Introduction

This is a website version of handout guides that were prepared for a sūtra reading group in 2018. It is part of a series on the Navagrantha, the nine most sacred texts of Mahāyāna Buddhism which can be found by clicking the prior hyperlink. This website mainly uses Red Pine's 2012 translation as a reference.

Title

In this sūtra, Laṅkā both refers to the island of Laṅkā, which is probably modern day Sri Lanka, and also the capital city of that island. Avatāra means descent or going down into, from the root √tṝ, meaning to cross or pass, and the prefix ava-, meaning down. Thus the title may be translated as Descent into Lanka. Red Pine notes that some Chinese commentators interpreted Laṅkā as meaning "unreachable," but that if they derived this from the root √laṅkh or √laṅg, they are mistaken, as both mean "to go" (though Red Pine suggests, for some reason, that they mean "to reach.").

Historical Background

Though many hold that the sūtra must have composed in the fourth century, there are lost translations that predate Guṇabhadra's translation of 443, such as one attributed to Dharmarakṣa in the third century, and Dharmakṣema not long after, which means that this sūtra could be dated as old as any other, if such reckoning is based upon the date of Chinese translations. Subsequent Chinese translations include Bodhiruci's of 513, and Śikṣānanda's of 704. While Śikṣānanda is said to have consulted five different Sanskrit editions, as Guṇabhadra's translation was a significant source text for the Ch'an and Zen traditions, Red Pine opts to translate that, with occasional reference to the other translations.

As regards Sanskrit editions, Red Pine notes in his introduction, there are no editions that predate the eighteenth century—however, this may be mistaken, there are many manuscripts that have not been studied from Nepal. However, as for readily available edited editions, the oldest available are from Chinese, and the oldest of all is Guṇabhadra's translation, on which Red Pine relies, which is why for this reading group we shall focus on Red Pine's translation. It is, however, worth noting that the importance of this text is not lost in Nepal, where it is regarded as one of the Navagrantha, the nine most sacred texts of Mahāyāna Buddhism.

As Red Pine explains, the first historical records of the sūtra are references made to its first Chinese translators. Dharmakṣema, the second translator, arrived in north west China in 414, translated in the Northern Wei state, and was apparently assassinated for his knowledge of state secrets in 433. His translation appears to have fallen out of favour with copyists. Guṇabhadra arrived in southern China in 435 and translated in the Liu Sung kingdom for 30 years with a staff of seven hundred monks. Guṇabhadra died in 468 and also translated the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra, which is considered an important text for the Yogācāra school—although Yogācāra in India does not refer to the Laṅkāvatāra, it becomes important for Chinese and Japanese Yogācāra, known as the Wéishí (唯識) or Fǎxiàng (法相) sect in China, and the Hossō (法相) sect in Japan.

The Laṅkāvatāra also become the foundational text of the Ch'an or Zen sect. Bodhidharma arrived in south China around 479, and transmitted Ch'an and Guṇabhadra's translation of the Laṅkāvatāra to his disciple Huìkě (J. Eka). Bodhiruci arrived in Loyang, the capital of the Northern Wei, in 508 and translated the Laṅkāvatāra in 513. While Bodhidharma is said to have lived in Loyang at the same time as Bodhiruci, he seems to have not been favourable towards his translation. Both died around the time of the separation of the Northern Wei into East and West around 535. It appears that the Laṅkāvatāra was the most reputable and commented-on text in sixth and seventh century Ch'an Buddhism. Red Pine attributes the decline in favour of the Laṅkāvatāra and the rise in favour of the Diamond Sutra among Ch'an practitioners with the rise in popularity of Ch'an in the seventh century, where one master may have a thousand instead of one disciple, and with the influence of the Sixth Patriarch Huìnéng, who favoured the Diamond Sutra, which was easier to teach to large communities than the complicated Laṅkāvatāra which was favoured by the other challenger to the role of Sixth Patriarch, Shénxiù. Shénxiù was favoured by Empress Wu, who also commissioned the new translation by Śikṣānanda in 704. According to the Ch'an lineage descending from Shénxiù in the Records of the Masters of the Lanka, the First Ch'an Patriarch was not Bodhidharma, but Guṇabhadra, as he translated the Laṅkāvatāra.

Terms

While the Laṅkāvatāra relies primarily upon the terms and categories found in most Buddhist texts, it introduces some other concepts.

1. Five Dharmas (divisions of the world):

a. Appearance

b. Name

c. Projection

d. Correct Knowledge

e. Suchness

2. Three Modes (other ways of dividing the world):

a. Imagined Reality

b. Dependent Reality

c. Perfected Reality

3. Eight Consciousnesses (also discussed in the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra):

a. Eye Consciousness

b. Ear Consciousness

c. Nose Consciousness

d. Tongue consciousness

e. Body Consciousness

f. Mind Consciousness (thought)

g. Mentation Consciousness (will or self-consciousness)

h. Storehouse Consciousness (where seeds of previous karmas are stored and sprout)

Message of the Laṅkāvatāra

The new terms mentioned above are the categories the Buddha uses in this sūtra to teach that all is but mind-only, including the external world, the internal world, and the self. Through cultivation of the mind, we can transform the consciousnesses from ones of delusion to ones of Buddhahood. One can see in this teaching the foundations of both the Yogācāra school and the Ch'an/Zen school.