western Land of Utmost Bliss. By the power of the Buddha, you will be able to see that Pure Land as clearly as if looking at your own image in a bright mirror. Seeing the utmost beauty and bliss of that land, 56 you will rejoice and immediately attain insight into the non-arising of all dharmas. Vaidehī accordingly acknowledges having seen Amitāyus’s Pure Land thanks to the Buddha’s power. She then asks how those “defiled and evil” sentient beings after the Buddha’s nirvana will be able to do so. The Buddha thus delineates the sixteen contemplations on Amitāyus’s Pure Land. Summary analyses are appended here, with a particular eye on what is included within the range of the key term guan in the sutra. (1) Contemplation of the Sun Queen Vaidehī, and all future sentient beings with the faculty of sight, are first told to direct their attention to the setting sun. They should “sit in the proper posture, facing west,” then contemplate or observe (guan) and fix their minds on the sun, seeing its “setting form like a suspended drum.” Having seen it thus, one should be able to “make it clear, whether your eyes are open or shut.” Description of the first contemplation then closes with a stock phrase, typical of the visualization/contemplation and related scriptures, that caps all but the final, sixteenth contemplation: “Performing the contemplation this way is called correct 57 contemplation. If one contemplates otherwise, it is called false contemplation.” Page 12 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 (2) Contemplation of the Water After the first contemplation has been successfully accomplished, the Buddha’s attendant Ānanda, Vaidehī, and future practitioners are instructed to “envision and see (xiang jian 想見) the western direction as entirely flooded by water.” The Buddha then describes the transformations of the water into ice, then beryl, and the manifestation of other elements of the now jewel-adorned, crystalline landscape. Notably, the account concludes with a depiction of musical instruments, which, stroked by the breezes arising from a platform of light, “proclaim the truths of suffering, emptiness, impermanence, and no-self.” The text makes explicit that these are sounds. Thus, in addition to the dazzling visual imagery, didactic and 58 auditory elements are included within the contemplations. (3) Contemplation of the Ground In contemplation two, the water envisioned permeating the Pure Land was already to be seen as transforming into a “beryl ground.” Thus contemplations two and three are so closely linked that, as the Buddha declares, “When the envisioning (xiang 想) of the water has been accomplished, it is called the general perception (jian 見) of the ground of the Land of Utmost Bliss.” The contemplation of the ground here refers to the attainment of a state of samādhi in which the ground is seen “clearly and distinctly.” Moreover, as part of the “correct contemplation,” Ānanda is enjoined to expound the contemplation of the ground for future sentient beings. Crucially, those who carry out this contemplation will extinguish the evil karma that would otherwise bind them to rebirth for myriad eons, and they will assuredly be 59 reborn in the Pure Land in their next life. This assurance is repeated for many of the individual contemplations. (4) Contemplation of the Jeweled Trees This is one of the most purely visual of the contemplations. It prescribes contemplation of each of the jeweled trees adorning the Pure Land, from the trunks, through the branches and leaves, to the blossoms and fruits. As in many of the contemplations, the practitioners are urged to render all the envisioned objects “clear and distinct.” But any vision is very much in motion, as the Buddha indicates that within jeweled canopies (transformed from the lights 60 emitted by the trees’ fruits) are reflections of the deeds of all buddhas. (5) Contemplation of the Ponds The Buddha describes the ponds as made from the seven kinds of jewels, which issue forth from a wish-fulfilling jewel. The sound of the water’s rippling is fine and subtle, “broadly proclaiming [the truths of] suffering, emptiness, impermanence, no-self, and the pāramitās” (the practices that bodhisattvas “perfect” on their way to enlightenment). The sound further eulogizes the auspicious marks of the buddhas, while the songs of jeweled birds, manifested from the light of a maṇi jewel, constantly praise the virtues of mindfulness 61 (nian) of the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. Page 13 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 (6) “Collective” Contemplation The Buddha refers to this as a “collective contemplation” (zong guan xiang 總觀想). When complete, it is called the “general perception of the jeweled trees, jeweled ground, and jeweled ponds of the Land of Utmost Bliss.” The objects actually depicted, however, are jeweled pavilions in which countless gods play heavenly music, with musical instruments in the sky that spontaneously sound their notes without even being struck, and those sounds’ 62 preaching mindfulness of the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Thus while there are visual elements, the emphasis here is on sound. (7) Contemplation of the Lotus Throne In this contemplation, Amitāyus makes his first appearance, standing in the sky with the bodhisattvas Avalokiteśvara and Mahāsthāmaprāpta to his left and right. Once Vaidehī is able to see Amitāyus, she asks how future sentient beings can also see him. This prompts the Buddha’s depiction of the tremendous jeweled “flower throne” on which Amitāyus will sit. As is often the case for these objects of contemplation, the throne is described with dazzling visual imagery. But the throne itself is not a mere receptacle for Amitāyus, as it also acts, emitting golden lights that “transform in accordance with one’s wishes and carry out the 63 deeds of a buddha.” (8) Contemplation of the Buddha Image The Buddha tells Ānanda and Vaidehī that once they have seen the lotus throne, they should 64 “envision the buddha” (xiang fo 想佛). This, he explains, is because: The buddhas, Thus Come Ones, have dharma-realm bodies that enter the minds and conceptions (xin xiang 心想) of all sentient beings. Thus when your mind envisions a buddha, this mind itself becomes the thirty-two marks and eighty secondary signs. This mind produces the buddha, and this mind is itself the buddha. (T 365 12:343a19– 21) The buddhas, he elaborates, thus “arise from the mind and conceptions, and because of this, you should single-mindedly fix your thoughts and clearly contemplate that buddha.” To do so, practitioners are instructed to first envision Amitāyus’s image (xiag xiang 想像). Whether their eyes are open or closed, they should see a jeweled image, sitting on the flower throne. After seeing the seated image, their “mind’s eye” (xinyan 心眼) will open, and they will clearly see the various jeweled adornments of the Pure Land. The practitioners can then envision seated images of the bodhisattvas Avalokiteśvara and Mahāsthāmaprāpta on Amitāyus’s left and right. The images of the three deities emit golden lights that reveal images of buddhas, similarly with paired bodhisattvas, sitting under the trees of the Pure Land. The entire land is permeated with such images. After this vision is complete, “practitioners should hear the streams, lights, jeweled trees, ducks, geese, male and female mandarin ducks, and so on all preaching the wondrous Dharma.” Moreover, they will constantly hear that Dharma, whether in or out of meditation. When emerging from meditation, they should remember what they heard “and confirm it with the sutras. If it does Page 14 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 not match, it should be called an illusion (wangxiang 妄想). If it matches, it is called the general perception of the Land of Utmost Bliss.” Those who perform this contemplation of “envisioning the image” are assured again that they will remove the sins that would otherwise bind them to countless eons of rebirth. They are also told that they will “attain in their present 65 bodies the samādhi of calling the buddha to mind” (nianfo sanmei 念佛三昧). This article suggests that the injunction to confirm with the sutras the perceptions from visionary practices is crucial to understanding the “visualization” or “contemplation” process. This is the case both for the Amitāyus Contemplation Sutra and elsewhere in the visualization/ contemplation sutras. In other words, the process is not a passive one, in which one simply mirrors in one’s mind what was prescribed, but one that requires active confirmation, 66 including from “external” sources, such as the scriptures or a (human) teacher. (9) Contemplation of the Bodily Marks of the Buddha The Buddha teaches Ānanda and Vaidehī how to contemplate Amitāyus’s auspicious bodily marks and light (an alternate name for this buddha is Amitābha, or “Immeasurable Light”). Amitāyus is depicted in incredibly colossal terms, with even the mark of the white tuft of hair between his eyebrows five times larger than the fabled Mt. Sumeru. The contemplation then proceeds from his blue eyes, through the light emitted from all the pores of his body, to the tremendous halo of light around him. Each light he emits “embraces and does not abandon those who call the buddha to mind.” Those who see such lights and auspicious marks, including the myriad transformation buddhas and bodhisattvas manifested within them, “see all the buddhas of the ten directions.” The Buddha then adds: “Because they see the buddhas, 67 this is called the samādhi of calling the buddha to mind.” Those who have performed this contemplation will, in future lives, be reborn before the buddhas. But the sutra goes on to suggest that, even before then, having already seen Amitāyus and the countless buddhas through contemplation of the white tuft alone, they will receive predictions of their future buddhahood. This is an important detail because, given that the Buddha addresses the contemplation to Queen Vaidehī as well as Ānanda, it suggests that women in their present lifetimes can receive predictions of future buddhahood (a position that not all scriptures support). (10) Contemplation of Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara is described in similarly colossal terms, with the contemplation proceeding from the mark of the mound atop his head to the “thousand-spoked wheel” on the soles of his feet. The Buddha then adds that all of Avalokiteśvara’s remaining bodily marks and signs are the same as the buddha’s (likely referring to Amitāyus), except the mound on his head and “the mark of the uppermost, invisible part,” which are not equal to those of the buddha. Also of note here is the Buddha’s proclamation that “Just by hearing [Avalokiteśvara’s] name, you 68 will reap immeasurable merit; how much more so if you clearly contemplate him!” Page 15 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 (11) Contemplation of Mahāsthāmaprāpta Bodhisattva Mahāsthāmaprāpta is depicted in similar terms to Avalokiteśvara. After discussion of the lights Mahāsthāmaprāpta emits, his heavenly crown, and the mound on his head, the Buddha declares, “His remaining bodily