Introduction

i.1The Dwelling Place of Mañjuśrī opens with the Buddha Śākyamuni residing in Rājagṛha on Gṛdhrakūṭa Mountain together with a great monastic assembly of five hundred monks and a multitude of bodhisattvas. After the Buddha has delivered a Dharma teaching, Mañjuśrī walks through the monastic quarters of the area and sees Śāriputra engaged in meditation among the residences of the five hundred monks. There follows a dialogue between Mañjuśrī and Śāriputra regarding the activity of “dwelling” during meditation, the nature of dharmas, and the “true nature.” This opens into a conversation between Mañjuśrī and the five hundred monks in which Mañjuśrī corrects the monks’ misinterpretations. Finally, Mañjuśrī instructs Śāriputra on the non-decrease and non-increase of the realm of sentient beings (sattvadhātu) and the realm of reality (dharmadhātu)‍—an instruction that indicates the nonconceptual, immutable, and indestructible nature of awakening. Because this nature, symbolized by Mañjuśrī himself, does not dwell anywhere, it is without any dwelling place, in other words without any determinate location or foundation. The power of Mañjuśrī’s teaching is explained and reiterated by the Buddha. The sūtra concludes with the Buddha predicting the future awakening of the five hundred monks and eighty thousand gods who are present in the audience.

i.2The sūtra is not extant in Sanskrit but is preserved in Chinese, Tibetan, and Mongolian versions. There are two Chinese versions: the 文殊師利巡行經 Wén shū shī lì xún xíng jīng translated by Bodhiruci ca. 508–535 ᴄᴇ (Taishō 470) and the 文殊尸利行經 Wén shū shī lì xíng jīng translated by Jñānagupta in 586 ᴄᴇ (Taishō 471). The Tibetan version is preserved in Dunhuang manuscripts and in Tibetan Kangyur editions. A recently published critical edition of the Tibetan version of this sūtra identifies two extant Dunhuang Tibetan manuscripts and three fragments and utilizes seventeen available Kangyur and proto-Kangyur editions. The Dunhuang manuscripts contain an early Tibetan edition that was translated before the implementation of codified rules and principles for translating Buddhist texts issued by the Tibetan emperor Trisong Detsen (r. 800–815 ᴄᴇ). Still, the Dunhuang manuscripts and the canonical Kangyur versions contain the same recension of the sūtra, with some minor differences in terminology and idiomatic expressions. The Chinese versions generally match the Tibetan version, though they do contain several terms that point to different Sanskrit originals as well as portions that are missing from the Tibetan.

i.3The Dwelling Place of Mañjuśrī is also recorded in the Denkarma and Phangthangma inventories of Tibetan imperial translations, so we can establish that it was first translated from Sanskrit into Tibetan no later than the early ninth century, as the Denkarma is dated to 812 ᴄᴇ. The late thirteenth-century catalog of the Tibetan Kadampa master Darma Gyaltsen (1227–1305), commonly known as Chomden Raldri, lists the sūtra as The Noble Sūtra “The Dwelling Place of Mañjuśrī.” A listing of texts appended to the history of Buddhism in India and Tibet composed by Butön Rinchen Drup (1290–1364) lists the work under the same title but adds that it was translated by Yeshé Dé and consists of one hundred and forty ślokas. Among Kangyurs that have a colophon, the translators listed are the Indian preceptor Surendrabodhi and the translator in charge of the revision, Bandé Yeshé Dé.

i.4The sūtra enjoyed some popularity in eighth- and ninth-century Tibet, a fact attested to by its inclusion among the one hundred and four titles of Buddhist scriptures found in Mahāvyutpatti §1329 and the number of extant Tibetan Dunhuang fragments. The sūtra was also cited in several early Tibetan treatises from Dunhuang and two times by Vimalamitra (eighth century) in his commentary on nonconceptual meditation. The sūtra is also sporadically cited in later Tibetan commentaries and was briefly analyzed by Pekar Sangpo (sixteenth century) in his overview of the sūtras preserved among Tibetan Kangyurs.

i.5The Dwelling Place of Mañjuśrī (in Sanskrit Mañjuśrīvihāra) is a discourse that plays on the Sanskrit word vihāra, which can variously mean (1) dwelling place, (2) condition of existence, (3) walking about, (4) monastery, (5) pleasure ground, (6) sport, (7) arrangement, or distribution. The Chinese translators understood the title of the term in the sense of (3), with Bodhiruci translating the title as Mañjuśrī’s “going around” (巡行) and Jñānagupta translating the nearly synonymous Mañjuśrī’s “wandering” (行). This connotation refers to the opening scene, in which Mañjuśrī wanders about the monastic residences. This sense is not captured in the Tibetan translation gnas pa, which corresponds only to connotations (1) or (2) among the possibilities listed above. Without a Sanskrit manuscript of the text, we cannot be sure of the exact connotation of vihāra, but the context throughout the sūtra implies that the “dwelling place” of Mañjuśrī is not a determinate place. The dwelling place that Mañjuśrī explains to Śāriputra and the five hundred monks is the realm of reality, which is beyond time, unlocalized, immovable, and inaccessible to conceptual thought. Awakening in this sūtra is characterized as the nonconceptual awareness of the infinite realm of reality.

