Introduction

i.1Gayāśīrṣa Hill is a relatively short Mahāyāna Buddhist scripture, but its influence over the centuries is attested to by the multiple translations of it that were made, its frequent citation, and its use as a source of significant Mahāyāna Buddhist ideas and practices.

i.2The sūtra opens on Gayāśīrṣa Hill near Bodhgayā, where the Buddha is dwelling with a large number of bhikṣus and bodhisattvas. Withdrawing into solitude, the Buddha reflects inwardly on the nature of his awakening, how it was attained, and the nature of the one who has attained it. After the Buddha answers the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī’s query about how that awakening should be sought, two gods and a bodhisattva query Mañjuśrī in turn about the practices that lead to the awakening of a buddha.

i.3Gayāśīrṣa Hill was translated into Chinese four times between the beginning of the fifth century and the end of the seventh century (Taishō 464, 465, 466, and 467), before the Tibetan translation was produced by Surendrabodhi and Yeshé Dé. Vasubandhu’s Commentary on the Gayāśīrṣa Hill Sūtra is preserved in both Chinese and Tibetan translations. Śākyabuddhi wrote a subcommentary on Vasubandhu’s commentary, the Mixed Commentary on the Gayāśīrṣa Hill Sūtra, which has survived in the form of a Tibetan translation. In China, the fifth-century Buddhist monk Hongchong (充弘) reportedly composed a commentary on Kumārajīva’s Chinese translation of Gayāśīrṣa Hill .

i.4Gayāśīrṣa Hill is also cited in Kamalaśīla’s Stages of Meditation (Bhāvanākrama). Through the influence of Kamalaśīla, the memory of this sūtra lived on in Tibet. In the context of discussing Mahāyāna Buddhist practices in The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path, for instance, Tsongkhapa (1357–1419) cites three passages from the sūtra that had been used in Kamalaśīla’s Stages of Meditation. Gayāśīrṣa Hill ’s sustained exposition of the Mahāyāna Buddhist path seems to have made it valuable for the project of writing comprehensive Buddhist manuals. Both Kamalaśīla and Tsongkhapa made use of its clear formulation of method and wisdom as the two basic elements of the bodhisattva’s path; its affirmation of compassion and sentient beings, respectively, as the beginning and basis of the bodhisattva’s conduct; and its decisive statement about the importance of practice to the bodhisattva’s pursuit of awakening.

i.5Gayāśīrṣa Hill is set in a place and time commemorated in Buddhist accounts of the life of the Buddha. In the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya, The Chapter on a Schism in the Saṅgha (Saṅgha­bhedavastu) describes in detail the Buddha’s visit to Gayāśīrṣa Hill when, not long after his first teaching in Sarnath, he had returned to the Urubilvā (or Uruvilvā) area and had converted the three Kāśyapa brothers of Urubilvā (Pali Uruvelā) and their thousand jaṭila (matted-haired) ascetic followers who had been practicing on the banks of the nearby Nairañjanā River. It was on Gayāśīrṣa Hill that he led them all to attain the level of arhat by displaying the “three miracles,” i.e., the miracle of the supernatural, the miracle of pointing out, and the miracle of instruction, and he remained there until he was invited to Rājagṛha for the first time by King Bimbisāra. These events are summarized in a passage that appears in parallel in several other texts, notably The Chapter on Going Forth (Pravrajyāvastu, Toh 1, 1.­276) and The Hundred Deeds (Karmaśataka, Toh 340, 6.­319–6.­320), with a parallel in the Pali literature, too: the Mahāvagga section of the Vinaya Piṭaka describes the Buddha staying on Gayāśīrṣa Hill “accompanied by a great saṅgha of bhikkhus consisting of one thousand fully ordained monks, all of whom were previously ascetics with matted hair.” It was on that occasion, according to the Pali tradition, that he delivered the famous Ādittapariyāya, often known as the “Fire Sermon,” found in the Saṃyutta Nikāya (SN 35.28), a teaching that matches what the Saṅgha­bhedavastu says of the “miracle of instruction.”

i.6The introductory setting of Gayāśīrṣa Hill makes it clear that although the audience includes the same thousand newly converted disciples mentioned in those accounts, the teaching recounted in the present text is supposed to have been given slightly later in this initial period, as the new monk disciples had already attained the arhat level. But, in any case, we would not expect its content, as a Mahāyāna sūtra, to bear a close resemblance to the teachings associated with Gayāśīrṣa Hill transmitted in the Pali tradition; moreover, the audience includes “many bodhisattva great beings.”