marks are the same as Avalokiteśvara’s.” However, a particular benefit promised for those who perform this contemplation (in addition to the usual removal of sins) is that they will “no longer be born from the womb” and can journey freely to 69 the various pure lands. (12) Contemplation of One’s Own Birth in the Land of Utmost Bliss The Buddha next instructs Ānanda and Vaidehī to arouse their imaginations and “see yourselves born in the Western Land of Utmost Bliss, sitting cross-legged in a lotus flower.” After the lotus flower and their eyes open, they will “see buddhas and bodhisattvas filling the sky.” They will also hear “the sounds and voices of the water, birds, and trees and of the buddhas, all proclaiming the wondrous Dharma.” The practitioners are again urged to remember those teachings after they emerge from meditation. Once they have perceived these things, “it is called seeing Amitāyus’s Land of Utmost Bliss,” and the Buddha refers to 70 this as a comprehensive contemplation. (13) “Mixed” Contemplation Here, the Buddha instructs practitioners wishing to be born in the Western Land to first contemplate a 16-feet-high image (xiang 像) atop a pond. The Buddha insists: “Just by envisioning an image of the buddha [Amitāyus], you will obtain immeasurable merit; how much more so if you also contemplate the buddha’s complete bodily marks!” Because Amitāyus can change his form and manifest at will, he sometimes appears as a large body that fills the sky, and other times as a small one, 16 or 8 feet high. Regarding Avalokiteśvara and Mahāsthāmaprāpta, the Buddha adds that they have the same bodies everywhere, and one can only tell them apart by looking at (guan) the marks on their heads. He calls this 71 contemplation a “mixed” one (za xiang guan 雜想觀). (14–16) Contemplation of the Nine Grades of Rebirth Contemplations fourteen through sixteen will be addressed collectively because they each follow the same pattern. These three contemplations are devoted to nine descending grades of practitioners born in the Pure Land, in three broad groups, and to the nature of the birth they attain there. Each of the three groups is similarly divided into three descending levels: high, middle, then low. So contemplation fourteen covers the three highest grades of rebirth; contemplation fifteen, the three middle grades; and contemplation sixteen, the three lowest 72 grades. The grades of rebirth are based on the practitioners’ faith and deeds during their multiple lives. The nine grades of rebirth have been one of the most widely debated aspects of this sutra, past and present. However, as this part in particular is unique among the visualization/ contemplation sutras, further details will be omitted, except to note that some commentators consider only the first thirteen contemplations to constitute the “meditation” or 73 “visualization” portion proper and these remaining three to belong to a different category. Page 16 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 That said, the Taishō text does show the same designation of guan referring to these latter three contemplations, and all but the sixteenth guan are capped with the stock phrase on correct and false performance of the contemplation. Instead, the final contemplation is immediately followed by reference to Vaidehī and her 500 female attendants having listened to the Buddha’s preaching. Accordingly, Vaidehī attains great awakening, and her attendants 74 attain the aspiration for perfect enlightenment and rebirth in the Pure Land. Bhaiṣajyarāja Contemplation Sutra, T 1161 As with the Amitāyus Contemplation Sutra, Kālayaśas is credited with the translation of the Bhaiṣajyarāja Contemplation Sutra between 424 and 442 CE. For the former sutra, however, Yamabe suggests that Kālayaśas’s name may have been used simply “to lend an air of authority to the text,” and by extension, that could be applied to the Bhaiṣajyarāja Contemplation Sutra as well. Both Yamabe and Julian Pas consider this to be a relatively late, “second-generation” visualization/contemplation sutra, although the general dating of the Chinese text to about the first half of the 5th century remains widely accepted (including by 75 Yamabe and Pas). Accorded a relatively minor status among the visualization/contemplation sutras, the sutra has not been the focus of many specific studies in contemporary scholarship. However, Raoul Birnbaum has analyzed the text and provided a full annotated Englishlanguage translation as part of his monograph on “The Healing Buddha,” and many studies do address the sutra alongside analyses of one or more of the other visualization/contemplation 76 sutras. The sutra centers on a pair of brother bodhisattvas, Bhaiṣajyarāja and Bhaiṣajyasamudgata, or Medicine King (Yaowang 藥王) and Medicine Lord (Yaoshang 藥上). The brother pair also appears in the Lotus Sutra, with the elder brother, Bhaiṣajyarāja, even receiving his own chapter (chapter 23), which is part of the basis for his greater popularity over his younger 77 brother in Chinese scriptures. As Inoue Hirofumi argues, however, the image of Bhaiṣajyarāja in the Lotus Sutra is rather different from that in the Bhaiṣajyarāja Contemplation Sutra. In the Lotus Sutra, Bhaiṣajyarāja is celebrated primarily as a devotee of the sutra and for the ardor of his practices, including self-immolation offerings of his whole body, then his arms after he was reborn. Here, the healing powers suggested by his name are 78 attributed to the Lotus Sutra itself. In the Bhaiṣajyarāja Contemplation Sutra, however, both brothers are the main objects of devotion, and their healing power and other benefits can be accessed through the mere hearing of their names, recitation of the dhāraṇī they teach, or contemplation of them. Moreover, while likely drawing inspiration and perhaps a few passages from the Lotus Sutra, the Bhaiṣajyarāja Contemplation Sutra also shares many distinctive phrases and emphases with the visualization/contemplation sutras and the Pure Land sutras, especially the Samādhi 79 Sea Sutra and the Amitāyus Contemplation Sutra. These include, for example, contemplation of the merits of hearing and calling their names, the pure lands they will preside over, manifestations of the bodhisattvas in dreams and visions, their auspicious bodily marks, and the transformation buddhas and bodhisattvas produced from those marks. Page 17 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 Maitreya Contemplation Sutra, T 452 The Maitreya Contemplation Sutra is noteworthy for having a Tibetan version, although that 80 translation was based on the Chinese and thus does not attest to an Indic-language original. Juqu Jingsheng 沮渠京聲 (d. 464 CE) is credited in the Taishō edition as the translator of the Chinese text, which he is traditionally said to have done in southern China between 439 and 455. However, the key primary source for this recognition is a bit ambiguous on his role. Sengyou’s 僧祐 (445–518) generally esteemed bibliographic catalogue, A Compilation of Notices on the Translation of the Tripiṭaka (Chu sanzang ji ji 出三藏記集; completed in 517), at one point indicates that in the southern territory ruled by the Song, Jingsheng “first issued the two contemplation sutras on Maitreya and Avalokiteśvara,” which he had obtained in Turfan (T 2145 55:106c4–8). Although the reference to “issuing” or “producing” (chu 出) these sutras does often imply “translation,” elsewhere in the catalogue Sengyou indicates that “those two Contemplations had long been translated (yi chu 譯出) in Gaochang commandery [Turfan]” before Jingsheng brought them to the southern capital (T 2145 55:13a14–15). Thus these references may simply point to his reciting or otherwise transmitting a previously translated text. But whatever the actual status of Jingsheng’s role, the paired indications here for the two contemplation sutras’ roots in Turfan and the time frame for their “issuance” in southern China are noteworthy. The Buddha’s discourse in the Maitreya Contemplation Sutra centers on the marvels of Tuṣita, the heaven into which Maitreya will be reborn before his subsequent rebirth in this world, when he becomes the next buddha. These dual themes of Maitreya’s “ascent” to Tuṣita Heaven and his “descent” to this world have been widely treated as characteristic motifs for the East Asian Maitreya cult, and the Maitreya Contemplation Sutra is considered the 81 foremost example of the ascent motif. But the sutra also presupposes one of the leading scriptures exemplifying the descent motif, the Sutra on Maitreya’s Descent to Rebirth (Mile xiasheng jing 彌勒下生經; T 453), which it refers to by name (T 452 14:420a8). Thus here, as in other instances of the cult, the two motifs are intertwined, even if the Maitreya Contemplation 82 Sutra emphasizes the ascent motif. The Buddha’s prediction of Maitreya’s rebirth in Tuṣita is prompted when the monk Upāli asks him, From long ago in the vinaya and various sutra collections, the World-Honored One taught that Ajita [Maitreya] would become the next buddha. This Ajita possesses an ordinary, foolish body and has not yet cut off the defilements (lou 漏). Where will he be reborn when his life ends? Although now he has left the household life, he does not cultivate meditative concentration (chanding 禪定) nor does he cut off the afflictions. [However,] the Buddha has predicted that he will attain buddhahood, without doubt. 83 In what realm will he be reborn when his life ends? Despite Maitreya’s posited lack of meditative practice and other attainments, the Buddha responds to Upāli’s query by predicting that Maitreya will be reborn in Tuṣita in twelve years and that the bodhisattva will ultimately attain supreme and perfect enlightenment. The Buddha then depicts in rich sensual terms the panoply of deities and offerings awaiting Maitreya in Tuṣita. For example, immediately after his prediction, the Buddha depicts myriad “heavenly sons” (or gods; tianzi 天子) there who, in order to make offerings to Maitreya, Page 18 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 remove their sandalwood and maṇi-jewel crowns and make vows to attain their own predictions of enlightenment when Maitreya takes his place as buddha. In response, the crowns instantly transform into an equally tremendous number of palaces, made of the seven precious jewels (T 452 14:418c13–24). The transformations of the jewels and the countless, multicolored lights they radiate ultimately produce myriad “heavenly jewel maidens” (tian baonü 天寶女) who, in turn, make offerings of their jeweled necklaces and of musical melodies (T 452 14:418c24–29). Significantly, those melodies are said to preach the “stage of non-regression” of a bodhisattva (T 452 14:418c29–419a1). Shortly thereafter, rows of jeweled trees rained down by dragon (or nāga) kings “broadly expound the dharmas of suffering, emptiness, impermanence, no-self, 84 and the pāramitās” (419a5–7). Then, a separately manifested group of heavenly maidens (tiannü 天女) sing and play melodies that “broadly expound the ten good deeds and the four great vows,” and the “heavenly beings who hear this all generate the aspiration for the supreme Way” (419a14–20). Thus, much as in the contemplations of the