i.6In the first half of the sūtra, Mañjuśrī criticizes various presuppositions underlying Śāriputra’s conceptual understanding of concentration and its role in spiritual practice (1.­3), the past, present, and future (1.­5, 1.­11), comprehension (1.­16), and the “dwelling place” of an arhat (1.­18). Although difficult to verify, the presuppositions of Śāriputra may well represent the mainstream Buddhist understandings of a person following the Abhidharma of the Sarvāstivādin ordination lineage, particularly Śāriputra’s advocacy of the practice of standing firm in the past, present, and future. According to Pekar Sangpo, the concise meaning of this part of the sūtra is that Śāriputra is taught, as a response to Mañjuśrī’s questions, the emptiness that by nature is free from the conceptual fabrication of anything.

i.7The second half (1.­21–1.­41) of the sūtra consists of a dialogue that develops between Mañjuśrī and the five hundred monks in the audience. The five hundred monks are initially disturbed by and reject Mañjuśrī’s teaching and move away from him, but the monks then return upon Mañjuśrī’s further instruction to Śāriputra. Mañjuśrī’s additional instruction to Śāriputra is the cause for four hundred of the monks’ minds to be liberated from the pollutions. However, one hundred monks fall into a deep hell realm due to being greatly disturbed by Mañjuśrī’s instruction. Śāriputra then questions Mañjuśrī’s motives and mode of teaching. The Buddha comes to the defense of Mañjuśrī and explains the great karmic benefit of hearing the profound Dharma for these monks, even if they doubt it. The Buddha predicts that the monks will swiftly be reborn in Tuṣita heaven after their instructive interlude in hell and that they will then become arhat disciples under the future Buddha Maitreya. Tibetan scholars like Situ Penchen Chökyi Jungné (1700–1774) cite this episode as an example of the power of the profound Dharma to bring great positive effects, even for those who have doubt and do not follow the instruction.

i.8After Śāriputra praises Mañjuśrī on his eloquence in explaining the Dharma, Mañjuśrī proceeds to instruct the audience on the “non-decrease and non-increase” (anūnatvāpūrṇatva) of the realm of sentient beings and the realm of reality (1.­27). The topic of “non-decrease and non-increase” is an important theme in a number of Mahāyāna sūtras, such as The Perfection of Wisdom in Seven Hundred Lines (Toh 24), The Questions of Suvikrāntavikrāmin (Toh 14), and The Absorption That Encapsulates All Merit (Toh 134), along with various sūtras of the Heap of Jewels (Ratnakuṭa) class and even the Heart Sūtra. The Anūnatvāpūrṇatva­nirdeśa­parivarta, a discourse that bears the name of this topic and is preserved only in Chinese, connects this topic with the teaching of Buddha nature (tathāgata­garbha). The Dwelling Place of Mañjuśrī, however, equates the non-increasing and non-decreasing true nature with the realm of reality and the realm of sentient beings. The non-increase and non-decrease of the realm of sentient beings and the realm of reality is explained in The Questions of Suvikrāntavikrāmin , where both realms are said to lack any intrinsic essence, are infinite, and are designated through conventional expressions. The Buddha explains to Suvikrāntavikrāmin that “non-decrease and non-increase” is a synonym for the vision of how things are in a nonconceptual manner. The Dwelling Place of Mañjuśrī concurs with this understanding, where the text reads, “that which is uncurtailed in this way is awakening. Awakening is liberation. Liberation is nonconceptual. The nonconceptual is unfabricated and immutable. The unfabricated and immutable is wholly beyond suffering.” Because this nonconceptual nature, which is symbolized by Mañjuśrī himself, does not dwell anywhere, it is without a fixed dwelling place, in other words without any metaphysical foundation.

i.9The Prajñāpāramitā literature seems to have also exerted an influence on The Dwelling Place of Mañjuśrī, as there are several themes found in the sūtra that are redolent of earlier Prajñāpāramitā discourses. For example, the sūtra mentions that arhats are “constituted by the unconditioned,” a phrase found throughout the Prajñāpāramitā literature and particularly well known from The Sūtra on the Perfection of Wisdom “The Diamond Cutter” (Toh 16). At the conclusion of The Dwelling Place of Mañjuśrī, the Buddha predicts that the audience will achieve complete buddhahood “in the eon called Star-like,” a prediction that is also given in a number of Prajñāpāramitā discourses. We also note that a parallel to the episode of the monks falling into hell is found in the sūtra Teaching the Practice of a Bodhisattva (Toh 184).