Chapter 19

155 I am not quite certain as to the meaning of this passage, but if we enter into the bold metaphor of the text, viz., that the Buddhas cover the Buddha-countries with the organ of their tongue and then unroll it, what is intended can hardly be anything but that they first try to find words for the excellences of those countries, and then reveal or proclaim them. Burnouf, however (_Lotus_, p. 417), takes the expression in a literal sense, though he is shocked by its grotesqueness. On these Buddhas and their countries, see Burnouf, _Lotus_, p. 113.

156 It should be remarked that the Tathâgatas here assigned to the ten quarters differ entirely from those assigned to them in the Lalita-vistara, book xx. Not even Amitâbha is mentioned there.

157 Pratîyatha. The texts give again and again pattîyatha, evidently the Pâli form, instead of pratîyata. I have left tha, the Pâli termination of the 2 p. pl. in the imperative, instead of ta, because that form was clearly intended, while pa for pra may be an accident. Yet I have little doubt that patîyatha was in the original text. That it is meant for the imperative, we see from _s_raddadhâdhvam, etc., farther on. Other traces of the influence of Pâli or Prakrit on the Sanskrit of our Sûtra appear in arhantai_h_, the various reading for arhadbhi_h_, which I preferred; sambahula for bahula; dh_ri_yate yâpayati; purobhaktena; anyatra; saṅkhyâm ga_kkh_anti; avaramâtraka; ve_th_ana instead of vesh_t_ana, in nirve_th_ana; dharmaparyâya (_Corp. Inscript._ plate XV.), etc.

158 The Sukhavatîvyûha, even in its shortest text, is called a Mahâyâna-sûtra, nor is there any reason why a Mahâyâna-sûtra should not be short. The meaning of Mahâyâna-sûtra is simply a Sûtra belonging to the Mahâyâna school, the school of the Great Boat. It was Burnouf who, in his _Introduction to the History of Buddhism_, tried very hard to establish a distinction between the Vaipulya or developed Sûtras, and what he calls the simple Sûtras. Now, the Vaipulya Sûtras may all belong to the Mahâyâna school, but that would not prove that all the Sûtras of the Mahâyâna school are Vaipulya or developed Sûtras. The name of simple Sûtra, in opposition to the Vaipulya or developed Sûtras, is not recognized by the Buddhists themselves; it is really an invention of Burnouf’s. No doubt there is a great difference between a Vaipulya Sûtra, such as the Lotus of the Good Law, translated by Burnouf, and the Sûtras which Burnouf translated from the Divyâvadâna. But what Burnouf considers as the distinguishing mark of a Vaipulya Sûtra, viz. the occurrence of Bodhisattvas, as followers of the Buddha _S_âkyamuni, would no longer seem to be tenable (“Les présence des Bodhisattûvas ou leur absence intéresse done le fonds même des livres où on la remarque, et il est bien évident que ce seul point trace une ligno de démarcation profonde entre les Sûtras ordinaires et les Sûtras développés.” Burnouf. _Introduction_, p. 112.), unless we classed our short Sukhavatî-vyûha as a Vaipulya or developed Sûtra. For this there is no authority. Our Sûtra is called a Mahâyâna Sutra, never a Vaipulya Sûtra, and yet among the followers of Buddha, the Bodhisattvas constitute a very considerable portion. But more than that, Amitâbha, the Buddha of Sukhavatî, another personage whom Burnouf looks upon as peculiar to the Vaipulya Sûtras, who is, in fact, one of the Dhyâni-buddhas, though not called by that name in our Sûtra, forms the chief object of its teaching, and is represented as coeval with Buddha _S_âkyamuni. (“L’idée d’un ou de plusieurs Buddhas surhumains, celle de Bodhisattvas créés par eux, sont des conceptions aussi étrangères á ces livres (les Sûtras simples) que celle d’un Adibuddha ou d’un Dieu.”—Burnouf, _Introduction_, p. 120.) The larger text of the Sukhavatîvyûha would certainly, according to Burnouf’s definition, seem to fall into the category of the Vaipulya Sûtras. But it is not so called in the MSS. which I have seen, and Burnouf himself gives an analysis of that Sûtra (_Introduction_, p. 99) as a specimen of a Mahâyâna, but not of a Vaipulya Sûtra.

159 See H. Yule, _Marco Polo_, 2d ed. vol. i. pp. 441-443.

160 In China, as Dr. Edkins states, the doctrine of Amitâbha is represented by the so-called Lotus school (Lian-tsung) or Pure Land (Tsing-tu). The founder of this school in China was Hwei-yuan of the Tsin dynasty (fourth century). The second patriarch (tsu) of this school was Kwang-ming (seventh century).

161 See page 191.