Pure Land depicted in the Amitāyus Contemplation Sutra, here too aural and didactic elements are interspersed with the spectacular visual imagery. Moreover, the Maitreya Contemplation Sutra makes clear that the delights of Tuṣita await not only Maitreya, but anyone reborn there, with specific reference to the heavenly maidens awaiting them: “If one attains rebirth in Tuṣita Heaven, 85 [they] will spontaneously receive these heavenly maidens as attendants.” Recognizing that such maidens produce melodies that preach, one can also recognize the close interplay between the sensual and the soteriological within those delights. This main section on the marvels of Tuṣita is also notable for the absence of reference to Maitreya’s presence. Thus, for example, one of the adornments awaiting him is a jewel- and gold-decorated “lion-throne,” onto which countless heavenly sons and maidens make their own offerings of jeweled lotus blossoms (T 452 14:419b1–8). At this point, however, the throne is empty. Due to the sutra’s emphasis on the heaven itself, some scholars have implicitly or explicitly questioned the level of devotion to Maitreya specifically. For example, Soper’s seminal Western-language analysis of the visualization/contemplation sutras uses “Tusịta 86 Sūtra” as the abbreviated title, rather than featuring Maitreya’s name. Mai suggests that 87 the sutra focuses more on the merits of Tuṣita, and argues that the link between Maitreya and Tuṣita is relatively weak because Tuṣita is not created due to the bodhisattva’s own vows, 88 in contrast to pure lands, such as that of Amitābha (Amitāyus). Most explicitly, Christoph 89 Anderl suggests that “Maitreya himself does not play a significant role in the text.” However, two qualifications are warranted. First, the Buddha’s response to Upāli’s opening question shows that most of the Tuṣita landscape and soundscape he depicts was created in response to Maitreya’s anticipated rebirth there, as offerings to the bodhisattva. Second, the narrative does shift to focus more on devotion to Maitreya himself, right after the main section describing Tuṣita. Notably, this is where the term guan is first introduced in the sutra, and performance of the guan is framed as advice for those “who want to become Maitreya’s disciple” (T 452 14:419c6–7). That focus on the merits not only of Tuṣita but of devotion to Maitreya specifically continues through the rest of the sutra. Here, the Buddha explains in more detail the conditions of Maitreya’s ascent to and rebirth in Tuṣita as well as how followers can attain rebirth in the heaven and accompany Maitreya when he descends to become the next buddha (T 452 14:419c7–420c10). The methods for their doing so, however, do draw on practices typical of the visualization/contemplation sutras, cutting across specific objects of devotion: Page 19 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 contemplating images of the particular buddhas and bodhisattvas as well as their bodily signs, calling on their names, repenting and extinguishing one’s transgressions, and clearly imagining and seeing the stipulated visionary phenomena. Samantabhadra Contemplation Sutra, T 277 The Indian monk Dharmamitra (356–442) is credited in the Taishō with the translation of the Samantabhadra Contemplation Sutra, as well as the Ākāśagarbha Contemplation Sutra (both 90 between 424 and 442) and one of the Chinese meditation manuals. All these attributions are contested. Even so, as with many of the visualization/contemplation sutras, the translator attributions are revealing in their designation of a practitioner renowned as a meditation specialist, with links to Central Asia, believed to have been active in China in the first half of 91 the 5th century. The Samantabhadra Contemplation Sutra was strongly influenced by the Lotus Sutra, particularly the chapter “Exhortations of the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra,” which stands as the culminating chapter in Kumārajīva’s (344–413) translation (T 262). In fact, the link between the scriptures was so clear that the Samantabhadra Contemplation Sutra has long been grouped with the Lotus Sutra and recognized as the “concluding sutra” of the 92 Threefold Lotus Sutra. The sequence of questions that prompt the Buddha’s discourse in the Samantabhadra Contemplation Sutra are posed in unison by his disciples Ānanda and Mahākāśyapa and by the bodhisattva Maitreya: World-Honored One, after the Thus Come One’s nirvana, how can sentient beings arouse the aspiration for enlightenment, practice the Mahayana Sutras of Great Extent, and consider the single-truth realm with right thought? How can they avoid losing the aspiration for supreme enlightenment? How, without cutting off the afflictions and separating from the five desires, can they also purify their sense organs and eliminate their sins? How, with the ordinary, pure eyes they received at birth from their parents and without cutting off the five desires, can they see things beyond their hindrances? (T 277 9:389c5–9) The Buddha responds by explaining how to study and follow the practices of Samantabhadra and eliminate sins (T 277 9:389c12–14). In doing so, he explicitly counsels those who wish to see Samantabhadra’s material form, the stupa of the buddha Prabhūtaratna (“Abundant Treasures”), as well as Śākyamuni and the buddhas he emanates, and to purify the six sense 93 organs, to “study this Contemplation (guan).” Those who do will be able to see those wondrous forms. Moreover, even those “who have not yet entered into samādhi” will be able 94 to see Samantabhadra by reciting and upholding it. The amount of time it will take to see the bodhisattva varies according to the relative weight of the practitioners’ hindrances, and the retribution for past deeds is not always the same. But it is for this very reason, the Buddha explains, that he “teaches variously” to different practitioners (389c24–27). The Buddha next describes the form in which Samantabhadra appears in this world. In doing so, he pays particular attention to the six-tusked, pure white elephant that Samantabhadra rides and to the miraculous emanations from the elephant’s own bodily marks. These include such manifested deities as “jade maidens” (yunü 玉女), who, like the “heavenly Page 20 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 maidens” (tennü) in the Maitreya Contemplation Sutra, play musical instruments that preach doctrine. Here, however, the jade maidens are depicted as having crimson faces “whose radiance surpasses even that of heavenly maidens,” and the doctrine they extol is “the way of 95 one reality in the Mahayana,” an implicit reference to Lotus Sutra teachings. Also notable among the beings adorning the elephant is a transformation buddha who emits a ray of golden light from the mark between his eyebrows. The light enters in turn the elephant’s trunk, eyes, ears, and head and ultimately transforms into a golden saddle with a jeweled pedestal supporting a lotus flower. There, Samantabhadra sits cross-legged, his body like a white jewel, emitting multicolored rays of light, each of which have their own transformation buddhas as attendants (T 277 9:390a22–b2). The elephant then walks toward the practitioners, and this is when the jade maidens play their songs of praise for the one-reality teachings. In response, the practitioners rejoice and redouble their study and recitations of the scriptures and their acts of reverence. However, Samantabhadra’s physical form is still not visible to them, and they next pray to the bodhisattva to “show me your physical form” (T 277 9:390b2–b8). The Buddha then instructs them how to do so, through such methods as paying reverence to the buddhas in all directions six times per day, practicing repentance (chanhui 懺悔), reading and reciting Mahayana sutras, and reflecting on the meaning and practice of the Mahayana. They are also urged to regard all people like they would regard the Buddha, and all beings like they would their parents (390b8–b11). When the practitioner finishes reflecting in this manner, Samantabhadra will send forth a light from the mark between his eyebrows and manifest many other signs, including the illumination of bodhisattvas in all directions, mounted on six-tusked white elephants, just like Samantabhadra. Again in response, the practitioners rejoice, this time praying to the illuminated bodhisattvas to teach them the Dharma. The bodhisattvas respond in turn by teaching the Mahayana sutras and praising the practitioners in unison. Precisely at this point, the Buddha declares: “This is called the first stage of first contemplating (guan) 96 Samantabhadra.” This section has explored in some detail the sutra through this first stage of the contemplation to help give its flavor and because it illuminates key themes addressed throughout: the merits of seeing and otherwise encountering Samantabhadra and the other buddhas and bodhisattvas; how veneration and repentance can help purify the six sense organs and extinguish sins, thereby enabling one to do so; and the importance of studying and reciting the Mahayana sutras. In context, these sutras are exemplified by the Lotus Sutra. Equally important, however, is that “reciting and upholding” this guan (Contemplation) itself is set up 97 as the means to achieve those goals. Once having completed the first stage of the contemplation, and successfully “seen” (jian 見) these matters, practitioners are able to “keep in mind the Mahayana day and night without abandoning it, and in dreams, see Samantabhadra preaching them the Dharma.” In doing so, the bodhisattva will remind them of phrases or verses they have forgotten. Samantabhadra will further enable them to keep in mind and see the buddhas of all ten directions (T 277 9:390b27–c3). However, in a recurring pattern throughout the sutra, even this exalted vision is not the culminating one, but just another step in the continuous process of invocation, veneration, repentance, and confirmation. Thus the Buddha next depicts the practitioners as praying to see the buddhas not only with closed eyes but with open ones. Once the practitioners have completed the stipulated acts of veneration and repentance, and acquired Page 21 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 the “dhāraṇī of revolution” (one of the dhāraṇī celebrated in the Lotus Sutra), they will first be able to see and hear the seven buddhas of the past in their dreams. After Samantabhadra explains to the practitioners their karmic conditions from past lives and induces them to 98 confess all their sins, they attain “the samādhi in which the buddhas appear.” Yet even that exalted samādhi does not lead to the clear vision of the buddhas they seek. Amid the ensuing visions, Samantabhadra teaches the practitioners in a dream “the method of repentance for purifying the six sense organs” (T 277 9:390c27–28). Only after following these and other teachings issued by Samantabhadra and the buddhas can they see clearly not only the pure lands, but the buddhas themselves (391a22–25). Accordingly, an unidentified “voice in the sky” advises them that although they can see these various buddhas, they cannot yet see Śākyamuni Buddha, the