i.7At a later period in the Buddha’s life, it was on Gayāśīrṣa Hill that the Buddha’s cousin Devadatta established and led a secessionist community of monks.

i.8Gayāśīrṣa itself is a flat-topped hill that can be visited today outside the city of Gayā in Bihar. It lies in Urubilvā, along the Nairañjanā River, the same area of Magadha where Bodhgayā is located as well the places where, before his awakening, the Buddha had practiced asceticism. Gayāśīrṣa was already a pilgrimage place or tīrtha sacred in the Brahmanical tradition, in connection with legends of a buried, reclining giant‍—in one version, a demon king called Gayāsura who was immobilized by Viṣṇu, and in another a saintly prince called Gaya. This hill marks the position of his head, with other features of the landscape in the region associated with other parts of his body. However, Vinītaruci’s Chinese translation of this sūtra (Taishō 466) preserves in its title an alternative interpretation of the name of the mountain, “Elephant Head” (xiangtou, 象頭, or gajaśīrṣa), which is corroborated by the form gajasīsa found in some of the Pali commentaries, although not in the suttas themselves. Other sūtras in the Kangyur of which the setting is Gayāśīrṣa Hill include the celebrated Jewel Cloud (Toh 231) and Victory of the Ultimate Dharma (Toh 246).

i.9Vasubandhu’s commentary divides Gayāśīrṣa Hill into nine topics. Although the sūtra contains a few enigmatic passages, an independent reading of the text will quite certainly be a meaningful and rewarding experience, especially if the reader has some familiarity with basic Buddhist concepts. That said, what makes Vasubandhu’s text particularly interesting is the specific commentarial techniques that are used and the influence that it must have exerted on Buddhist readers, translators, and scholars in the past, as evidenced by the commentary’s translation into both Chinese and Tibetan.

i.10Vasubandhu’s commentary describes the general structure of the entire sūtra and provides lists of exegetical points to help organize its passages. According to Vasubandhu, the sūtra begins with (1) an introduction (gleng gzhi), which is followed by a description of (2) “the excellence of its harmonious audience” (mthun pa’i nyan pa po phun sum tshogs pa). This point in his list corresponds to the individual lines in the sūtra that describe the qualities of the one thousand bhikṣus in attendance. The sūtra then moves into its main topics, beginning with the Buddha’s withdrawal into solitude and engagement in contemplation. This is followed by the Buddha’s acknowledgement of his own awakening and his successful promulgation of the Dharma. Vasubandhu classifies these two sections as (3) meditative absorption (ting nge ’dzin) and (4) “the purity of the realizer” (rtogs pa po rnam par dag pa). In the sūtra, the Buddha examines the means by which awakening is realized, awakening itself, and the person who attains awakening. None of these examinations discovers any real entity associated with the different factors of awakening. Vasubandhu names this section (5) “matters to be examined” (brtag par bya ba’i dngos po). These analyses, according to Vasubandhu, are conducted in meditative absorption; therefore, (6) “emergence from meditation” (bzhengs pa) designates a transition between the completion of the Buddha’s meditative absorption and the commencement of his teaching. These distinctions are not, however, indicated in the text of the sūtra.

i.11In the next section, the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī, who has access to the Buddha’s thoughts about awakening, asks the Buddha questions about how awakening should be sought. In response, the Buddha speaks about the way to attain awakening, which is in tune with the nature of awakening itself. Vasubandhu’s commentary gives this section the heading (7) “teachings” (bstan pa), and this section seems to be the source of the text’s alternative title, The Sūtra of Mañjuśrī’s Inquiry about Awakening (Wenshushili wen puti jing, 文殊師利問菩提經), used in the earliest Chinese translation made by Kumārajīva in the fifth century ᴄᴇ.

