Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra

महापरिनिर्वाणसूत्र

འཕགས་པ་ཡོངས་སུ་མྱ་ངན་ལས་འདས་པ་ཆེན་པོ་ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོའི་མདོ།

'phags pa yongs su mya ngan las 'das pa chen po theg pa chen po'i mdo; 'phags pa yongs su mya ngan las 'das pa chen po'i mdo chen po; 'phags pa yongs su mya ngan las 'das pa chen po'i mdo

大般泥洹經

Dabannihuan jing

D119,120,121 · T374,375,376

SOURCE TEXT

There are three translations in the Tibetan canon under this name:

The Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra is one of the main scriptural sources for buddha-nature in China and Tibet. Set around the time of Buddha's passing or Mahāparinirvāṇa, the sūtra contains teachings on buddha-nature equating it with the dharmakāya—that is, the complete enlightenment of a buddha. It also asserts that all sentient beings possess this nature as the buddhadhātu, or buddha-element, which thus acts as a cause, seed, or potential for all beings to attain enlightenment. Furthermore, the sūtra includes some salient features related to this concept, such as the single vehicle and the notion that the dharmakāya is endowed with the four pāramitās of permanence, bliss, purity, and a self. It may be noted that there are three different texts with similar titles in the Chinese and Tibetan canons. Of the three Tibetan texts with Mahāparinirvāṇa in their title, a short one (Derge Kangyur, No. 121) called Āryamahāparinirvāṇasūtra contains prophecies of events in the centuries after the Buddha's Mahāparinirvāṇa but has nothing on buddha-nature. Thus, this is not the Mahāparinirvāṇāsūtra which is considered as a Tathāgatagarbhasūtra. The two which deal with buddha-nature are Mahāyānasūtras and contain detailed accounts of the final teachings of the Buddha. The first sūtra, the longer one covering two volumes of Derge Kangyur (mdo sde Nya and Ta) is a translation from Chinese, while the second one is a translation from Sanskrit. They appear to be two different recensions of the same original sūtra as they have similar titles and overlapping content. However, the one translated from Chinese is much longer and also contains information on the events after the Buddha entered Mahāparinirvāṇa.

Relevance to Buddha-nature

According to Karl Brunnhölzl, "This sūtra’s presentation of buddha nature became the main scriptural basis for the discussion of tathāgatagarbha in China." Furthermore, he states, "In sum, the Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra discusses three very different meanings of all sentient beings’ possessing buddha nature—(1) all are endowed with an intrinsic pure nature of which they will become fully aware once what obscures it has been removed, (2) all possess a seed or potential for buddhahood, which will grow into its full fruition in the future once all necessary conditions are present, and (3) the mahāyāna path to buddhahood is open for all, and its result is definite if one follows this path."

The (Mahāyāna) Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra (The Great Scripture of the Great, Perfect Nirvāṇa) must be distinguished from the almost identically entitled “mainstream” Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra (Pal. Mahāparinibbānasutta). Study of Sanskrit fragments shows that the correct title of the text is Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra (Habata, 2007, xliii–xliv), although it is obvious that the authors of this text were fully aware of the earlier scripture of (almost) the same title and purposely referred to it.
The Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra survives in four main independent versions:

1. 35 identified Central Asian Sanskrit fragments (Habata, 2007, xxvi, xxxi);

2. the Dabannihuan jing (大般泥洹經; T. 376), translated circa 416–418 ce by Buddhabhadra and Faxian (法顯; 320?–420? ce);

3. the Dabanniepan jing (大般涅槃經; T. 374), translated circa 421–432 ce by *Dharmakṣema (曇無讖; 385–433 ce); and

4. the Yongs su mya ngan las 'das pa chen po'i theg pa chen po'i mdo (D 120/Q 788), translated by Jinamitra, Jñānagarbha, and Devacandra (9th cent. ce).