buddhas he emanates, or the stupa of Prabhūtaratna Buddha (391a26–29). This passage thus implicitly establishes these visions as trumping those of the various buddhas and their pure lands. Here, the text again shows the influence of the Lotus Sutra, which extols the pairing of Śākyamuni and Prabhūtaratna in Chapter 11 (T 262), “Emergence of the Jeweled Stūpa.” Accordingly, once the practitioners further recite and study the Mahayana scriptures, “even in dreams” they can see Śākyamuni on Vulture Peak, including his preaching of the Lotus Sutra there (T 277 391a29–b2). The ability to see Śākyamuni and the buddhas emanated from him is ultimately linked to the method for repenting the sins of the eye organ (391c17–19). Then, after the practitioners again redouble their reading and recitations of the Mahayana sutras and further repent, they are able to see the stupa of Prabhūtaratna (391c23–392a7). The sutra then proceeds in turn through the repentances for the sins of the ears, nose, tongue, and body and mind. The last two of these six sense organs, body and mind, are largely depicted together, but that section does engage in telling reflections on the mind. The buddhas of the ten directions are said to reach out with their right hands, pat the practitioners on the head, and explain that when one contemplates (guan) the mind, there is no mind except that which arises from distorted conceptions. The mind is just like the wind, with no place in which it can ground or abide. The buddhas thus ask rhetorically, “What is sin? What is virtue?” (T 277 9:392c21–c26). In this manner, the teaching on the contemplation of mind deconstructs the very “sins” that the sutra urges its audience to repent. Ākāśagarbha Contemplation Sutra, T 409 The translation of the Ākāśagarbha Contemplation Sutra, like that of the Samantabhadra Contemplation Sutra, is attributed to Dharmamitra. Apart from the Samādhi Sea Sutra, all six of the visualization/contemplation sutras are relatively small, one-fascicle texts. But the Ākāśagarbha Contemplation Sutra is especially brief. Scholars of the visualization/ contemplation sutras typically relegate the Ākāśagarbha Contemplation Sutra to a peripheral status among them, in part due to its small size, but also to characterizations of it as “an 99 unfinished draft.” However, that should not obscure recognition of the sutra’s significance in 100 medieval China for repentance practices. Page 22 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 As with the Maitreya Contemplation Sutra, the Ākāśagarbha Contemplation Sutra’s framing questions are introduced by the monk Upāli, who was known for his expertise in the vinaya, or monastic discipline. The summary here will focus on these opening questions and the Buddha’s direct response to them, because these parts form the core of the specific “Contemplation” taught. Upāli first points out that, in a certain sutra (likely referring to the Ākāśagarbha Sutra [Xukongzang Pusa jing 虛空藏菩薩經; T 405]), the Buddha had taught that Ākāśagarbha could 101 remove evil deeds and cure outcaste kings and outcaste monks of their evil behavior. He 102 then asks and prompts the Buddha: If they wish to be cured of such evil things, how should they contemplate (guan) Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattva? If they do see him, how can they dwell together [with the other monks], [join] the poṣadha, and [take part in] monastic affairs? If male lay practitioners break the five precepts or violate the eight precepts of abstinence; if ordained monks or nuns, male novices, female novices, or probationary nuns violate the four grave precepts (Sk. pārājika); if lay bodhisattvas transgress the six grave rules, or ordained bodhisattvas violate the eight grave precepts, such people are at fault. Previously, in the vinaya, the World-Honored One explained that they should definitely be expelled, cast away like broken rocks [that cannot be put back together]. But now, in that sutra, you have taught that the great compassionate Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattva can save one from all hardships, and you have also taught a spell that can remove sins and transgressions. If there is such a person [whose sins have been removed], how can this be made known? How can this be verified? (T 409 13:677b9– 103 19). Given the concern with vinaya matters, Upāli is a fit interlocutor for the Buddha’s discourse. However, typical of the visualization/contemplation sutras, the concerns are explicitly extended to lay practitioners. Moreover, as Greene points out, the issue Upāli raises of how to “contemplate” or “visualize” (guan) Ākāśagarbha does not appear as such in the Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattva Sutra, which the Ākāśagarbha Contemplation Sutra in other aspects clearly builds 104 from. In this manner as well, the sutra reflects the extended use of guan across the visualization/contemplation sutras, as does the Buddha’s ensuing response. The Buddha first reassures Upāli and “all future upholders of the vinaya” that his compassionate vows do not abandon anyone, and he points to his teachings on the methods to 105 cure sins in the Sutra on Profound Merits (Shen gongde jing 深功徳經). He instructs the penitents to put on “clothes of shame” and, for one to seven days, to pay reverence to the buddhas of the ten directions and call on the names of the thirty-five buddhas and Ākāśagarbha. When the Bright Star—usually understood as Venus—appears in the sky, they should kneel down, join their palms together, and plead to Ākāśagarbha to appear before them. The Buddha then details how to envision (xiang 想) the bodhisattva at that time. Notable features include a wish-fulfilling jewel atop Ākāśagarbha’s head, which, once visible, reveals the bodhisattva’s heavenly crown. In that crown appear the forms or images (xiang 像) of the thirty-five buddhas and in the jewel, those of the buddhas of the ten directions. Ākāśagarbha’s incredibly large body appears sitting cross-legged and holding in hand a wish-fulfilling jewel. 106 That jewel in turn proclaims the sounds of the monastic rituals together with the vinaya. Page 23 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 In this manner, the Buddha’s instructions move fluidly and rapidly from acts of veneration and repentance, to oral invocation, to visual features of the object of contemplation, then to sounds and didactic elements. The Buddha’s discourse is thus well on the way to answering the first of Upāli’s questions, on how to contemplate Ākāśagarbha. It is the ensuing passages, however, that principally address Upāli’s remaining questions, and these, too, should be understood as part of the contemplation. The Buddha explains that if the bodhisattva takes pity on the sentient beings, he will “assume the form of a monk and all kinds of shapes and forms.” In dreams or during seated meditation, he will stamp their arms with the seal from a maṇi jewel. The seal features the letters or characters for “removal of sin” (chuzui 除罪). Once a monastic penitent obtains this sign, they can then “return to the monastic assembly and recite the precepts as before.” This part clearly indicates that their monastic status has been restored and that they can again participate in the poṣadha rite of precept recitation and confession, one of Upāli’s specific concerns. For male lay practitioners, obtaining the sign means that they “will not be hindered from being ordained” (T 409 13:677c7–11). (Note that neither here nor in Upāli’s opening questions are female lay practitioners [youpoyi 優婆夷; Sk. upāsikā] specifically addressed, although in Upāli’s questions, other categories of female practitioners are.) If the practitioners do not receive the sign, then Ākāśagarbha will cause a voice to appear in the sky that proclaims: “Sins extinguished! Sins extinguished!” (zuimie 罪滅). If no voice is perceived, they will see Ākāśagarbha in a dream. The bodhisattva will instruct “monk so-andso” or “male lay practitioner so-and-so” to perform further repentance rituals for one to fortynine days. Then, “due to the power of paying reverence to the thirty-five buddhas and Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattva,” the practitioner’s sins will be rendered faint. At that point, “one who knows the Law” should have him plaster and otherwise maintain the latrines for 800 days, instructing him not to tell anyone about this. After the practitioner has completed this task, he should bathe, pay reverence to the thirty-five buddhas, and chant Ākāśagarbha’s name. Prostrating himself before the twelvefold scriptures, he must explain his transgressions and evil deeds. Once he has performed repentance in this manner for another twenty-one 107 days, the wise man must gather the practitioner’s relatives and intimates. Then, “before a 108 buddha image, [they] should chant the names of the thirty-five buddhas and call on Mañjuśrī and call on the bodhisattvas of this auspicious eon to serve as witnesses.” At this point, the penitent essentially retakes the same precepts he originally did, but before this specific assembly of fellow practitioners and bodhisattvas. Finally, “due to the power of his austerities, his sinful deeds are forever removed,” and he will not be hindered in his pursuit of 109 the three kinds of awakening. The text then makes clear that this completes the “contemplation” in question, as the Buddha next instructs Upāli to “uphold this teaching of the contemplation of Ākāśagarbha” and to explain it well for the sake of future shameless sentient beings and wicked people (T 409 13:677c23–25). Much of the Ākāśagarbha Contemplation Sutra in the Taishō (which is based on the Second Koryŏ canon, completed c. 1251) are appendages to this contemplation, and they are not 110 included in the “Old Song” (1104–1148), Yuan (1290), and Ming editions (1601). (This is not to say that they are less significant for that; they are just less central for the analysis here.) These include such lists as the names of the thirty-five buddhas, fifty-three buddhas, and buddhas of the ten directions; in some cases, the text mentions the benefits of chanting the Page 24 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 names. Also featured are the “Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattva dhāraṇī” and an explanation of the benefits of chanting his name and venerating him, which appears to be drawn primarily from 111 the Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattva Sutra. Notable as well is the Jifayue sheku tuoluoni jing 集法悦 捨苦陀羅尼經 (Dhāraṇī-sūtra on Collecting the Joy of the Teachings and Getting Rid of 112 Suffering), which centers on a past-life story of Śākyamuni as a horrible sinner. Although also clearly an appendage to the “Contemplation” here, the story of even the Buddha having needed to overcome past sins does fit the sutra’s overall emphasis on repentance. Discussion of the Literature Due to space constraints, this review will focus on English-language literature. For a broaderranging bibliographic guide, see David Quinter’s article on the visualization/contemplation 113 sutras in Oxford Bibliographies in Buddhism. Much of the literature on the sutras has