i.12After the Buddha’s instruction to Mañjuśrī, the remaining dialogues take place between Mañjuśrī and three interlocutors. Vasubandhu places the dialogue between Mañjuśrī and the first deity in a division of the text that he calls (8) “the power of the excellent qualities of bodhisattvas” (byang chub sems dpa’i yon tan gyi mthu). Vasubandhu remarks here that the point of asking Mañjuśrī questions while the Buddha is present is to show the excellence of the bodhisattva. The first individual who approaches Mañjuśrī is a deity to whom the bodhisattva describes a series of interrelated practices. The first part of the series begins with great compassion and ends with “the intention” and “the noblest intention” of the bodhisattva. In this part of the series, each practice is said to be encompassed by the next. From the noblest intention onward, each practice is said to occur for the sake of the next.

i.13Mañjuśrī’s instruction then distinguishes four kinds of “mind generation.” The term is not defined in the sūtra itself, but in the Mahāyāna sūtras and scholastic literature it is usually synonymous with the aspiration for complete awakening‍—in other words, bodhicitta. The four types of giving rise to the mind of awakening are (1) the initial giving rise to the mind of awakening, (2) the giving rise to the mind of awakening that is associated with conduct, (3) the giving rise to the mind of awakening that is irreversible, and (4) the giving rise to the mind of awakening that is separated from the goal by one birth. Gayāśīrṣa Hill , using various analogies and images, presents the four kinds of giving rise to the mind of awakening primarily as four different stages of the bodhisattva’s path. Vasubandhu’s commentary adds that the four kinds of giving rise to the mind of awakening are encompassed by the ten levels of noble bodhisattvas.

i.14Mañjuśrī’s dialogues with the remaining two interlocutors are discussed in Vasubandhu’s commentary under the last topic, (9) “the classification of practice” (spyod pa rnam par dbye ba). In the first of these two, Mañjuśrī is approached by a deity who asks him to explain the bodhisattva paths in terms of their broad principles. In response, Mañjuśrī explains that method and wisdom are the two basic paths of bodhisattvas, and he elaborates how these two broad principles can be understood.

i.15In the last dialogue, Mañjuśrī responds to a bodhisattva’s questions, contrasting bodhisattvas’ gnosis with the object of that gnosis, which is described as “dissociated.” Vasubandhu’s use of the term “very limit of reality” (bhūtakoṭi) and some additional synonyms given in the Chinese translation of the commentary indicate that “object,” in this context, refers to ultimate reality. This is supported by other terms in the sūtra associated with ultimate reality, such as “unconditioned” (asaṃskṛta). Gnosis, on the other hand, is characterized in the sūtra as “associated”‍—that is, associated with the mind. Mañjuśrī then presents six categories pertaining to bodhisattvas: (1) knowledge, (2) efforts, (3) applications, (4) investigations into inexhaustible subjects, (5) matters that relate to discipline, (6) and disciplined states. Each of these six items is divided into ten types. He concludes by advising bodhisattvas aspiring to awakening to focus on practice (pratipatti), and he provides more twofold classifications of bodhisattva practices.

i.16To our knowledge, there has not been a published translation of Gayāśīrṣa Hill in any Western language. Alex Wayman’s work makes several references to the sūtra, which he considers to be a source of the Yogācāra notion of the “transformation of the support” (āśrayaparā­vṛtti). Beyond this, we are not aware of any comprehensive study of the sūtra. The Japanese scholar Susumu Ōtake recently published a study of the Chinese translations of Vasubandhu’s sūtra commentaries that were produced during the Northern Wei period (386–535 ᴄᴇ), including Vasubandhu’s commentary on Gayāśīrṣa Hill .

i.17The present translation was made from the Comparative Edition (Tib. dpe bsdur ma) of the Tibetan translation of Gayāśīrṣa Hill , based on the Degé Kangyur. Variant readings are recorded in the endnotes. To resolve ambiguity, to choose among multiple meanings of words, and to infer the original Sanskrit behind the Tibetan translation, we have used the four Chinese translations of the sūtra and the Chinese translation of Vasubandhu’s Commentary on the Gayāśīrṣa Hill Sūtra. Śākyabuddhi’s Mixed Commentary on the Gayāśīrṣa Hill Sūtra has also been consulted occasionally. However, it has been our principle not to use these sources to settle on a reading that cannot be derived from the Tibetan translation of the sūtra. We are aware that a complete textual history of this important sūtra, and a full account of the hermeneutics of its two extant Indian commentaries, cannot be adequately dealt with in the format of the present translation. Our hope is that this translation will inspire others to study this sūtra and its commentaries in turn.