Introduction

i.2The Ornament of the Light of Awareness (Jñānālokālaṃkāra, hereafter JAA) is of particular significance for its discussion of the nature of a buddha, his appearance to sentient beings, and his beneficial activities. These themes are in turn related to the doctrine of buddha nature (tathāgatagarbha), important for both general Mahāyāna Buddhism and Secret Mantra. The JAA has even been interpreted as propounding an explicit Vajrayāna perspective of purity, and has been quoted by masters of secret mantra in India, Tibet, and Japan.

i.3Although this sūtra is called “an ornament” (alaṃkāra), it is perhaps rather about an ornament. More literally, alaṃkāra means “something that completes,” and according to the conventions of ancient and medieval Indian literature, that is what an ornament should do. Therefore, rather than being a dispensable decoration, the sūtra completes and adorns the light or appearance (āloka) of a special type of knowledge (jñāna). This knowledge is a meaningful awareness, not just the awareness of an ordinary object. This awareness can engage with, or descend into (avatāra), the scope of all buddhas, which is their object or, more precisely, their domain (viṣaya). If we follow the interpretation of the Ratna­gotra­vibhāga, the light of awareness is itself the ornament that allows bodhisattvas to descend or enter into the domain of all buddhas.

i.4Although texts preserved as sūtra or sūtrānta are classified as “word of the Buddha” (buddhavacana), this does not necessarily mean that the Buddha is the main speaker. For example, the bulk of the Prajñā­pāramitā­hṛdaya (the Heart Sūtra) consists of a dialogue between the venerable Śāriputra and the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara. In the present sūtra, however, the Buddha Śākyamuni is not only there to offer a seal of approval but is, in effect, the main speaker.

i.5The sūtra locates its teaching in Rājgir, on the mountain of Vulture Peak. Although this is also the place where many of the prajñāpāramitā teachings are set, the Buddha is here dwelling in the Womb of the Dharmadhātu Palace. The symbolism is perhaps more attuned to the third turning of the dharmacakra, taking place in a variety of locations and teaching a wide array of advanced topics.

The teaching does not take place within the ordinary appearance of our world sphere. Just before the Buddha sits on his lion throne, the entire environment is transformed into the purest gold and jewels. Such emphasis on the purified appearance of the environment of the sūtra may be significant in the light of its more esoteric interpretations.

i.6The audience is made up of two kinds of individual: hearers who have already become arhats, and bodhisattvas who are close to buddhahood, i.e., on the tenth or last level (bhūmi), called “Cloud of Dharma.” The hearers are headed by Ājñāta­kauṇḍinya; his name means “Kauṇḍinya Who Understood,” and he is described in other sūtras as the first monk to have been praised by the Buddha for having understood his teaching. The bodhisattvas are headed by Mañjuśrī, the embodiment of wisdom or higher knowledge, who is also the main interlocutor of this sūtra.

i.7The Buddha signals that an exceptional teaching will take place through a prātihārya, an extraordinary display of light meant to attract audiences from very far away. Prātihārya is sometimes translated as “miracle,” but rather than being an inexplicable testimony of divine intervention, prātihāryas are classified in Mahāyāna scholasticism as a means to draw the listeners’ attention, and to instill reverence toward what is going to be taught.

i.8If we follow Buddhist cosmology and cosmogony, the appearance of a buddha may be understood as an exceptional event, resulting from a myriad of positive causal concomitances. Each buddha conforms to specific cosmic regularities, due to inner causal factors (his aspirations during countless previous lives) and outer ones (the collective merit of sentient beings); and each buddha arises within a specific area of the universe, called a “buddhafield” (buddhakṣetra). This will be the field of activity of one, and only one, buddha‍—at least in the sense that only one buddha will enact the specific set of activities that, just as the sun cannot avoid shining, no buddha can avoid performing. Certain teachings will be taught by all the buddhas; the jeweled throne that appears and invites the Buddha Śākyamuni to sit and teach suggests that this is, indeed, one of those recurrent teachings.

i.9Infinite buddhafields may exist at the same time. Mahāyāna sūtras often specify that diligent and wise bodhisattvas can perceive and even visit other buddhafields, paying their respects and obtaining teachings from the buddhas residing there. In this sūtra, after the Buddha Śākyamuni emits light that fills the entire trichiliocosm, a very large number of bodhisattvas arrive from other buddhafields‍—suggesting once more the importance of the teaching about to be given.