been driven by interest in individual ones and/or issues of provenance. However, Soper’s 1959 art historical study is seminal among Westernlanguage studies treating the visualization/contemplation sutras as a group, and it features 114 helpful summaries or other analyses of all but the Ākāśagarbha Contemplation Sutra. Influenced in part by Soper, and increasingly by Yamabe, many subsequent art historical studies, especially on Buddhist cave temple sites in China and Central Asia, reference the 115 visualization/contemplation sutras. Cynthea Bogel also makes good use of the sutras in an 116 art historical study of Japanese esoteric Buddhism. Leading studies of individual visualization/contemplation sutras include Birnbaum’s annotated translation and analysis of the Bhaiṣajyarāja Contemplation Sutra within his monograph The 117 Healing Buddha, originally published in 1979. There have also been several translations of 118 the Samantabhadra Contemplation Sutra amid a focus on the Lotus Sutra. And as early as 1931, de Visser provided a thorough summary of the Ākāśagarbha Contemplation Sutra in a 119 small, posthumously published volume on the Ākāśagarbha cult in China and Japan. But historically, apart from Yamabe’s many publications on the Samādhi Sea Sutra, most such studies have focused on the Amitāyus Contemplation Sutra. These include translations and analyses of significant medieval Chinese commentaries on the sutra by Tanaka, Pas, and 120 Inagaki. Inagaki also collaborated with Harold Stewart on an English-language translation of the sutra (one of many on the sutra, but singled out here for its accessibility and for 121 Inagaki’s longstanding work on the sutra). Ducor and Loveday’s 2011 French-language monograph on the sutra stands out for combining a careful textual analysis and translation 122 with a thorough art historical study. Also notable is Silk’s 1997 essay on the frame story, which includes a provocative argument for an interweaving of Indian, Central Asian, and 123 Chinese elements in the sutra’s composition. Focus on the Amitāyus Contemplation Sutra has also driven Fujita’s influential analyses of the provenance of the visualization/contemplation sutras, in which he assesses the evidence for both Central Asian and Chinese compilation and ultimately adopts a “compromise” theory of 124 mixed compilation for the Amitāyus Contemplation Sutra. Yamabe’s studies of the Samādhi Sea Sutra strike related notes, as he argues for a “hybrid-apocrypha” theory of the sutra’s original composition in Chinese, but in Central Asia, with many distinctly Indian elements. In many ways, Yamabe’s ambitious 1999 dissertation on that sutra set a new standard for study Page 25 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 of the visualization/contemplation sutras in the West, and his publications have influenced much Western-language scholarship on the sutras in the first two decades of the 21st 125 century. While Yamabe’s studies largely extend the focus on issues of the sutras’ provenance (which is especially characteristic of Japanese scholarship), Mai’s 2009 dissertation is notable for a different approach. He concentrates his analysis instead on the texts’ Chinese reception and the process of “cult consolidation” evidenced therein. Although the dissertation is framed by an interest in the Amitāyus Contemplation Sutra in particular, Mai devotes successive chapters to the Maitreya, Samantabhadra, and Amitāyus contemplation sutras (chapters 5–7), 126 giving each of them substantial weight. Two recent studies that also deal with provenance questions, but from a different direction, are Quinter’s 2010 annotated translation and analysis of the Mañjuśrī Parinirvāṇa Sutra (Wenshushili banniepan jing 文殊師利般涅槃經; T 463) and Greene’s 2012 dissertation, “Meditation, Repentance, and Visionary Experience.” As part of their analyses, each author addresses one of the visualization/contemplation sutras traditionally considered lost. Based on the evidence from premodern Chinese Buddhist catalogues and analysis of the sutra’s contents, Quinter argues that the common attribution of the Mañjuśrī Parinirvāṇa Sutra to Nie Daozhen 聶道眞 as translator, and its corresponding dating to 280–312, is mistaken. Instead, he suggests that the sutra would be better grouped with the 5th-century milieu of the visualization/contemplation sutras, and it may well be connected to the Mañjuśrī Contemplation Sutra (Wenshu guan jing 文殊觀經) listed in Sengyou’s 517 catalogue as an 127 anonymously translated, lost scripture. Similarly, the Avalokiteśvara (or Avalokitasvara) Contemplation Sutra (Guanshiyin guan jing 觀 世音觀經) appears as extant in Sengyou’s catalogue but is listed as lost in 602 and later catalogues. However, Greene argues that the sutra may have survived in whole or part as the Upasena narrative in the Avalokitasvara Invitation Sutra (Qing Guanyin jing 請觀音經; T 1043), 128 and Appendix two of his dissertation features an annotated translation of that narrative. Greene’s studies, here and elsewhere, are also significant for his wide-ranging investigations of the Chinese meditation manuals linked to the visualization/contemplation sutras, as well as 129 his revisionist appraisals of notions of “visualization” posited for both sets of scriptures. Links to Digital Materials The full Chinese texts of the six visualization/contemplation sutras can all be readily found via their Taishō (T) sequence number in the following two databases. Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association (CBETA) <https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/en/ T0001_001> The Chinese portion of the Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō, volumes 1–55 and 85, is available here in searchable digital editions. SAT Daizōkyō text database <https://21dzk.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/SAT/index_en.html> features searchable digital editions of all the Chinese and Japanese Buddhist scriptures from the Taishō, volumes 1 to 85. Page 26 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 Further Reading Abe, Stanley K. “Art and Practice in a Fifth-Century Chinese Buddhist Cave Temple.” Ars Orientalis 20 (1990): 1–31. Birnbaum, Raoul. The Healing Buddha. Rev. ed. Boston: Shambhala, 1989. Bogel, Cynthea J. “Contemplations and Imagery: Issues Relevant to Ancient Japanese Esoteric Buddhist Icons, Ritual Practice, and Cultural Contexts.” Pacific World: Journal of the Institute of Buddhist Studies, 3rd series, 12 (2010): 191–222. de Visser, Marinus Willem. The Bodhisattva Ākāśagarbha (Kokūzō) in China and Japan. Amsterdam: Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen, 1931. Ducor, Jérôme, and Helen Loveday. Le sūtra des contemplations du Buddha Vie-Infinie: Essai d’interprétation textuelle et iconographique. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2011. Fujita Kōtatsu. “The Textual Origins of the Kuan Wu-liang-shou ching: A Canonical Scripture of Pure Land Buddhism.” Translated by Kenneth K. Tanaka. In Chinese Buddhist Apocrypha. Edited by Robert E. Buswell, Jr., 149–173. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 1990. Greene, Eric M. “Meditation, Repentance, and Visionary Experience in Early Medieval Chinese Buddhism.” PhD thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 2012. Greene, Eric M. “Visions and Visualizations: In Fifth-Century Chinese Buddhism and NineteenthCentury Experimental Psychology.” History of Religions 55, no. 3 (2016): 289–328. Hsu, Eileen Hsiang-Ling. “Visualization Meditation and the Siwei Icon in Chinese Buddhist Sculpture.” Artibus Asiae 62, no. 1 (2002): 5–32. Inagaki, Hisao, and Harold Stewart, trans. The Three Pure Land Sutras. BDK English Tripiṭaka Series (Taishō Volume 12, Numbers 360, 365, 366). 2nd rev. ed. Berkeley, CA: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 2003. Katō, Bunnō, Yoshirō Tamura, Kōjirō Miyasaka, William E. Soothill, Wilhelm Schiffer, and Pier P. Del Campana, trans. The Threefold Lotus Sutra: Innumerable Meanings, the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law, and Meditation on the Bodhisattva Universal Virtue. New York: Weatherhill, 1975. Kuo Li-ying. Confession et contrition dans le bouddhisme chinois du Ve au Xe siècle. Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 1994. Mai, Cuong T. “Visualization Apocrypha and the Making of Buddhist Deity Cults in Early Medieval China: With Special Reference to the Cults of Amitābha, Maitreya, and Samantabhadra.” PhD thesis, Indiana University, 2009. Pas, Julian. Visions of Sukhāvatī: Shan-Tao’s Commentary on the Kuan Wu-Liang-Shou-Fo Ching. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995. Quinter, David. “Visualizing the Mañjuśrī Parinirvāṇa Sutra as a Contemplation Sutra.” Asia Major, 3rd series, 23, no. 2 (2010): 97–128. Page 27 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 Quinter, David. “Visualization/Contemplation Sutras <https://doi.org/10.1093/OBO/ 9780195393521-0137>.” In Oxford Bibliographies in Buddhism. Edited by Richard Payne. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. Updated in 2018. Sharf, Robert H. “Visualization and Mandala in Shingon Buddhism.” In Living Images: Japanese Buddhist Icons in Context. Edited by Robert H. Sharf and Elizabeth Horton Sharf, 151–197. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001. Silk, Jonathan A. “The Composition of the Guan Wuliangshoufo-Jing: Some Buddhist and Jaina Parallels to Its Narrative Frame.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 25, no. 2 (1997): 181–256. Soper, Alexander Coburn. Literary Evidence for Early Buddhist Art in China. Ascona, Switzerland: Artibus Asiae, 1959. Sponberg, Alan. “Meditation in Fa-Hsiang Buddhism.” In Traditions of Meditation in Chinese Buddhism. Edited by Peter N. Gregory, 15–43. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 1986. Sponberg, Alan. “Wŏnhyo on Maitreya Visualization.” In Maitreya, the Future Buddha. Edited by Alan Sponberg and Helen Hardacre, 94–109. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Tanaka, Kenneth K. The Dawn of Chinese Pure Land Doctrine: Ching-Ying Hui-Yüan’s Commentary on the Visualization Sutra. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990. Yamabe, Nobuyoshi. “The Sūtra on the Ocean-Like Samādhi of the Visualization of the Buddha: The Interfusion of the Chinese and Indian Cultures in Central Asia as Reflected in a Fifth Century Apocryphal Sūtra.” PhD thesis, Yale University, 1999. Yamabe, Nobuyoshi. “Practice of Visualization and the Visualization Sutra: An Examination of Mural Paintings at Toyok, Turfan.” Pacific World: Journal of the Institute of Buddhist Studies, 3rd series, 4 (2002): 123–152. Yamabe, Nobuyoshi. “Visionary Repentance and Visionary Ordination in the Brahmā Net Sūtra.” In Going Forth: Visions of Buddhist Vinaya. Edited by William M. Bodiford, 17–39. