Introduction

i.1The Miraculous Play of Mañjuśrī is a typical Mahāyāna sūtra in the sense that it presents a teaching on the standard Buddhist themes of impermanence and the drawbacks of sensual desires within a narrative framework emphasizing Mahāyāna principles of emptiness and compassion. These teachings are embedded within an interesting frame story, also not unusual for the Mahāyāna style, depicting a person who is otherwise not supposed to be particularly saintly: a courtesan’s daughter named Suvarṇottama­prabhāśrī.

i.2This girl, the most beautiful of girls, whose skin shines with a golden hue, is courted by all the boys in the city. One, the banker’s son Bhayadatta (Given to Fear), purchases her favors, but as soon as the girl sees the princely Mañjuśrī, she instantly falls for him instead. The god of riches, Vaiśravaṇa, then appears, introduces Mañjuśrī by name, and, in answer to the girl’s questions, explains what a bodhisatva is. Mañjuśrī is clad in a fine white garment, as is usual for laymen, and the girl asks the bodhisatva whether she can have it. Yes, says the great figure, “if you develop the mind of awakening.” When the courtesan’s daughter asks what that is, Mañjuśrī answers “you yourself are awakening,” and that “all beings are included in awakening.” He goes on to list in great detail all the various constituents of mind and body and to equate them all with awakening, in much the same way that the Prajñāpāramitā texts go through so many of the factors identified in the Abhidharma and point to their lack of intrinsic existence.

i.3Mañjuśrī’s teaching on awakening here accords with the Mahāyāna conviction that truth and awakening are not found in some theoretical system, but in what we are as human beings and in compassionate action toward our fellow beings, whatever their class or status. In this way, the sūtra also goes to great lengths to argue for universal sameness. As elsewhere in the Mahāyāna scriptures, nirvāṇa is the same as saṃsāra, and so even the afflicted mental states are really the same as awakening‍—prefiguring a tantric world view. As our text says, “The afflicted mental states are also the adamantine basis of awakening.” This is because understanding the afflicted mental states is in fact awakening. The way to get rid of the afflicted mental states is to understand their emptiness.

i.4Suvarṇottama­prabhāśrī now demonstrates her new understanding in public, in a dialogue with Mañjuśrī that takes place the presence of King Ajātaśatru, his entire retinue of women and warriors, and the citizens of Rājagṛha. It is even acknowledged by the Buddha himself, who is taking a walk with Ānanda on the slopes of Vulture Peak.

i.5Having attained a level of realization, Suvarṇottama­prabhāśrī feels she should abandon her worldly, laywoman’s life and “go forth,” i.e. take vows as a nun. In an important passage (1.­122 et seq.) Mañjuśrī outlines the deeper, inner meanings of going forth for a bodhisatva, and inspires five hundred bodhisatvas to go forth themselves.

i.6Having now met the beautiful Mañjuśrī, adopted his teaching, and attained a higher goal in life, Suvarṇottama­prabhāśrī decides to teach her male friends about the mind of awakening. As a consequence of this, she follows the Mahāyāna call to work tirelessly for the education and welfare of our fellow beings, and thus, in the park where she has gone to amuse herself with the banker’s son, Bhayadatta, she transforms herself into a rotting corpse in accord with the tradition of meditation practice in which one contemplates how this frail human body ends up as a rotting cadaver. Bhayadatta, seeing his beautiful companion thus transformed, is filled with great abhorrence, and then fear‍—as befits his name. He is afraid not only of the ghastly sight before him but also of being punished by the king’s men, and so he tries to flee the scene and get rid of the corpse, which had been a beautiful girl only a few moments before. At this crucial juncture, the surrounding forest resounds with teachings on impermanence and the illusory nature of phenomena, and with Śakra’s help Bhayadatta turns to the Buddha for guidance. A dialogue ensues between Mañjuśrī and the Blessed One on general Mahāyāna themes. The girl is also present‍—her death was only a magical creation and an expedient means employed to educate the fearful boy. The boy then seeks refuge in the only reliable and lasting refuge, namely the Blessed One himself, who confirms by his teachings to him that the bodhisatva does indeed seek awakening by seeking the essence of desire, and that fear is just an illusion grounded in attachment to the false idea of a self, just as had been argued in the previous dialogues. The Buddha prophesies Bhayadatta’s future buddhahood.

i.7The Sanskrit title of the sūtra, Mañjuśrī­vikrīḍita, literally means “Mañjuśrī’s Amusement”‍—the verb krīḍ- (and thus also vikrīḍ-) means to amuse oneself and to have fun, but here also to play with the supernatural knowledges and states of meditation. This word also often has a sexual connotation. Mañjuśrī’s games, however, have as their purpose the education of all living beings about awakening and the mind of awakening, and so even the flirtatious games of a courtesan may be transformed into those of a bodhisatva. But although this sūtra might thus appear to be directed mainly toward a lay audience, with the girl even asking in which religious group (gaṇa) the Mahāyāna teachings are to be found‍—evidently referring to a lay group rather than the saṅgha‍—its emphasis is on the importance of real engagement and inner transformation rather than on advocating any particular outer lifestyle. As Mañjuśrī says, in tune with the message of the text, when his new pupil asks him to help her adopt the monastic way of life (1.­123), “It is like this, sister. Shaving the hair on your head is not equivalent to going forth as it pertains to the bodhisatva. Why not? Girl, bodhisatvas go forth by means of the effort to eliminate the afflicted mental states of all beings.”

i.8The ideal set out here is to engage compassionately in ordinary life with all its imperfections rather than to retreat into isolation. The obligation of the bodhisatva that is espoused here is to practice the altruistic social virtues of compassion, friendliness, and so forth, rather than leading a silent life of meditation. This takes us to the core of the Mahāyāna ideology, shared by a great number of Mahāyāna sūtras: Anyone‍—courtesans or powerful laymen, even those living licentious lives‍—may be great bodhisatvas who have sought such rebirths for the sake of their fellow beings. Birth is really an illusion, suffering is really emptiness, and great compassion is the means by which to reach this radical acceptance, this understanding, which is the same as awakening.

i.9The sūtra seems to have been relatively well known in India, being cited in a number of Indian treatises. Apart from these fragmentary citations, however, no Sanskrit version has yet come to light. The text was translated from Sanskrit into Chinese by Dharmarakṣa in 314 ᴄᴇ (Taishō 817) and by Narendrayaśas in 583 ᴄᴇ (Taishō 818). The Tibetan translation (also from the Sanskrit) was made by Surendrabodhi and Yeshé Dé in the late eighth or early ninth century, and is mentioned in the two inventories of translated texts from the imperial period dated to the first decades of the ninth century.

i.10The sūtra’s placement, at least in Kangyurs of the Tshalpa (tshal pa) lineage, among the first few works in the General Sūtra section suggests that it was held in high esteem. Several of its passages are widely quoted in the Tibetan commentarial literature, and its statement about the destructive effect of anger on stores of merit (1.­112) is particularly well known.

i.11In producing this translation, we have based our work on the edited Tibetan text published at the Bibliotheca Polyglotta, University of Oslo (Braarvig 2010), in consultation with the two Chinese translations, which are also reproduced there and aligned with the Tibetan. Comprehensive notes detailing the variant readings of the Tibetan text in different Kangyurs can be found in that edition and have not been reproduced here.