Introduction

i.1The Teaching of Akṣayamati begins with the arrival of the bodhisatva Akṣayamati in our world from the buddha field of the buddha Samantabhadra. In response to a series of questions posed by Śāriputra, Akṣayamati gives a discourse on the subject of imperishability. He explains that in all there are eighty different aspects of the Dharma that are imperishable. When he has given this explanation, the Buddha praises it and declares it worthy of being spread by the countless bodhisatvas gathered there to listen.

i.2For a period of about a thousand years after the beginning of the common era, The Teaching of Akṣayamati had a significant influence on Buddhist thought. The eighty so-called “imperishabilities” (akṣaya) described in the sūtra‍—qualities to be possessed by the bodhisatvas‍—were considered to contain the whole way of religious development of the Mahāyāna, and many passages became loci classici employed by the scholars of the Mahāyāna to elucidate their doctrines or to defend certain positions with authoritative sayings.

i.3The sūtra was often quoted in the two great traditions of Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophical thought, the Madhyamaka and the Yogācāra. The Mādhyamikas referred to the section on definitive (nītārtha) and implicit (neyārtha) meanings to define their position concerning which sūtras were definitive in meaning‍—the ones teaching emptiness (śūnyatā), the absence of distinguishing marks (ānimitta), and the absence of anything to long for (apraṇidhāna)‍—and those that needed further explanation, in order to differentiate themselves from the Yogācāra view that the sūtras dealing with the all-ground consciousness (ālayavijñāna) were implicit in meaning. The adherents of Yogācāra, for their part, quoted The Teaching of Akṣayamati on all kinds of matters, and for some of them, e.g., Sthiramati (fourth century), it seems to have been one of the main source books on the way of the bodhisatvas. For the Yogācārins, the doctrine of imperishability was regarded as a very important aspect of the Buddha’s teachings. It is said that the sūtra was held in great esteem by Asaṅga (fourth century), as The Teaching of Akṣayamati and the Daśabhūmika (Toh 44, ch. 31) are supposed to be the two sūtras that convinced his brother Vasubandhu (fourth century) that the Mahāyāna was superior to the Hīnayāna, after Asaṅga had sent one of his disciples to recite them to him. According to tradition, Vasubandhu was the author of the Akṣaya­mati­nirdeśa­ṭīkā (Toh 3994), a commentary on this sūtra, and although this work seems rather to have been written by Sthiramati or by someone even later than him, it is very valuable for understanding the text.

i.4The Teaching of Akṣayamati, as a part of the collection known as the Mahāsaṃnipāta, may have been an attempt to systematize the basic religious practices and concepts, as well as the bodhisatva ethics, centered around the idea of the infinity of time and space so favored in early Mahāyāna. Buddhism has never accepted an eternal substance, an eternal Self‍—the longing for eternity rather found its expression in the concept of reality as infinite and imperishable, though empty and momentary. Some of the early Mahāyāna speculations on infinity were also expressed in the concept of imperishability, and this tradition of thought finally crystallized in The Teaching of Akṣayamati. This concept of imperishability is also connected with another important Mahāyāna idea that combines with it to give The Teaching of Akṣayamati its form, namely that of the unification of opposites‍—insight and action, absolute and relative, universal and individual‍—and the religious development integrating both (yuga­naddha­vāhī­mārgaḥ).

i.5The Teaching of Akṣayamati thus presents a very rich exposition of Mahāyāna thought as it was propounded in the first centuries ᴄᴇ, especially when complemented by its commentary, the Akṣaya­mati­nirdeśa­ṭīkā. Therefore, it deserves to be made more readily available to students of Buddhism. For a fuller treatment of the religious and philosophical themes in The Teaching of Akṣayamati the reader may consult the introduction to my original translation of this sūtra, published earlier.

i.6To date, no complete Sanskrit version of this sūtra has come to light, although a few quotations are preserved in Indian scriptures, predominantly in Śāntideva’s (ca. eighth century) Śikṣāsamuccaya. The Tibetan translation was completed (based on earlier drafts) some time during the late eighth or early ninth century ᴄᴇ as we find it included in the Denkarma catalog dated to ca. 812 ᴄᴇ. According to the colophon to the Tibetan translation, it was edited and finalized by the translator Dharmatāśīla, who participated in numerous translation projects in Tibet during the early translation period. The Chinese canon also contains two translations of this sūtra. The first (Taishō 403) was produced by Dharmarakṣa already in 308 ᴄᴇ and the second (Taishō 397–12) was completed approximately one century later in 427 ᴄᴇ by the translators Zhiyan and Baoyun. In my introduction to the published critical edition of the Tibetan text the interested reader will find a detailed discussion of the textual history of the sūtra in Tibet. As with the earlier published translation of The Teaching of Akṣayamati, this newly revised English translation is likewise based on my critical edition of the Tibetan translation.