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2005. Notes 1. Translations of the full titles given in the Summary, and the abbreviated titles used throughout this article, are adapted from Fujita Kōtatsu, “The Textual Origins of the Kuan Wu-liang-shou ching: A Canonical Scripture of Pure Land Buddhism,” trans. Kenneth K. Tanaka, in Chinese Buddhist Apocrypha, ed. Robert E. Buswell, Jr. (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 1990), 149–173. “T” stands for Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō 大正新脩大藏経, 100 vols., ed. Takakusu Junjirō 高楠順次郎 and Watanabe Kaigyoku 渡邊海旭 et al. (Tokyo: Taishō Issaikyō Kankōkai, 1924–35). References from the Taishō are identified here by text number then, as needed, by volume, page, register, and line numbers. 2. For a detailed investigation of various Indic-language terms that have been posited, and typically rejected, as possible equivalents to guan in the visualization/contemplation sutras (centering on its construction as guanfo), see Nobuyoshi Yamabe, “The Sūtra on the Ocean-Like Samādhi of the Visualization of the Buddha: The Interfusion of the Chinese and Indian Cultures in Central Asia as Reflected in a Fifth Century Apocryphal Sūtra” (PhD thesis, Yale University, 1999), 125–184. Page 28 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 3. Alexander Coburn Soper, Literary Evidence for Early Buddhist Art in China (Ascona, Switzerland: Artibus Asiae, 1959), 144. 4. See, for example, Stanley K. Abe, “Art and Practice in a Fifth-Century Chinese Buddhist Cave Temple,” Ars Orientalis 20 (1990): 1–31; Eileen Hsiang-Ling Hsu, “Visualization Meditation and the Siwei Icon in Chinese Buddhist Sculpture,” Artibus Asiae 62, no. 1 (2002): 5–32; Eileen HsiangLing Hsu, “The Sengchou Cave and Early Imagery of Sukhāvatī,” Artibus Asiae 71, no. 2 (2011): 283–323; Ning Qiang, “Visualization Practice and the Function of the Western Paradise Images in Turfan and Dunhuang in the Sixth to Seventh Centuries,” Journal of Inner Asian Art and Archaeology 2 (2007): 133–142; Sunkyung Kim, “Seeing Buddhas in Cave Sanctuaries,” Asia Major, 3rd series, 24, no. 1 (2011): 87–126. Kim’s article is a mixed case, as it starts by urging caution on using “visualization” for such cave-site practices (87–88), then predominantly uses that rubric when referring to the visualization/contemplation sutras, and sometimes for the Xiaonanhai cave that is the article’s focus. For examples of cave-site studies from Yamabe’s work, focusing respectively on Toyok in Turfan and the Mogao caves in Dunhuang, see Nobuyoshi Yamabe, “Practice of Visualization and the Visualization Sutra: An Examination of Mural Paintings at Toyok, Turfan,” Pacific World: Journal of the Institute of Buddhist Studies, 3rd series, 4 (2002): 123–152; and Yamabe, “Transformation Tableaux ‘Based on’ the Amitayus Visualization Sutra: Their Deviations from the Text,” Kristi 1 (2008): 1–31. 5. Soper, Literary Evidence, 216; Yamabe, “Sūtra on the Ocean-Like Samādhi,” 42, 56; Cuong T. Mai, “Visualization Apocrypha and the Making of Buddhist Deity Cults in Early Medieval China: With Special Reference to the Cults of Amitābha, Maitreya, and Samantabhadra” (PhD thesis, Indiana University, 2009), 205–206. Soper does suggest that for the Maitreya Contemplation Sutra, guan would be better rendered as “meditation” (216), while Mai’s analysis clearly aims to complicate the understanding of “visualization.” Mai’s views will be addressed in the section on “Recitation.” 6. The full phrase reads: “Performing the contemplation (guan) this way is called correct contemplation. If one contemplates otherwise, it is called false contemplation” (T 452 14:419c10; 420c9–10). On this phrase in the visualization/contemplation sutras and related scriptures, see, for example, Fujita, “Textual Origins,” 164; Yamabe, “Sūtra on the Ocean-Like Samādhi,” 181–182, 364–371; David Quinter, “Visualizing the Mañjuśrī Parinirvāṇa Sutra as a Contemplation Sutra,” Asia Major, 3rd series, 23, no. 2 (2010), 118, 119– 120. 7. See, for example, Yamabe, “Sūtra on the Ocean-Like Samādhi,” 57, 231, 246. 8. See Yamabe, “Sūtra on the Ocean-Like Samādhi,” 55–58, including 56n.33. 9. Robert H. Sharf, “Visualization and Mandala in Shingon Buddhism,” in Living Images: Japanese Buddhist Icons in Context, ed. Robert H. Sharf and Elizabeth Horton Sharf (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), 151–197, especially 151, 153, 156. 10. Sharf, “Visualization and Mandala,” 154–155. 11. Sharf, “Visualization and Mandala,” 163. Examples that Sharf gives (using the Japanese readings) include “kan 觀, kansō 觀想, kansatsu 觀察, teikan 諦觀, kannen 觀念.” They also extend to related terms, such as sō 想, nensō 念想, and shii 思惟,that appear commonly within both the visualization/contemplation sutras and the esoteric texts he examines. See also Sharf, “Visualization and Mandala,” 185–186. 12. In this article, the “Chinese meditation manuals” often linked to the visualization/contemplation sutras refer to: (a) Meditation Manual by Dharmatrāta (Damoduoluo chan jing 達摩多羅禪經; T 618), traditionally attributed to Buddhabhadra (359–429) between 398 and 421; (b) Manual of the Samādhi of Sitting Meditation (Zuochan sanmei jing 坐禪三昧經; T 614), attributed to Kumārajīva (344–413); (c) Essential Explanation of the Methods of Meditation (Chanfa yaojie 禪法要解; T 616), attributed to Kumārajīva; (d) Abridged Essentials of Meditation (Siwei lüeyao fa 思惟略要法; T 617), attributed to Kumārajīva; (e) Essentials of the Meditation Manual Consisting of Five Gates (Wumen chanjing yaoyong fa 五門禪 Page 29 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 經要用法; T 619), attributed to Dharmamitra (356–442); (f) Manual of the Secret Essentials of Meditation (Chan miyaofa jing 禪祕要法經; T 613), attributed to Kumārajīva; and (g) Secret Essential Methods to Cure the Diseases Caused by Meditation (Zhi chanbing miyao fa 治禪病祕要法; T 620), attributed to Juqu Jingsheng (d. 464). See Yamabe, “Sūtra on the Ocean-Like Samādhi,” 59–60; Nobuyoshi Yamabe, “The Paths of Śrāvakas and Bodhisattvas in Meditative Practices,” Acta Asiatica 96 (2009): 49–50. Yamabe’s lists of the relevant manuals also include the Sanskrit “Yogalehrbuch” (Yoga Manual). Fragments of the manual were discovered in Central Asia, and the reconstructed text shows many parallels with the Chinese manuals and the Samādhi Sea Sutra. 13. Eric M. Greene, “Visions and Visualizations: In Fifth-Century Chinese Buddhism and Nineteenth-Century Experimental Psychology,” History of Religions 55, no. 3 (2016): 313n.90, cites: Bhikkhu Assaji, trans., The Sutra of Visualizing the Buddha of Immeasurable Length of Life (Hong Kong: International Buddhist Propaganda Association, 1939). 14. On this issue, see especially Alan Sponberg, “Meditation in Fa-hsiang Buddhism,” in Traditions of Meditation in Chinese Buddhism, ed. Peter N. Gregory (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 1986), 15–21. This chapter is also helpful for understanding the Maitreya Contemplation Sutra, as is Sponberg’s related study, “Wŏnhyo on Maitreya Visualization,” in Maitreya, the Future Buddha, ed. Alan Sponberg and Helen Hardacre (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 94–109. 15. The first English-language translation of the Amitāyus Contemplation Sutra, which has had longstanding influence, back-translated the Chinese title into Sanskrit as Amitāyur-dhyāna-sūtra. See J. Takakusu, “The Amitāyur-dhyāna-sūtra,” in Buddhist Mahāyāna Texts, ed. F. Max Müller (New York: Dover, 1969), Part 2, 159–201 (original edition, Oxford: Clarendon, 1894). 16. Chanding can also translate (or be back-translated into) “dhyāna and samādhi.” But that rendering still presupposes practices and states of meditative concentration, which is what is most important here. 17. See Eric M. Greene, “Meditation, Repentance, and Visionary Experience in Early Medieval Chinese Buddhism” (PhD thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 2012), 84–86. 18. See the section on the Samantabhadra Contemplation Sutra here and T 277 9:389c7–8, c21–24. 19. Greene, “Meditation, Repentance,” 85. 20. See T 1161 20:661c7–c16; 663a9–16. 21. For an analysis of guan and related compounds as “eidetic contemplation” in esoteric Buddhism (which also takes into account other meanings), with reference to the visualization/contemplation sutras, see Cynthea J. Bogel, “Contemplations and Imagery: Issues Relevant to Ancient Japanese Esoteric Buddhist Icons, Ritual Practice, and Cultural Contexts,” Pacific World: Journal of the Institute of Buddhist Studies, 3rd series, 12 (2010): 193–201. 22. See Greene, “Meditation, Repentance”; Greene, “Visions and Visualization”; and Eric M. Greene, “Atonement of Pārājika Transgressions in Fifth-Century Chinese Buddhism,” in Rules of Engagement: Medieval Traditions of Buddhist Monastic Regulation, ed. Susan Andrews, Jinhua Chen, and Cuilan Liu (Bochum, Germany: Projektverlag, 2017), 369–408. 23. In addition to Greene’s studies, see, for example, Raoul Birnbaum, The Healing Buddha, rev. ed. (Boston: Shambhala, 1989); Fujita, “Textual Origins”; Kuo Li-ying, Confession et contrition dans le bouddhisme chinois du Ve au Xe siècle (Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 1994); Quinter, “Visualizing the Mañjuśrī Parinirvāṇa Sutra”; Jérôme Ducor and Helen Loveday, Le sūtra des contemplations du Buddha Vie-Infinie: Essai d’interprétation textuelle et iconographique (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2011). Page 30 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 24. For examples of “reciting the name” in the Ākāśagarbha Contemplation Sutra, see T 409 13:677b27 and 677c20–21. For examples from the remaining visualization/contemplation sutras, see Fujita’s comparative tables of terminological parallels in “Textual Origins,” 164, and in Fujita Kōtatsu 藤田宏達, Genshi jōdo shisō no kenkyū 原始浄土思想の研究 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1970), 129. See also Quinter, “Visualizing the Mañjuśrī Parinirvāṇa Sutra,” 118–119 (including 118n.88). 25. Fujita, “Textual Origins,” 160–161. See also Fujita, Genshi jōdo shisō, 129; Kagawa Takao 香川孝雄, “‘Kanmuryōjukyō’ no seiritsu mondai shikō 『観無量寿経』の成立問題試考,” Bukkyō daigaku sōgō kenkyūjo kiyō 仏教大学総合研究所紀要 1: Jōdokyō no sōgōteki kenkyū bessatsu 浄土教の総合的研究別冊: 26–28. 26. Luis O. Gómez, trans., Land of Bliss: The Paradise of the Buddha of Measureless Light; Sanskrit and Chinese Versions of the Sukhāvatīvyūha Sutras (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 1996), 245n.15. 27. Sharf, “Visualization and Mandala,” 195. 28. Robert H. Sharf, Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism: A Reading of the Treasure Store Treatise (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press), 264. 29. See Yamabe, “Sūtra on the Ocean-Like Samādhi,” 216–217, Appendix 3 (especially 513, 554–557). For Yamabe’s critical edition of the Sūtra on the Major and Minor Bodily Marks, see Appendix 4 there. 30. Mai, “Visualization Apocrypha,” 239. 31. Mai, “Visualization Apocrypha,” 236, 237. 32. Fujita, “Textual Origins,” 164; Fujita, Genshi jōdo shisō, 127. 33. T 643 15:655b7–b24. See also Greene, “Meditation, Repentance,” 294, on this section. Given the sutra’s length, there are naturally other references to repentance; see the section “Samādhi Sea Sutra, T 643” for a few examples. The one here was simply chosen to underscore the interweaving of repentance and “visualization” or “contemplation.” 34. T 365 12:341a29–b2; Hisao Inagaki and Harold Stewart, trans., The Three Pure Land Sutras, 2d rev. ed. (Berkeley, CA: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 2003), 66. 