Fó shuō dà jìng fǎmén jīng 佛說大淨法門經
The Buddha Speaks: The Sūtra of the Great Pure Dharma-Gate (Skt. Mañjuśrī-vikrīḍita-sūtra; alt. Dà-jìng-fǎ-mén pǐn shàng-jīn-guāng-shǒu suǒ-wèn pǔ-shǒu tóng-zhēn suǒ-kāi-huà jīng 大淨法門品上金光首所問溥首童真所開化經) translated by 竺法護 (Zhú Fǎhù, Dharmarakṣa, 譯)
About the work
T817 in one fascicle is a Mahāyāna sūtra on the conversion of a courtesan by Mañjuśrī, translated by 竺法護 (Dharmarakṣa) at Cháng’ān during his Western Jìn translation career. The Sanskrit reflex Mañjuśrī-vikrīḍita-sūtra (“Sūtra of Mañjuśrī’s Sport”) is preserved in Tibetan and partially in Sanskrit fragments. A parallel translation by 那連提耶舍 (Narendrayaśas) survives as [[KR6i0524|Dà zhuāngyán fǎmén jīng 大莊嚴法門經 (T818)]] in two fascicles.
Abstract
The text opens at Mt Gṛdhrakūṭa near Rājagṛha, where the Buddha is seated with 500 bhikṣus and 8,000 bodhisattvas. In the great city of Rājagṛha lives the celebrated courtesan Shàngjīnguāngshǒu 上金光首 (Skt. Suvarṇa-prabhā-vatī, “Highest Golden Light”), who through past-life merit possesses a body of natural jambūnada gold colour: wherever she walks the ground turns gold; whatever clothes she wears turn gold-coloured; her physical perfection inspires lust in countless princes, ministers, sons of elders, and householders, who throng after her wherever she goes.
One day she sets out by carriage with the merchant’s son Wèijiān 畏間 (“Fearless-Interim”) to a pleasure-garden, accompanied by music, jewels and elaborate offerings. Mañjuśrī (溥首童真 Pǔshǒu tóngzhēn, the Bodhisattva-Prince of Wisdom) determines to convert her, and manifests himself to intercept her on the road. He magically produces a comparable bodhisattva-figure of greater radiance, which she covets; when she asks how to attain such radiance, Mañjuśrī tells her she must first abandon her lust and arouse the bodhicitta. Mañjuśrī then walks her through a step-by-step Mahāyāna doctrinal exposition: the emptiness of body, the absence of “self” in lust, the twelve causal links of saṃsāra, the contemplation of anitya and anātman, the prajñā-pāramitā, the bodhisattva-vow.
In a celebrated comic upāya episode, Mañjuśrī produces a manifestation of the merchant’s son Wèijiān, magically dead, beside her in the carriage. She is seized with terror and revulsion at the corpse, and in that moment of revulsion realises the doctrine of anitya directly. Mañjuśrī reveals himself; the courtesan is converted, attains the anutpattika-dharma-kṣānti, and resolves on the bodhisattva-vow. The Buddha confirms that she will become a future Buddha. The text closes with the conversion of Wèijiān, his retinue, and the assembled audience, all of whom arouse the anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi aspiration.
The doctrinal exposition addresses the emptiness of bodily desire and the inversion of the lustful gaze through upāya. The narrative is celebrated in Mahāyāna literature as one of the foundational “courtesan-conversion” sūtras, paired with the Vimalakīrti’s celebrated meeting with the courtesan Vasundharā.
Translations and research
- Boucher, Daniel. “Dharmarakṣa and the Transmission of Buddhism to China.” Asia Major 19 (2006): 13–37.
- Paul, Diana Y. Women in Buddhism: Images of the Feminine in the Mahāyāna Tradition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985 (treatment of the courtesan-conversion narrative).
Other points of interest
The narrative is one of the earliest Chinese textual instances of the “Mañjuśrī as upāya-master” topos, in which Mañjuśrī’s playful (vikrīḍita) interventions convert beings whom direct preaching could not reach.
Links
- CBETA online
- Kanseki DB
- Dazangthings date evidence (266, 300, 301, 373): [ Boucher 1996 ] Boucher, Daniel. “Buddhist Translation Procedures in Third-Century China: A Study of Dharmarakṣa and his Translation Idiom.” PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1996. 273 https://dazangthings.nz/cbc/source/289/