Mañjuśrī is the bodhisattva associated with wisdom (prajñā). The JAA’s thematic focus on wisdom and the prajñāpāramitā is quite clear: Mañjuśrī begins by asking the Buddha about the meaning of nonarising and noncessation.

i.10As the Heart Sūtra puts it, all dharmas are “emptiness, without characteristics, nonarisen, nonceased.” That all dharmas neither arise nor cease seems to be a specifically Mahāyāna doctrine that sets the Mahāyāna sūtras, and the treatises associated with them, apart from their non-Mahāyāna counterparts. While all Buddhist schools agree that dharmas are dependently arisen, within a Mahāyāna perspective this also entails that in some sense they do not arise and do not cease (in the Yogācāra scheme of three natures, this regards only their “wrongly imagined nature,” the parikalpita).

i.11In response to Mañjuśrī, the Buddha answers that “nonarising and noncessation […] designates the Tathāgata.” The Buddha is a synonym for the nonarising of all dharmas, appearing in a certain way to sentient beings according to their karma and their dispositions. In other words, in the landscape of the JAA, there is no ultimate difference between the Tathāgata and the tathatā , the nature of things‍—nor, furthermore, between the teacher and the place where the teaching occurs (the lion throne at the center of the Womb of Dharmadhātu Palace), between the teacher and the assembly of listeners (bodhisattvas on the tenth bhūmi), or between the teacher and the Dharma that he teaches (which is the nature of a Buddha’s appearance as a teacher). All these differences appear within the close-knit fabric of interdependence and its ultimate emptiness. The JAA relates the teachings on dependent arising and emptiness to a specific perspective regarding a type of awareness (jñāna), which, unlike ordinary consciousness, is free from a point of reference.

i.12An analysis of the contents of the JAA should take into account its close relation to the Ratna­gotra­vibhāga, the principal treatise on buddha nature within Indian Buddhist literature. Despite being a treatise rather than a sūtra, the Ratna­gotra­vibhāga is invested with special authority, as it is considered to have been revealed by Maitreya, the very next buddha in our specific universe. Within the Tibetan tradition, Asaṅga (the recipient of Maitreya’s revealed texts) is believed to be the author of its main commentary, in which the JAA is cited. Although the term tathāgatagarbha never occurs in the JAA, Maitreya and Asaṅga clearly interpret the text in the context of the teachings on buddha nature.

The Ratna­gotra­vibhāga is composed of three sections (five chapters), dealing with the tathāgatagarbha in a nonpurified, partially purified, and completely purified state, respectively. The themes of the JAA are mostly related to the completely purified state, i.e., a perfect and complete buddha and his activity.

The Ratna­gotra­vibhāga makes use of the JAA in two different sections. In chapter 1, the JAA is quoted in connection with one of the crucial verses that explain the nature of buddhahood:

“unproduced, effortless, not arisen by understanding from others, buddhahood is endowed with the power of awareness and compassion, and has the two purposes.”

i.13The Vyākhyā (commentary) quotes from various sections of the sūtra and relates them to the first four qualifications found in the verse:

i. When the JAA states that “nonarising” and “noncessation” are epithets of the Tathāgata, it shows that the Buddha is unproduced.

ii. The nine examples explain what it means for the Tathāgata to be nonarising and noncessation (given in the Ratna­gotra­vibhāga as the reason for his being unproduced).

iii. The explanations of all that has been pacified show that, since all his elaborations and concepts have been pacified, the Tathāgata is effortless with respect to his own activities.

iv. The next section shows that the Tathāgata realizes for himself the gates to the realization of the nature of all dharmas, and goes on to explain the sixteen features of the Tathāgata’s realization (this links to not arisen by understanding from others).

v. One sentence describes the Tathāgata’s great compassion, showing that he is endowed with unexcelled awareness and compassion.

i.14According to the Vyākhyā, therefore, the JAA is an elaborate exposition of the nature of buddhahood‍—buddha nature in its fully purified form. Furthermore, chapter 4 of the Ratna­gotra­vibhāga can be considered a commentary on the section of the JAA presenting the nine examples of a buddha’s activity; this also regards buddha nature in a fully purified state, and activity is in fact the final topic in the list of seven “crucial terms” (vajrapada) through which Maitreya’s treatise, in its opening stanza, parses its own contents. In the JAA the appearance of a buddha is compared to (1) Indra’s Palace reflected upon the emerald ground, (2) the Dharma drum that plays for the gods, (3) a rain cloud, (4) the god Mahābrahmā, (5) the rays of the sun, (6) the wish-fulfilling jewel, (7) an echo, (8) the earth, and (9) space. The Ratna­gotra­vibhāga elaborates on the significance of each example, on their mutual relationship, and on the overall purpose of the whole set. A verse in chapter 4 (4.83) interprets the initial sections of the JAA (including the nine analogies) as a syllogism, including a thesis, an analogy, and a logical ground or proof (pratijñā, dṛṣṭānta, hetu):

Thus the Ratna­gotra­vibhāga provides some keys for understanding the sūtra according to a number of topical subdivisions and an overall rationale behind its structure.

i.15The activity of a buddha is a complex matter, and it is therefore understandable that the Ratna­gotra­vibhāga gears its interpretation of the JAA toward the illustrations that help make this difficult point easier to assimilate. Buddhas are free from delusion in the form of conventions, yet appear to engage with conventions in order to benefit others. A buddha is free from mental constructs and intentional mental elaborations, yet his teachings are attuned to each and every mindset. This seeming paradox has been tackled through a number of divergent solutions, some of which (as we shall see) are directly linked to the contents of the JAA.

i.16Following the nine analogies, the JAA discusses the nature of awakening. The topic is brought up to explain why a buddha’s activity is as described in the nine analogies. The answer is that a buddha’s activity could not be otherwise because of the nature of a buddha’s awakening. The JAA’s progression follows the questions posed by Mañjuśrī, directly enunciating the first part of the syllogistic structure discussed above (the relationship between thesis and logical ground).