35. T 365 12:341b19–21; Inagaki and Stewart, The Three Pure Land Sutras, 67. 36. The latter two names the Buddha provides for the Bhaiṣajyarāja Contemplation Sutra are: “Nectar and Sublime Medicine for Curing the Afflictions and Illness,” and “Contemplation (guan) of the Pure Material Bodies of Bhaiṣajyarāja and Bhaiṣajyasamudgata.” See T 1161 20:666b4–7 for the full list of four. 37. See especially Zhiyi’s Fahua sanmei chan yi 法華三昧懺儀 (Procedures for the Lotus Samādhi Repentance; T 1941) and Daniel B. Stevenson, “The Four Kinds of Samādhi in Early T’ien-t’ai Buddhism,” in Traditions of Meditation in Chinese Buddhism, 67–72. For a broader-ranging analysis of the origins of the Lotus Samādhi rite, see Daniel B. Stevenson, “The T’ien-t’ai Four Forms of Samādhi and Late North-South Dynasties, Sui, and Early T’ang Buddhist Devotionalism” (PhD thesis, Columbia University, 1987), 188–214. For a translation based on a critical edition of Zhiyi’s text, see Stevenson, “The T’ien-t’ai Four Forms,” 468–537. 38. See Zhiyi’s Mohe zhiguan 摩訶止觀, T 1911 46:15b18–19, for the reference to the “Ākāśagarbha” practice. The later Tiantai patriarch Zhanran 湛然 (711–782), commenting on this passage, elaborates on the practice and cites the “Ākāśagarbha Sutra.” Based on the sutra excerpts he quotes, this refers to the Ākāśagarbha Contemplation Sutra; see Zhiguan fuxing zhuan hongjue 止觀輔行傳弘決, T 1912 46:196c17–197a13. See also the discussion of Zhiyi’s fourth category of samādhi practice in Stevenson, “The Four Kinds of Samādhi,” 72–84, and 94n.83, which references the Zhanran comments. 39. T 409 13:677c18–c22. This passage also underscores the significance of the sutra for bodhisattva-precepts traditions beginning to flourish at the time, another point it shares with the Samantabhadra Contemplation Sutra. See Nobuyoshi Yamabe, “Visionary Repentance and Visionary Ordination in the Brahmā Page 31 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 Net Sūtra,” in Going Forth: Visions of Buddhist Vinaya, ed. William M. Bodiford (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2005), 17–39. On bodhisattva-precepts traditions in China more broadly then, see Tōru Funayama, “The Acceptance of Buddhist Precepts by the Chinese in the Fifth Century,” Journal of Asian History 38, no. 2 (2004): 97–120. 40. Yamabe, “Sūtra on the Ocean-Like Samādhi.” 41. See Yamabe, “Sūtra on the Ocean-Like Samādhi,” especially 25–29; Soper, Literary Evidence, 184–195. 42. Translations of the chapter titles are based on the Taishō text (but omitting the term for “chapter” in each), with reference to the translations in Yamabe, “Sūtra on the Ocean-Like Samādhi,” 25–26. The “Horse-King Organ” (mawangzang 馬王藏) could alternatively be translated as “Horse-King Treasury,” and Yamabe renders the term as “Hidden Male Organ.” That it indicates the Buddha’s concealed penis, one of the thirty-two marks of a buddha, is clear in any case. 43. See Yamabe, “Sūtra on the Ocean-Like Samādhi,” 246, which refers specifically to chapter 3 of the Samādhi Sea Sutra and “visualization” practice. 44. On the section on the “Buddha Emanation Cave” (alt. “Buddha Shadow” or “Buddha Image” cave), see Soper, Literary Evidence, 185–86, 191–192; Yamabe, “Sūtra on the Ocean-Like Samādhi,” 263–298. For issues with the typical rendering of ying 影 in the cave’s name as “Shadow,” see Yamabe, “Sūtra on the Ocean-Like Samādhi,” 263n. 1; Greene, “Meditation, Repentance,” 223–224n.68. 45. For the full four stories, see T 15:683b6-687a11. For analyses, see Yamabe, “Sūtra on the Ocean-Like Samādhi,” 377–426; Nobuyoshi Yamabe, “The Ocean Sūtra as a Cross-Cultural Product: An Analysis of Some Stories on the Buddha’s ‘Hidden Organ,’” in “The Way of Buddha” 2003: The 100th Anniversary of the Otani Mission and the 50th of the Research Society for Central Asian Cultures, ed. Irisawa Takashi (Kyoto: Ryukoku University, 2010), 257–268; Nobuyoshi Yamabe, “Indian Myth Transformed in a Chinese Apocryphal Text: Two Stories on the Buddha’s Hidden Organ,” in India in the Chinese Imagination: Myth, Religion, and Thought, ed. John Kieschnick and Meir Shahar (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), 61–80, 233–241. 46. For an efficient sampling of such influence, see the “Later Quotations” section in Yamabe, “Sūtra on the OceanLike Samādhi,” 34–37. 47. Yamabe, “Sūtra on the Ocean-Like Samādhi,” 127, 170, 353. 48. See T 643 15:681b29–c4 and 690c1–c6, respectively, for these passages. For a more detailed sampling of Samādhi Sea Sutra passages recommending images as aids to devotional practices, see Soper 1959, 188–192. 49. Kenneth K. Tanaka, The Dawn of Chinese Pure Land Doctrine: Ching-ying Hui-yüan’s Commentary on the Visualization Sutra (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), xvii. 50. Vincent Eltschinger, “Pure Land Sūtras,” in Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhism, ed. Jonathan A. Silk, Oskar von Hinüber, and Vincent Eltschinger, Vol. 1, Literature and Languages (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2015), 221. 51. On such meditation specialists, see especially Greene, “Meditation, Repentance.” On Kālayaśas numbering among them, see Greene, “Meditation, Repentance,” 246. 52. Fujita, “Textual Origins,” 156. 53. Fujita, “Textual Origins.” See also Fujita Kōtatsu 藤田宏達, Jōdo sanbukyō no kenkyū 浄土三部経の研究 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2007), 545, where he reaffirms his theories on the compilation. 54. T 365 12:341b16–21; Inagaki and Stewart, The Three Pure Land Sutras, 67. Translations from the Amitāyus Contemplation Sutra in this section are adapted from Inagaki and Stewart, The Three Pure Land Sutras, with modifications based on the Taishō text and for consistency with the present author’s translations elsewhere in the article. Page 32 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 55. T 365 12:341c6; Inagaki and Stewart, The Three Pure Land Sutras, 67. 56. T 365 12:341c18–22; Inagaki and Stewart, The Three Pure Land Sutras, 68. 57. T 365 12:341c27–342a5; Inagaki and Stewart, The Three Pure Land Sutras, 69. 58. T 365 12:342a5–22; Inagaki and Stewart, The Three Pure Land Sutras, 69–70. 59. T 365 12:342a22–b1; Inagaki and Stewart, The Three Pure Land Sutras, 70. 60. T 365 12:342b1–22; Inagaki and Stewart, The Three Pure Land Sutras, 70–71. 61. T 365 12:342b23–c6; Inagaki and Stewart, The Three Pure Land Sutras, 71–72. 62. T 365 12:342c6–14; Inagaki and Stewart, The Three Pure Land Sutras, 72. 63. T 365 12:342c14–343a17; Inagaki and Stewart, The Three Pure Land Sutras, 72–73. 64. This article uses “the Buddha” (capitalized) to refer to Śākyamuni Buddha, who is considered the historical buddha, and “the buddha” (lowercase) when the referent is more ambiguous or likely refers to another buddha, such as Amitāyus. 65. T 365 12:343a18–b14; Inagaki and Stewart, The Three Pure Land Sutras, 73–75. 66. For related arguments, see Greene, “Meditation, Repentance,” and Greene, “Visions and Visualizations.” 67. T 365 12:343b15–c10; Inagaki and Stewart, The Three Pure Land Sutras, 75–76. 68. T 365 12:343c11–344a17; Inagaki and Stewart, The Three Pure Land Sutras, 76–77. 69. T 365 12:344a18–b14; Inagaki and Stewart, The Three Pure Land Sutras, 77–78. 70. T 365 12:344b14–b24; Inagaki and Stewart, The Three Pure Land Sutras, 78–79. 71. T 365 12:344b25–c8; Inagaki and Stewart, The Three Pure Land Sutras, 79. 72. T 365 12:344c9–345b7; Inagaki and Stewart, The Three Pure Land Sutras, 79–82; T 365 12:345b8–c9; Inagaki and Stewart, The Three Pure Land Sutras, 82–83; and T 365 12:345c10–346a26; Inagaki and Stewart, The Three Pure Land Sutras, 83–85. 73. See in particular Shandao 善導 (613–681) versus Huiyuan 慧遠 (523–592) and others on this; Yamabe, “Transformation Tableaux,” 1–31. See Yamabe, “Transformation Tableaux,” 2–3 for citations from premodern commentaries; the issue is related as well to paintings of scenes from the sutra addressed in Yamabe’s article. See also Julian Pas, Visions of Sukhāvatī: Shan-Tao’s Commentary on the Kuan Wu-Liang-Shou-Fo Ching (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), xiii, 47. 74. T 365 12:346a27–b2; Inagaki and Stewart, The Three Pure Land Sutras, 86. 75. Yamabe, “Sūtra on the Ocean-Like Samādhi,” 53 and 51; Pas, Visions of Sukhāvatī, 43. 76. Birnbaum, The Healing Buddha, 35–51, 115–148. 77. On the greater popularity of the older brother, see Birnbaum, The Healing Buddha, 224–227. 78. Inoue Hirofumi 井上博文, “‘Kan Yakuō Yakujō ni bosatsukyō’ no kenkyū’ 『観薬王薬上二菩薩経』の研究, Ryūkoku daigaku daigakuin bungaku kenkyūka kiyō 龍谷大学大学院文学研究科紀要 23 (2001): 1–3. On the healing powers of the Lotus Sutra in the “Medicine King” chapter, see T 262 9:54c23–26; Burton Watson, trans., The Lotus Sutra (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 288. 79. See Yamabe, “Sūtra on the Ocean-Like Samādhi,” Appendix 1, 502–507; Inoue, “‘Kan Yakuō Yakujō ni bosatsukyō’ no kenkyū;’” and Inoue’s modern Japanese annotated translation of the Bhaiṣajyarāja Contemplation Sutra, “‘Kan Yakuō Yakujō ni bosatsukyō’ to kanren kyōten” 『観薬王薬上二菩薩経』と関連経典, Ryūkoku daigaku bukkyōgaku kenkyūshitsu nenpō (龍谷大学仏教学研究室年報) 11 (2001b): 1–24. Page 33 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 80. Fujita, “Textual Origins,” 155. 81. Miyata Noboru, “Types of Maitreya Belief in Japan,” in Maitreya, the Future Buddha, 176–177; Richard Bowring, Richard McBride II, Miyaji Akira, and Jonathan Silk, “Maitreya,” in Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhism, ed. Jonathan A. Silk, Richard Bowring, Vincent Eltschinger, and Michael Radich, vol. 2, Lives (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2019), 303. 82. For two studies complicating the ascent/descent picture, see Jan Nattier, “The Meanings of the Maitreya Myth: A Typological Analysis,” in Maitreya, the Future Buddha, 23–47; Sponberg, “Wŏnhyo on Maitreya Visualization,” in Maitreya, the Future Buddha, 94–109. 83. T 452 14:418c5–9. Translations and paraphrases from the Maitreya Contemplation Sutra in this section are based on the Taishō text, but with reference to translations of various passages in Mai, “Visualization Apocrypha,” chapter 5. 84. These same dharmas are later expounded through the instruments played by a group of “hundreds of thousands of heavenly maidens” (T 452 14:419b11–13). 85. T 452 14:419a29–b1. In contrast to Amitāyus’s Pure Land, in which women are said to be transformed into men upon rebirth there, both women and men can be reborn in Tuṣita. 86. Soper, Literary Evidence, 215–216. 87. Mai, “Visualization Apocrypha,” 163, 201, 208. 88. Mai, “Visualization Apocrypha,” 225–226. 89. Christoph Anderl, “Miscellaneous Informal Remarks on Narrative Structures in Chinese Maitreya Accounts,” in Sun Changwu jiaoshou bashi huadan jinian wenji 孙昌武教授⼋⼗华诞纪念⽂集, ed. Niang Jiayu 宁稼⾬, Xiao Zhanpeng 肖占鹏, Zhan Ru 湛如, Pu Hui 普慧, and Zhang Peifeng 张培锋 (Tianjin, China: Baihua Wenyi Chubanshe, 2016), 124. 