Gandavyuha-sutra

The Gandavyuha-sutra was composed somewhere in the Indian sub-continent probably during the first few centuries of the Common Era. As the 'final book' of a much larger text, the Avatamsaka-sutra ('Flower Ornament Scripture'), it was translated into Chinese for the first time in the early fifth century CE, and became one of the foundational texts of the Chinese philosophical school called Hua-yen. The Gandavyuha was translated into Tibetan in the early ninth century, and an inscriptional text of it accompanied by paintings can still be found today on the temple walls of the monastic complex at Tabo dating to the tenth century. In the late eighth or early ninth century, scenes depicting the complete narrative of the Gandavyuha were carved into the gallery walls of Barabudur in Java, the largest Buddhist monument ever built. Thus the impact of the Gandavyuha's narrative and worldview upon Asian religious art and thought is undeniable.

The Gandavyuha-sutra is the story of a young man's quest for enlightenment in ancient India during the time of the Buddha. Like the Buddha, this young man named Sudhana ('Good Wealth'), the son of a merchant-banker, leaves home in search of spiritual counsel. But Sudhana does not renounce the world and take up ascetic practices; rather on the advice of the bodhisattva Manjusri he sets out to visit 'good friends' (kalyanamitra) in order to learn how to carry out the course of conduct of a bodhisattva. After travelling far and wide across India visiting numerous good friends of various occupations (the Gandavyuha narrates fifty-two of these encounters), Sudhana has his final visionary experience of and merges with the supreme bodhisattva Samantabhadra. The sutra concludes with Samantabhadra reciting the 62 verses know as the 'The Vow to following the Good Course' (Bhadracaripranidhanam) wherein he proclaims the highest aim of a bodhisattva to save all beings, worship all buddhas and be reborn in Amitabha Buddha's Land of Bliss.

As a Mahayana sutra, the Gandavyuha (Gv) expresses a religious worldview which developed in India during the first centuries of the Common Era. Although sharing a number of similar features with other Mahayana sutras (the Bodhisattva Ideal, the quest for omniscience, etc.), the Gv possesses its own expression of reality, and description of the path towards the realization of this reality.

One of the foremost scholars of the Gv in the twentieth century, D. T. Suzuki has discussed the worldview of the text in a number of important essays published in 'Essays in Zen Buddhism' (1953). Suzuki begins,

When we come to the Gandavyuha... there is a complete change in the stage where the great religious drama of Mahayana Buddhism is enacted. We find nothing cold, nothing gray or earth-coloured, and nothing humanly-mean; for everything one touches in the Gandavyuha shines out in an unsurpassable manner. We are no longer in the world of limitation, obscurity, and adumbration; we are miraculously lifted up among the heavenly galaxies. The ethereal world is luminosity itself (1953, 75).

The worldview of the Gv, as Suzuki points out, describes a spiritual world governed by its own rules. No longer is the Buddha a historical figure limited by space or time. The Buddha, called Vairocana, is the universe and the universe is the Buddha (1953, 76). When Vairocana enters his samadhi, his pavilion (kutagara) and the Jetavana expand to infinity. As with space, time also is no longer finite---the linear progression of past, present and future has collapsed into a single, eternal moment. All objects within this limitless space-time are transparent, luminous, and reflect every other object. According to Suzuki, this universe of "universal interpenetration" the Gv calls the Dharmadhatu (1953, 78). Although containing the ordinary world (called the lokadhatu) within it, the Dharmadhatu transcends the boundaries of the ordinary world and represents the universe as seen from the spiritual level of the bodhisattvas. Because the world of the Gv is not the world of mortals, but of the bodhisattvas, the dominant feeling "...that runs through the text is an active sense of grand inscrutable mystery (acintya) going beyond the power of thinking and description" (1953, 79 & 82).

Suzuki refers to the notion of 'Interpenetration' as "the fundamental insight of the Gandavyuha" (1953, 87). About it he states,

It is, philosophically speaking, a thought somewhat similar to the Hegelian concept of concrete-universals. Each individual reality, besides being itself, reflects something of the universal, and at the same time it is itself because of other individuals. A system of perfect relationship exists among individual existences and also between individuals and universals, between particular objects and general ideas. This perfect network of mutual relations has received at the hand of the Mahayana philosopher the technical name of Interprenetration (ibid.).

According to Suzuki, this interpenetration of the Dharmadhatu is demonstrated by the great tower or pavilion (kutagara; literally, 'peaked-dwelling) of the Maitreya section: "...Maitreya's Tower is no other than the Dharmadhatu itself..." (1953, 148). The inter-reflection of the towers within the tower and all objects within the towers, represents the complete interpenetration and non-obstruction of all phenomena. Maitreya's finger snap represents the sustaining power of the bodhisattva which gives rise to all the wonderful phenomena of the Maitreya's tower and thus of the entire Dharmadhatu (1953, 149).

