Introduction

i.1The Basket without Words, The Illuminator’s Matrix begins with a description of the marvelous qualities of a massive assembly of bodhisattvas that has gathered in Rājagṛha on Vulture Peak together with the Buddha and his monastics. There follows a list of the great bodhisattvas in attendance, some of whom are accompanied by retinues of bodhisattvas, gods, goddesses, and universal monarchs. Also present are arhats, nāgas, gandharvas, and garuḍas, as well as more bodhisattvas from world systems in the ten directions, each accompanied by a fourfold assembly.

i.2The main interlocutor of this discourse is the bodhisattva Viśeṣacintin, who is praised by the Buddha in The Questions of Brahmaviśeṣacintin (Brahma­viśeṣacinti­paripṛcchā, Toh 160) as “foremost among the bodhisattvas skilled in asking questions correctly and thoroughly.” The bodhisattva Viśeṣacintin requests the Buddha to give a teaching on two words, and he asks the Buddha about one factor bodhisattvas abandon, one quality that encompasses all the foundations of the training when bodhisattvas safeguard it, and one phenomenon to which thus-gone ones truly and perfectly awaken.

i.3The Buddha responds to the bodhisattva Viśeṣacintin’s first question by listing eight afflictions that bodhisattvas should abandon: the three poisons of attachment, anger, and delusion; afflictions derived from ignorance such as grasping at a self, laziness, and lethargy and sleepiness; and two of the twelve links of dependent origination that cause suffering in cyclic existence, namely ignorance and craving.

i.4To the second question, the Buddha responds that one quality that encompasses all the foundations of the training when bodhisattvas safeguard it is to not do to others what they themselves do not desire. The Buddha illustrates this with the example of avoidance of the three nonvirtuous physical actions‍—killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct‍—and explains that those who seek full awakening seek the causes of their own and others’ happiness and do not desire their own and others’ suffering.

i.5The Buddha’s response to the third question is a series of paradoxical statements. He begins by stating that there is no phenomenon to which thus-gone ones truly and perfectly awaken. Nonetheless, thus-gone ones comprehend that although all phenomena are unborn, karma is appropriated. All phenomena are without cessation, yet they depend on causes and conditions. All phenomena are free from the two extremes and are unarisen, yet there is arising that depends on causes and conditions.

i.6Just as bodhisattvas must train in methods‍—by abandoning afflictions and safeguarding ethical conduct‍—in conjunction with cultivating wisdom, here the Buddha points to the complementary nature of dependent arising and emptiness. He explains that bodhisattvas generate mundane and supramundane wisdom by comprehending the empty yet dependently arising nature of all phenomena. By examining the nature of that wisdom, they enter into the womb of the perfection of wisdom, which is called the illuminator’s matrix .

i.7The Buddha concludes his explanation with the statement that thus-gone ones comprehend how all phenomena are free from going and coming, causes and conditions, death and birth, acceptance and rejection, and decrease and increase.

i.8Having heard the Buddha’s discourse, a multitude of beings attain spiritual realization and higher rebirth. The Buddha exhorts his son, Venerable Rāhula, to retain this Dharma instruction, and a multitude of bodhisattvas promise to propagate it, while the Four Great Kings pledge to fulfill the wishes of beings who are vessels of this teaching. The Buddha concludes with a description of the great benefits that will accrue for those who hear and preserve this sūtra, which includes seeing at the time of death the Buddha Amitābha with his retinue and the Buddha with his retinue at Vulture Peak, attaining supernormal powers, and becoming fully awakened.

i.9This text is listed in both the Denkarma and Phangthangma catalogs, which indicates it was translated prior to to the compilation of the Denkarma catalog ca. 812 ᴄᴇ. According to its colophon in the Degé Kangyur, the text was edited and finalized by the Indian preceptors Jinamitra, Dānaśīla, and Munivarman and by the chief editor-translator Bandé Yeshé Dé. The colophon in the Stok Palace Kangyur does not include the names of the translators.

