Introduction

i.1The Sections of Dharma has a long history as part of the Tibetan Buddhist canon. It was among the first texts brought from India to Tibet during the Imperial period (seventh to ninth century ᴄᴇ) where it was translated by the prolific Tibetan translator Yeshé Dé alongside the Indian preceptor Prajñāvarman. Since it appears in both of the available Imperial catalogs, which are the earliest records of Tibetan scriptural translations, its existence in Tibetan translation can be posited as no later than 824 ᴄᴇ. Unfortunately, to our knowledge no version of the text is extant in Sanskrit or any other language besides Tibetan (and Mongolian, into which it was translated from the Tibetan), nor are there any known commentaries. This greatly limits our knowledge of its precise origins and context.

i.2The title of the sūtra refers to the sections of teachings given by the Buddha, which are traditionally said to number 84,000. The sūtra begins with an inquiry by Śāriputra about the nature and number of the sections of the Dharma, to which the Buddha answers with a teaching on the absence of birth with regard to phenomena‍—a teaching that serves as an antidote to the poison of desire. The beginning of the sūtra thus situates the text explicitly in a Mahāyāna context, introducing as it does the notion that phenomena neither arise nor cease. Indeed, in the manner of the teachings of the second turning, the text deconstructs the reality and identity of objects of desire, thereby demonstrating that desires are mere fantasies based on imaginary objects and are not to be indulged in by the wise.

i.3This second-turning introduction to the problem of desire, however, leads to an extensive discussion of a topic that, due to its emphasis on the elimination of desire as such, would generally be considered a first-turning teaching‍—namely, the repulsiveness of the human body, and the female body in particular. In its presentation of the female constitution, the sūtra in fact disparages women in a way that most modern readers would find offensive‍—José Cabezón has aptly described the sūtra as “one of the most misogynistic texts in the Buddhist canon.” Nonetheless, recent research has shown that the repulsive nature of the female body was in fact a common theme in early Mahāyāna texts. In their studies of texts dating to the beginning of the common era, Ulrich Pagel (1995), Jan Nattier (2003), and Daniel Boucher (2008) have argued that one major strand of early Mahāyāna involved male monastics eager to engage in demanding ascetic practices. The deprecatory descriptions of the repulsiveness of women’s bodies that form the main argument of The Sections of Dharma might have served to support such efforts of male monastics to attain the ideal of renunciation. In this respect, Boucher and Nattier have noted how women were often deprecated and represented as an obstacle to men’s practice in some early Mahāyāna texts, and this very much accords with the tone of the present sūtra. In fact, according to these scholars, the early Mahāyāna might even have seen a decrease in the participation of women in Buddhist institutions, contrary to a popular modern understanding of the Mahāyāna as a more egalitarian movement than the “mainstream” tradition. Nevertheless, although this sūtra does in many ways seem to support this analysis, toward the end of the sūtra the Buddha twice describes the intended audience as the fourfold assembly of monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen. The sūtra itself, therefore, professes to benefit not only male monastics with its message of the repulsiveness of the human‍—and, more particularly, the female‍—body, but really anyone, whether male or female, ordained or lay.

i.4In spite of such calls for a broad audience, this approach is likely to have resonated most clearly with male monastics, as it represents a Buddhist perspective that runs right from the institutional androcentrism of early monastic Buddhism to the valorization of ascetic discipline in the early Mahāyāna. The theme common to the present text and those studied by Boucher and Nattier suggests that we might also locate this sūtra among the earlier strata of Mahāyāna sūtras that emerged in the first centuries ᴄᴇ. An interesting difference, however, is The Sections of Dharma’s explicit usage of prajñāpāramitā themes in its discussion of such concepts as the absence of birth and cessation with regard to phenomena; such themes are absent from the texts studied by Boucher and Nattier. The Sections of Dharma therefore seems to belong to a different stream of early Mahāyāna texts: one still centered on monastics, rather than lay bodhisattvas, yet simultaneously inspired by prajñāpāramitā themes. This thematic duality is also reflected in the fact that the early imperial catalogs categorized this scripture as a Mahāyāna sūtra, yet the translation colophon in the Stok Palace Kangyur notes that it belongs to the first turning of the wheel of Dharma (bka’ ’khor lo dang por gtogs pa’o). Indeed, though it does broach prajñāpāramitā concepts, the sūtra is still very much set in the hearers’ monastic context, exemplified by the fact that the Buddha teaches in the presence of worthy ones (arhants), and not bodhisattvas. The sūtra’s concluding verse, which states that the Buddha did not expound this teaching to spiritual practitioners, but only to those who still indulged in desires, moreover suggests that the main body of the text is a teaching of provisional meaning, which is meant for beginners on the path and later to be superseded by more advanced teachings. Teachings of provisional meaning are contextual and adapted to the spiritual capacities of their audiences. Since they do not literally expound the ultimate view, they require interpretation.