According to the Gv, only the buddhas and most advanced bodhisattvas have the power to create illusory bodies. This is because they possess two bodies: a Dharma Body (dharmakaya) and a Form Body (rupakaya), corresponding to two different aspects of the Dharmadhatu: the undivided (asambhinnadharmadhatu), and its 'manifestations' (dharmadhatutalabheda). The Dharma Body represents the Dharmadhatu as the non-differentiated, absolutely pure, empty, metaphysical foundation of all phenomena. The Form Body represents the infinite, illusory manifestations of the Dharmadhatu---all the forms of buddhas, bodhisattvas, realms, beings, and objects inter-reflecting and interpenetration one another. Thus enlightened beings who possess the Dharma Body are beyond duality and therefore are able to recreate the illusion of duality with their Form Bodies for the sake of saving all deluded beings. In this way, the Dharmadhatu is the foundation, the goal and the fruit of the bodhisattva's course of conduct. Viewed from the 'mentalist position' (cittamatravada), the Dharmadhàtu is pure, untainted consciousness (amalacitta); viewed from the 'dialectical negativistic position' (sunyatavada), it is the non-essence of all phenomena as the foundation of the virtues of buddhahood (Gomez,'Selected Verses from the Gandavyuha: Text, Critical Apparatus and Translation', PhD dissertation, Yale University 1967, lxxix). Gomez states,

Going beyond the common ground of Mahayana, the Gv is trying to establish an equation between the true nature of dharmas, the Dharmadhatu, the ultimate essence of Buddhahood, and the bodhisattva's course (carya) represented by the function of the Form Body. To this purpose the sutra expands the notion of rddhi. The principle fruit of concentration and trance is presented then as the attainment of the faculty of producing reality (see L. Lancaster and Luis O. Gómez, eds., 'Prajnaparamita and Related System: Studies in Honor of Edward Conze', Berkeley: Berkeley Buddhist Studies Series, 1977, 235).

Thus as the central concept of the Gv, the Dharmadhatu possesses metaphysical, magical, and soteriological aspects.

During this discussion of the Gv's worldview, a number of important key concepts have emerged for understanding the text. Although the Gv is more concerned with demonstrating the inconceivable magic power of the bodhisattva rather than giving a detailed philosophical account of the Dharmadhatu (Gomez 1977, 243), the concept of Dharmadhatu is essential for understanding the worldview of the text and forms the metaphysical basis and ultimate goal of the bodhisattva's course of conduct (bodhisattvacarya). This course is one that begins with an aspiration toward enlightenment (bodhicittotpada), is maintained through vows (pranidhana), and finds fruition in perfect, supreme enlightenment (samyaksambodhi) or omniscience (sarvajnata). This attainment is synonymous with the acquisition of the Dharma Body, which is at one with the undivided Dharmadhatu.

In the Gv, this course is known through word-play either as the 'the course of conduct of Samantabhadra' or the 'perfectly good course' (samantabhadracarya). It is carried out through serving and honoring all Good Friends (kalyanamitra) and maturing all beings. As spiritual teachers and guides the Good Friends teach trances (samadhis) which lead to liberations (vimoksa). These liberations give the aspirant insight into reality and the ability to perform miraculous feats through psychic powers (rddhi). Once an aspirant has gained complete realization of the illusory nature of reality, s/he achieves an unlimited ability to generate and control illusory phenomena for the spiritual development and enlightenment of all beings.

Therefore, in the Gv power is conceived of as the spiritual power of the Good Friends to generate and manipulate the illusory phenomena of the Dharmadhatu. The more spiritually advanced a Good Friend is the greater his or her mastery over reality. The Friends appear to be hierarchically arranged according to their spiritual attainments. Each Friend is only able to teach Sudhana a particular liberation (vimoksa) attained through trance (samadhi), and then sends him to a more advanced Friend for further instruction. Thus the knowledge attained through the Good Friends allows Sudhana to gain greater spiritual power and advance up the hierarchy. The Good Friends, as the possessors of power, define the redemptive hegemony within the Gv. One attains 'redemption' in such a hegemony through acting according to the instructions of the Friends.

Thus we may summarize the worldview of the Gv as: religious (it recognizes the transcendental spiritual power of the buddhas and bodhisattvas), metaphysical (the Dharmadhatu is believed to be the ultimate, unchanging ground and mirror supporting all the inter-reflecting illusory phenomena), mystical (the realization of the Dharmadhatu is attained through the visionary experiences of samadhi), and docetic (all phenomena are empty (sunya) of independent existence, and as such are the magical creations generated through the sustaining power or mastery of advanced spiritual beings).