i.10Butön Rinchen Drup (bu ston rin chen grub, 1290–1364) cites the Buddha’s response to the bodhisattva Viśeṣacintin’s second question in Cluster of Scriptures, his explanation of Haribhadra’s Commentary on Ornament for the Clear Realizations (Abhisamayālaṅkāravṛtti), in the section “Summarizing the Meaning of the Buddha’s Instructions through One Phenomenon.” The fifteenth-century Tibetan scholar Pekar Sangpo groups this text under “Sūtras Explaining the Mental States of Bodhisattvas” in his Presentation of the Sūtras in the Kangyur and asserts that this sūtra teaches the doctrine that the three provisional vehicles of the śrāvaka, pratyekabuddha, and bodhisattva lead to the one final vehicle of buddhahood.

i.11One folio of fragmented Sanskrit text from the end of the sūtra and corresponding to Degé folios 263.b.2 to 264.a.3, has been identified in the Vajracchedikā manuscript held at the British Library. The manuscript, discovered by Sir Marc Aurel Stein in 1900 in present-day Xinjiang, China, is the oldest extant Sanskrit copy of the Vajracchedikā and is dated to the late fifth or early sixth century ᴄᴇ. Paul Harrison notes that the Tibetan translation of this section matches the Sanskrit fragments in general, whereas the Chinese translations differ in places. Aside from these fragments, there is no extant Sanskrit version of the present text.

i.12There are four Chinese translations of this sūtra, the best known of which is The Precious Casket without Words translated by Bodhiruci between 508 and 535. The second translation with the same title made by Buddhaśānta (dates unknown) in 529 ᴄᴇ has been lost. Two other Chinese translations were made by Divākara (613–87 ᴄᴇ): The Mahāyāna Sūtra “Universally Radiant Treasury Free from Words” in 683 and The Mahāyāna Sūtra “Brilliant Treasury That Illuminates All, The Dharma Gateway without Words” between 676 and 688.

i.13These sources may shed light on an ambiguity concerning the “two words” Viśeṣacintin refers to in his initial request. It is not entirely clear in the Tibetan translation what these two words are. Bodhiruci’s translation and Divākara’s translation The Mahāyāna Sūtra “Brilliant Treasury That Illuminates All, The Dharma Gateway without Words” appear to handle this ambiguity by grouping the bodhisattva Viśeṣacintin’s three questions into two. The contemporary Chinese commentary referenced above asserts that they refer to rulai (如來), the Chinese translation of the Sanskrit compound tathāgata, which can be parsed as “thus gone” (tathā + gata) or “thus come” (tathā + āgata). Read in this light, the Buddha’s reply to the bodhisattva Viśeṣacintin seems to mirror a section in The Ornament of the Light of Awareness That Enters the Domain of All Buddhas (Sarvabuddhaviṣayāvatārajñānālokālaṃkāra, Toh 100), in which the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī asks the Buddha to explain the meaning of two words, “non-arising” and “non-cessation.” The Buddha responds that these two words refer to the Tathāgata and provides a list of the causes of affliction and purification, which he explains are by nature empty and not perceived.

i.14Divākara’s other translation, The Mahāyāna Sūtra “Universally Radiant Treasury Free from Words,” continues to be taught and recited today in the Chinese Buddhist tradition. It is often accompanied by a preface of unknown authorship entitled “The Miraculous Results of Reciting and Upholding The Mahāyāna Sūtra ‘Universally Radiant Treasury Free from Words’ through the Ages,” which relates stories of four historical figures from the Tang through Ming Dynasties who derived benefits from reciting this sūtra.

i.15The Basket Without Words was translated from Chinese into Japanese by Hokei Izumi and published in the Kokuyaku Issaikyō (Japanese Translations of the Scriptures) series. In 1986, Sakai Shinten published a comparative study of the three extant Chinese translations and a Japanese translation of the Tibetan. Sakai reads “the basket without words” (anakṣarakaraṇḍaka) as referring to the Sanskrit letter a, described in the Buddha’s teaching to the bodhisattva Dṛḍhamati in Upholding the Roots of Virtue (Kuśalamūlasaṃparigraha, Toh 101) as “a point of explanation for designating the gate devoid of attributes” that all phenomena possess.

i.16This English translation was prepared based on the Tibetan translation in the Degé Kangyur in consultation with the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma) and the Stok Palace Kangyur.