      Dharmakṣema’s version of the Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra is four times as long as all the other independent versions. Two additional versions are based in turn on Dharmakṣema’s Dabanniepan jing. The Dabanniepan jing (大般涅槃經 T. 375), by Zhiyan 慧嚴 et al., is not an independent translation at all but a revision of Dharmakṣema’s text. D 119/Q 787 is a Tibetan translation from Dharmakṣema’s Chinese version.
      H. Habata (2007) has collected, edited, and studied the Sanskrit fragments, and critically edited the Tibetan translation (2013); a second volume of Sanskrit fragments is forthcoming. The first English translation by K. Yamamoto (1973–1975) – rough, sometimes incomprehensible, and often inaccurate – is presented as a translation of Dharmakṣema’s text (T. 374), but it was actually produced from Shimaji’s Kokuyaku issaikyō translation of T. 375, itself a mere recasting of the Chinese text in Japanese grammatical order (see Yuyama, 1981, 14). Shimoda Masahiro (1993) has published a Japanese translation of the first three chapters of the Tibetan text. M. Blum (2013) has published the first volume of a planned four-volume translation of Dharmakṣema’s Dabanniepan jing (T. 374). S. Hodge is preparing an English translation based on all four independent versions, while M. Radich (2015) has prepared a monograph on the relative dating of the Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra and aspects of its tathāgatagarbha doctrine.
      The most significant study of the Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra to date is by Shimoda (1997). Other significant scholarship includes works by Mochizuki Ryōkō (1988) and Qu Dacheng (1994). S. Karashima (2007) studied the key term icchantika. The main English-language studies are by M.-W. Liu (1982; 1984), Takasaki Jikidō (1971), and S. Hodge (2010; 2012). The history of interpretation of this text in China and East Asia generally is a vital and crucial chapter in the history of East Asian Buddhism, which requires its own treatment. Numerous commentaries were written and debates conducted about this scripture; particularly important in this regard is the Dabanniepan jing ji jie (大般涅槃經集解; T. 1763), compiled in 509 ce by Baoliang (寶亮; see also Fuse, 1942).
      As in the latter parts of the mainstream Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra, on which it is based, the mise-en-scène is the final hours of the Buddha’s (apparent) life, as a last chance to ask questions. A vast cosmic congregation assembles, bewailing the Buddha’s imminent death. After much competition for the honor, the Buddha deigns to accept the offering of the smith Cunda as his final meal. Against the mainstream text, the disciple Ānanda is depicted as entirely absent (he only reappears at the very end of the text, and then only in Dharmakṣema’s version), and against his traditional role as the best keeper of the Buddha’s teaching, the text stresses that Ānanda is in fact unworthy to be entrusted with safeguarding the dharma. Instead, the dharma is entrusted to the bodhisattva Mahākāśyapa. Remarkably, the Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra (with the exception of the Dharmakṣema version) ends with the Buddha lying down upon his right side in the “lion’s pose” as if to die, but stops short of his actual parinirvāṇa, his cremation, the division of relics, and so forth.
      The central claim of the first part of the text is that the Buddha’s impending parinirvāṇa is only a docetic show. In fact, in this text, his life is inordinately long, and his body (termed both dharmakāya and abhedavajrakāya [indivisible adamantine body]) is indestructible and made of adamant (Radich, 2011a). The second part of the text (excluding portions unique to the version of Dharmakṣema), which probably belongs to a different stratum of compositional history (Shimoda, 1997), concerns itself with a somewhat miscellaneous sequence of topics, including the following:

the docetic reinterpretation of the worldly existence of the Buddha, both before his attainment of buddhahood (when he is a bodhisattva) and after;
a secret teaching centering on tathāgatagarbha;
creative reinterpretations of liberation and the four fruits of the monastic vocation (śrotāpanna [stream enterer], sakṛdāgāmin [once-returner], anāgāmin [nonreturner], and arhat);
how best to observe the monastic rule (vinaya);
doctrines of the end-times of the dharma (times in which the true dharma will fade from the world, attended by various calamities; Nattier, 1991), false monks, and false teachings;
the “four inversions,” by which – in contrast to classical Buddhist doctrine, which denies the possibility of such things – the Tathāgata is permanent (nitya), blissful (sukha), (true) self (ātman), and pure (śuddha; comp. the Śrīmālādevīsiṃhanādasūtra);
the magical virtues of Sanskrit letters; and
various parables about the realization of tathāgatagarbha/buddha nature and the docetic parinirvāṇa.