90. See Essentials of the Meditation Manual Consisting of Five Gates (T 619) for the meditation manual attributed to Dharmamitra, and Yamabe, “Sūtra on the Ocean-Like Samādhi,” 84–100, for an analysis. Also, based primarily on evidence from the catalogue section of Sengyou’s Compilations of Notices (T 2145), some modern scholars conclude that the Manual of the Secret Essentials of Meditation (T 613) was first attributed to Dharmamitra (although Kumārajīva is listed as the translator in the Taishō). For the complications of that evidence, however, see Greene, “Meditation, Repentance,” 115–116. 91. See especially Fujita, “Textual Origins.” For more on Dharmamitra specifically, see Fujita, “Textual Origins,” 152– 153 and 156–157. 92. The “opening sutra” in the Threefold Lotus Sutra is the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings (Wuliangyi jing 無量義經; T 276), which is followed by the Lotus Sutra itself, then the Samantabhadra Contemplation Sutra. Translations in this section from the Samantabhadra Contemplation Sutra are based on the Taishō text, but benefitting from the translations of the Threefold Lotus Sutra in Bunnō Katō, Yoshirō Tamura, Kōjirō Miyasaka, William E. Soothill, Wilhelm Schiffer, and Pier P. Del, trans., The Threefold Lotus Sutra: Innumerable Meanings, the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law, and Meditation on the Bodhisattva Universal Virtue (New York: Weatherhill, 1975), and in Gene Reeves, trans., The Lotus Sutra: A Contemporary Translation of a Buddhist Classic (Boston: Wisdom, 2008). 93. The six sense organs in this sutra are those for the faculties of sight, hearing, smell, speech, touch, and thought. These are typically represented as the ears, nose, tongue or mouth, the body for tactile sensations, and the mind for thought. The faculty associated with the tongue is rendered as “speech” here because the corresponding section in the sutra emphasizes speech rather than taste (see T 277 9:392b16–27). Page 34 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 94. T 277 9:389c19–24. This interpretation of what is being “recited and upheld” differs from that in Katō et al., Threefold Lotus Sutra, 348, and Reeves, Lotus Sutra, 402, which each insert an additional reference to the “Great Vehicle” (Mahayana) that is not in the text at that point (389c22). “Mahayana” does appear in the next line, but both studies use that one reference twice to produce their renderings. Based on the grammar and narrative flow, the present author thinks that the contemplation (guan) is what is being recited and upheld. See also Mai, “Visualization Apocrypha,” 278, and Greene, “Meditation, Repentance,” 85, whose renderings concur. 95. For the jade maidens, see T 277 9:390a5–6 and 390b3–4. In the Maitreya Contemplation Sutra, in addition to heavenly maidens, jade maidens also make an appearance, at the close of the main section detailing the wonders of Tuṣita Heaven; see T 452 14:419b28–c1. 96. T 277 9:390b12–b26. The term translated in the final sentence here as “stage” (in keeping with various prior translations of the sutra), jingjie 境界, might be best understood as a “verificatory vision” that confirms that the practitioner’s first contemplation of Samantabhadra has been successful. On this use of jingjie, see Greene, “Meditation, Repentance,” 69; Greene, “Visions and Visualizations,” 318–319. 97. Again, see T 277 9:389c19–24. 98. T 277 9:390c8–c23. “The samādhi in which the buddhas appear” (zhu fo xianqian sanmei 諸佛現前三昧) is one of the translations for the pratyutpanna-samādhi. The phrase can also be found in the Samādhi Sea Sutra (T 643 15:693c6–8; 695b10) and the Amitāyus Contemplation Sutra (T 365 12:346b3). On this samādhi and the principal texts outlining it, see Paul Harrison, “Buddhānusmṛti in the Pratyutpanna-buddhasaṃmukhāvasthita-samādhi-sūtra,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 6, no. 1 (1978): 35–57; Paul Harrison, trans., The Pratyutpanna Samādhi Sutra, BDK English Tripiṭaka 25, no. 2 (Berkeley: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 1998). 99. See Yamabe, “Sūtra on the Ocean-Like Samādhi,” 50, which supports this characterization of the Ākāśagarbha Contemplation Sutra in Tsukinowa Kenryū 月輪賢隆, Butten no hihanteki kenkyū 仏典の批判的研究 (Kyoto: Hyakkaen, 1971), 118. 100. See Stevenson, “The T’ien-t’ai Four Forms of Samādhi,” 230–232; Kuo, Confession et contrition, 136–138; Yamabe, “Visionary Repentance and Visionary Ordination,” 32–33; Greene, “Atonement of Pārājika Transgressions,” 389–403. 101. “Outcaste” here renders zhantuoluo 旃陀羅 (Sk. caṇḍāla). Greene, “Atonement of Pārājika Transgressions,” 392n.62, indicates that the reference is likely based on the Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattva Sutra (T 405), which likens those committing grave transgressions to caṇḍāla. For a recent study of caṇḍāla in Indian Buddhist literature, see Jonathan A. Silk, “Indian Buddhist Attitudes toward Outcastes: Rhetoric around caṇḍālas,” Indo-Iranian Journal 63 (2020): 128–187, and 167 for a reference to that sutra. 102. Translations from the sutra in this section are based on the Taishō edition, but benefitting from the summary in Marinus Willem de Visser, The Bodhisattva Ākāśagarbha (Kokūzō) in China and Japan (Amsterdam: Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen, 1931), 29–35; and the translations of key passages in Yamabe, “Visionary Repentance and Visionary Ordination,” 32–33; and Greene, “Atonement of Pārājika Transgressions,” 390–398. 103. Poṣadha (Ch. busa 布薩) refers to the monthly ceremonies of precept recitation and confession. For the monastic community, this is typically held twice per month, while the shared ceremony for monastics and lay practitioners is held six days per month. On the “broken rock” metaphor, see Greene, “Atonement of Pārājika Transgressions,” 394 and 394n.64, from which the translation of that sentence is adapted. 104. Greene, “Atonement of Pārājika Transgressions,” 392–393n.63. Page 35 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 105. The sutra states that the method is called “Determination of the Vinaya” (Jueding pini 決定毘尼), which signals its indebtedness to the Upāli’s Questions Sutra on Determination of the Vinaya (Sk. Vinayaviniścaya-Upāli-paripṛcchā). Yamabe identifies the earliest Chinese version of that sutra as the Jueding pini jing 決定毘尼經 (T 325). However, he attributes the visionary repentance and self-ordination methods that follow here primarily to the combination of the Upāli’s Questions Sutra and bodhisattva-precepts traditions in Guṇavarman’s translation of the Bodhisattva Stage (Pusa dichi jing 菩薩地持經 [T 1581]; Pusa shanjie jing 菩薩善戒經 [T 1582]). See Yamabe, “Visionary Repentance and Visionary Ordination,” 28–33. See also his more detailed Japanese-language version of that essay: Yamabe Nobuyoshi 山部能宜, “‘Bonmōkyō’ ni okeru kōsōgyō no kenkyū: Toku ni zenkan kyōten to no kanrensei ni chakumoku shite” 『梵網経』における好相行の研究: 特に禅観 経典との関連性に着目して, in Hokuchō zui tō chūgoku bukkyō shisōshi (北朝隋唐中国仏教思想史), ed. Aramaki Noritoshi 荒牧典俊 (Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 2000), 205–269, especially 222–230. 106. T 409 13:677b20–c7. The phrase rendered here as “monastic rituals” (zhongfa 衆法) could alternatively be translated as “assembled (or many) teachings.” 107. It is a bit ambiguous whether the “wise man” (zhi zhe 知者) refers to the penitent himself or to the previous “one who knows the Law” (or “one who knows the procedures”; zhifa zhe 知法者) instructing the practitioner to clean the latrines. Due to the similarity in phrasing, however, the latter interpretation is opted for in this article. See also Greene, “Atonement of Pārājika Transgressions,” 397, which renders both terms as “his [i.e., the practitioner’s] preceptor.” 108. The Taishō edition just indicates to “chant the names of the thirty-five buddhas” here, but other editions indicate to also “chant the name of Ākāśagarbha.” See T 409 13:677n.28. 109. T 409 13:677c11–c23. The “three kinds of awakening” (san zhong puti 三種菩提) refer to those of śrāvaka (auditors), pratyekabuddhas (solitary, self-enlightened buddhas), and buddhas. 110. See T 409 13:678n.2 and n.4. 111. See de Visser, The Bodhisattva Ākāśagarbha, 31–35, on those parts. 112. T 409 13:679c29–680b23. On that sutra’s preservation here and within other texts, and for a critical edition and translation, see Jonathan A. Silk, “The Jifayue sheku tuoluoni jing: Translation, Non-Translation, Both or Neither?,” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 31, no. 1–2 (2008 [2010]): 369–420. 113. David Quinter, “Visualization/Contemplation Sutras <http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/ view/document/obo-9780195393521/obo-9780195393521-0137.xml>,” in Oxford Bibliographies in Buddhism, ed. Richard Payne (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013/2018). 114. Soper, Literary Evidence. 115. See, for example, Abe, “Art and Practice”; Hsu, “Visualization Meditation”; Hsu, “The Sengchou Cave”; Ning, “Visualization Practice”; Kim, “Seeing Buddhas in Cave Sanctuaries”; Angela F. Howard, “On ‘Art in the Dark’ and Meditation in Central Asian Buddhist Caves,” The Eastern Buddhist 46, no. 2 (2015): 19–39. 116. Bogel, “Contemplations and Imagery.” 117. Birnbaum, The Healing Buddha, 35–51, 115–148. 118. See, for example, Katō et al., The Threefold Lotus Sutra, 345–370; Reeves, The Lotus Sutra, 399–423; and Michio Shinozaki, Brook A. Ziporyn, and David C. Earhart, trans., The Threefold Lotus Sutra: A Modern Translation for Contemporary Readers (Tokyo: Kosei, 2019), 382–413. 119. de Visser, The Bodhisattva Ākāśagarbha, 29–35. Page 36 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 02 October 2021 120. See Tanaka, “The Dawn of Chinese Pure Land Doctrine”; Pas, Visions of Sukhāvatī; Hisao Inagaki, trans., “Shan-tao’s Exposition of the Method of Contemplation on Amida Buddha,” Parts 1–3, in Pacific World: Journal of the Institute of Buddhist Studies, 3rd series, 1 (1999): 77–89; Pacific World, 3rd series, 2 (2000): 207–228; and Pacific World, 3rd series, 3 (2001): 277–288. 121. Inagaki and Stewart, The Three Pure Land Sutras, 63–87. 122. Ducor and Loveday, Le sūtra des contemplations du Buddha Vie-Infinie. 123. Jonathan A. Silk, “The Composition of the Guan Wuliangshoufo-jing: Some Buddhist and Jaina Parallels to Its Narrative Frame,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 25, no. 2 (1997): 181–256. 124. In English, see Fujita, “Textual Origins.” 125. Among Yamabe’s studies, see, for example, “Sūtra on the Ocean-Like Samādhi” (his 1999 dissertation, which remains his most comprehensive work on the sutras); Yamabe, “Practice of Visualization and the Visualization Sutra”; Yamabe, “Visionary Repentance and Visionary Ordination”; Yamabe, “The Paths of Śrāvakas and Bodhisattvas”; Yamabe, “The Ocean Sūtra as a Cross-Cultural Product”; and Yamabe, “Indian Myth Transformed in a Chinese Apocryphal Text.” 126. Mai, “Visualization Apocrypha.” 127. Quinter, “Visualizing the Mañjuśrī Parinirvāṇa Sutra.” For the listing in Sengyou’s catalogue, see T 2145 55:32c7. 128. See Greene, “Meditation, Repentance,” 328–341, including 328n.5, for the catalogue references. 129. See especially Greene, “Meditation, Repentance” and “Visions and Visualizations.” Related Articles Vinaya Rules for Monks and Nuns Buddhist Meditation and Contemplation: An Introduction Page 37 of 37 Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. 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