i.5One additional theme brought up by this sūtra deserves to be mentioned here. The modern reader may indeed be surprised by several passages describing how various physical and mental ailments that afflict women are caused by parasites (Tib. srin bu, Skt. krimi/kṛmi) that subsist in different parts of their bodies. According to the sūtra, such parasites are responsible for a host of (mostly undesirable) traits in the female physique. For example, some such parasites are said to live in the urinary tracts of women, where they find nourishment by eating away at their host. The parasites are described as causing women to become mentally disturbed, thus making them engage in uninhibited sexual activity. Other parasites are said to gnaw away at women’s brains, noses, throats, and so forth. The sūtra seems to describe the presence of these parasites in the female body as also accounting for the physical traits characteristic of women, such as their absence of facial hair, bulging breasts, and smooth throats.

i.6Although the descriptions of the parasites that live specifically in the female body may be unique to this sūtra, descriptions of named parasites in the human body in general‍—some very detailed indeed‍—are found in several other works in the Kangyur, and the belief that parasites are the cause of various unpleasant physical conditions was already a well-established theory in Indian medical literature at the time of composition of this text. This notion, which perhaps developed from the observation of worms in decomposing corpses, was already present in the earliest Indic scripture dealing with cures and healing, the Atharvaveda, which was composed sometime between 1200–1000 ʙᴄᴇ and offers descriptions of various parasites, or, technically, “worms” (krimi) that invade the human body. Moreover, Jain and Kāmaśāstra literature, which are closer in temporal proximity to the present sūtra, both include theories of vaginal worms‍—in the Jain texts these are said to be killed through sexual intercourse, thus making sex an inherently non-virtuous act, and in the Kāmaśāstra literature they are described as causing the “itch” of a woman’s sexual desire. The sūtra thus offers a presentation of the female physique that draws from a theory of parasites that must have been aligned with commonly accepted notions of the human constitution in India at that time. It should also be noted that this presentation is in some ways reminiscent of the radical early Buddhist practice, familiar to Buddhist ascetics, of contemplating the stages of decomposition of corpses. That practice is well described in Buddhaghoṣa’s Visuddhimagga (ch. 6.88), for example, and may have been current in Mahāyāna circles as well, as this sūtra suggests. Buddhaghoṣa’s closing statements on this practice in fact parallel the approach and aim of this sūtra when he addresses men’s unfounded lust for women’s bodies. He writes that “…a living body is just as foul as a dead one, only the characteristic of foulness is not evident in a living body, being hidden by adventitious embellishments.”

i.7This English translation is based on the Degé (sde dge) version of the sūtra, in consultation with the textual variations recorded in the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma). Additionally, when the readings in the Degé and the Comparative Edition appeared problematic, we consulted the Stok Palace manuscript. These variant readings, when significant, are indicated in the endnotes.

i.8Finally, our translation also benefitted from contributions by José Cabezón, who generously shared his draft translation of the entire sūtra with the committee and offered many helpful comments. Selected parts of Cabezón’s translation of the sūtra have since been published in his groundbreaking study on sexuality in Indian Buddhism, where the interested reader will find further reflections on this sūtra, and the topics of gender and sexuality in Buddhism in general.