      In the Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra, tathāgatagarbha is also frequently referred to as “buddha nature” (this is by now the standard English translation of Chinese foxing [佛性]). Shimoda Masahiro (1997) contends that the use of this synonym for tathāgatagarbha buttresses efforts to supersede worship of physical Buddha relics (buddhadhātu) by the realization of an element of buddhahood within the sentient being. The Sanskrit underlying Chinese foxing (i.e. Tib. sangs rgyas gyi khams) is thought also to be *buddhadhātu, exploiting an alternate sense of dhātu to mean “element” or “raw material.” Thus, by a play on the word dhātu, the focus of cultic activity is shifted from the remnant of past, physical buddhahood in the external world (dhātu [relic]) to a nascent, future buddhahood within the sentient being itself (dhātu [element, raw material]). This hypothesis is among several that have displaced A. Hirakawa’s (1963) hypothesis that the Mahāyāna began as a lay movement centered on the worship of Buddha relics in stūpas (see also Sasaki, 1999) and constitutes an attempt to provide a more accurate account of the relation between nascent Mahāyāna movements and the cult of the Buddha’s relics.
      The Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra (again, excepting extra parts found in the Dharmakṣema translation) can be divided into two main chronological strata. The earliest layer reflects the practices and ideas of itinerant dharma preachers, who were semimonastic and engaged in frequent pilgrimages to stūpas through dangerous regions, accompanied by laypeople who did not observe the traditional five precepts and armed themselves to protect the preacher. In Shimoda Masahiro’s view, this layer is apparently opposed to relic worship and proposes that the Buddha’s dharmakāya is adamantine (vajrakāya; see Radich, 2011a); it also propounds the eternity of the Buddha, the docetic view of the parinirvāṇa, and the aforementioned four inversions (eternity, bliss, self, and purity); it separately propounds the idea that the Tathāgata is “self ” (ātman).
      Only in the second layer does the term bodhisattva come to be used for proponents of the Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra. Moreover, with few exceptions, tathāgatagarbha doctrine is only introduced in this second layer, which also propounds the idea that the true teachings are secret, types of samādhi (meditative states), docetism (lokānuvartanā; “conformity with the world”), the three jewels (the Buddha, the dharma, and the saṅgha, taken as “refuges”), and criticism of śrāvakas (adherents of “mainstream,” non-Mahāyāna doctrine); mentions sūtras as written books (as opposed to oral teachings); and teaches about icchantikas, beings who are forever unable to attain buddhahood. Shimoda Masahiro also sees here a renewed rigor in monastic discipline, corresponding to a shift to sedentary cenobiticism, linked to a new concern for the purity of the saṅgha, and vehement criticism of corrupt monks. The later very important and influential ban on eating meat also appears here.
      As mentioned earlier, Dharmakṣema’s version of the Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra is much longer than the other independent versions. Yijing (義淨; 635–713 ce) searched in India and Southeast Asia for Sanskrit texts corresponding to this large unique portion, without success (T. 2066 [LI] 4a8–12). Modern scholarship has paid surprisingly little attention to the question of the origin of the remaining unique three quarters of Dharmakṣema’s text (but see Chen, 2004; Hodge, 2010; 2012). However, it is clear that authors of parts of it must have known Indic texts otherwise unknown in China (Radich, 2011b, 49–50, 160–163; Granoff, 2012). These unique portions of Dharmakṣema’s text played a key role in the massive impact of the Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra on Chinese Buddhism, including the controversy surrounding the icchantika doctrine, in which the important cleric Daosheng (道生; 355–434 ce) played a celebrated role.

(Source: Radich, Michael. "Tathāgatagarbha Scriptures." In Vol. 1, Brill's Encyclopedia of Buddhism: Literature and Languages, edited by Jonathan A. Silk, Oskar von Hinüber, and Vincent Eltschinger, 264-66. Leiden: Brill, 2015.)

Philosophical positions of this text

Other Titles	~ ārya-mahāparinirvāṇa-nāma-mahāyāna-sūtra
Text exists in	~ Tibetan ~ Chinese
Canonical Genre	~ Kangyur · Sūtra · mdo sde · Sūtranta
Literary Genre	~ Sūtras - mdo

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