This section offers several remarkable explanations of a buddha’s awakening, relying on fundamental categories of Buddhist thought, such as the twelve entrances (āyatana) and the eighteen bases (dhātu). These categories subsume the entirety of existent things ( dharma s) within schemes that may highlight the dependent arising of sentience, defined as the perception of objects. Mañjuśrī most consistently praises the Buddha for the lack of that perception. The section on the nature of awakening concludes with several verses extolling the Buddha Śākyamuni as “you who are free of any point of reference” (nirālamba). Freedom from point of reference is jñāna rather than vijñāna; it is not mind or conventions (buddhi or saṃvṛti). Mañjuśrī is asked by the Buddha to rely on jñāna, and he responds to the teachings with an extensive praise of its nature. This section is therefore related to the Laṅkāvatāra’s explicit discussion of the distinction between jñāna and vijñāna; as also to the Bodhi­caryāvatāra, and a number of other treatises wherein ultimate truth is described as never within the range of consciousness.

i.17One of the first prominent authors to employ the JAA is probably the Madhyamaka philosopher Bhāviveka (sixth century), who inaugurates a long trend of quoting the JAA when discussing the nature of buddhahood. More specifically, he cites the JAA in order to prove that a buddha is devoid of any conceptuality or mind whatsoever. Candrakīrti and Kamalaśīla also quote the JAA in the context of establishing that all dharmas share the same nature as the Buddha.

i.18The JAA starts to be quoted in a Mantranaya context at least by the eighth century, in Buddhaguhya’s commentary on the Mahā­vairocana­sūtra. The latter text is of special importance for East Asian Buddhism. Kūkai (Kobo Daishi, eighth–ninth century), who founded the Shingon school of Japan, brought the JAA back to Japan from his visit to China in 806. The JAA influenced his visualization techniques relating to the dharmakāya. In this instance, the JAA had a direct bearing on very practical aspects of tantric meditation.

i.19The Vajrayāna adept Naḍapāda (Nāropā, tenth–eleventh century), whose lineage became influential in Tibet during the later translation period, quoted from the JAA in the Sekoddeśa­ṭīkā, a text primarily associated with the Kālacakra tradition and still extant in Sanskrit. In this work Naḍapāda cites the following verse to corroborate his explanation of a buddha’s awareness in relation to the four mudrās:

Naḍapāda’s quote brings up the doctrine of “nonabiding” or “no ground to stand upon” (apratiṣṭhāna), the idea, recurrent in some sūtras, that the mind should not abide within any dharma whatsoever. This theme was also important for subsequent secret mantra authors who made use of the JAA for scriptural support.

i.20According to Tibetan sources, Advayavajra (eleventh century, also known as Maitrīgupta and Maitrīpa) was a student of Naropa, Ratnākaraśānti (tenth–eleventh century), Jñānaśrīmitra (tenth–eleventh century), and Śabarapāda (tenth–eleventh century?). He is also considered one of the two main teachers of Marpa Chökyi Lodrö (mar pa chos kyi blo gros, 1012–97). The colophons to his works describe Advayavajra as both a great scholar (paṇḍita) and a realized Vajrayāna adept (avadhūta). Although his works are short, they reflect this double characterization. His Madhyamaka interpretation is especially attuned to Vajrayāna practice and to the context and terminology of mahāmudrā. In both regards, recurrent notions in the JAA play an important role within his writings, and he cites the JAA in at least three texts.

Furthermore, the relationship between nonarising and primordial purity has been linked in the Tibetan tradition to the JAA, which thus becomes an important element in the exposition of secret mantra within that fold.

Many scholars throughout the Mahāyāna Buddhist world have taken the JAA as an authoritative source of inspiration; we hope that contemporary readers may also find some of its depth transmitted in this English translation.

i.21The translation presented here is primarily based on the Sanskrit edition by the Study Group on Buddhist Sanskrit Literature (2005). The Sanskrit was also compared to the Tibetan translation in the Degé Kangyur. In several instances the Tibetan proved useful by offering more complete readings. Hence, we have at times followed the Tibetan rather than the Sanskrit reading. On occasion, we have also consulted Kimura’s transliteration of the Sanskrit manuscript (GRETIL version, 2004) and reverted to its readings. For the most part, the Tibetan follows the Sanskrit closely, although in a few instances it appears to be based on a different manuscript tradition. This is certainly plausible if the proposed date of the Sanskrit manuscript (eleventh–thirteenth century) is correct, since the Tibetan translation was produced centuries earlier.