Saving Those in Need: The Nirvana Sutra’s Contribution to Pure Land Thought

Abstract

This paper examines the influence of the Nirvana Sutra 涅槃經 on the early formative stage of Pure Land Buddhist thought in China, focusing on three tropes common within the Nirvana Sutra and which also become central to the identity of the Pure Land path but are not found in the normative versions of the Sukhāvatīvyūha sūtra: buddha-nature as a universal, the importance of the category of people known as “ordinary beings”, and the transformation of Ajātaśatru from evil person to bodhisattva. Central to this development is the crucial role of a later Pure Land sutra known as the Guanjing 觀經 (Contemplation Sutra), which I argue is influenced by the Nirvana Sutra itself. The hermeneutic contexts for this discussion are the early commentaries on the Guanjing; although the Shandao commentary became the locus classicus for how these tropes function the Pure Land discourse, here I try to show how the two earliest commentaries on the Guanjing by Huiyuan and Jizang, both of whom are not considered patriarchs of the tradition like Shandao, were the first commentaries to feature these Nirvana Sutra themes.

Translated twice within 30 years, the Mahāyāna version of the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, hereafter Nirvana Sutra, is frequently cited in the exegetical writings of patriarchs of the Pure Land Buddhist tradition. One of the notable paradoxes of the evolution of Buddhist thought and culture in East Asia lies in this very relationship because neither were viewed as a “school” or “sect” in China. In Japan, the Pure Land sects collectively became the largest form of Buddhism in terms of sectarian institutions, but both China and Japan shared a widespread focus on rebirth in Amitābha’s pure land in the next life regardless of sectarian affiliation. I argue, however, that one of the most important elements in this history is the repeated focus, both in sutras infused with tathāgatagarbha thought like the Nirvana and Laṅkâvatāra and in the exegetical literature written in medieval China and Japan, on those who are unskilled or morally corrupt rather than the more ideal figure working maintaining discipline or practice or study, a striking contrast to the more common Buddhist felt need to provide guidance to advanced practitioners. The Nirvana Sutra will be the sutra of focus in this discussion for three reasons: it is the first sutra to mention “buddha-nature” doctrine, it is frequently concerned with “ordinary people”, and it contains a stunning narrative about the saving of what one could argue is the quintessential evil person in the Buddhist tradition: Ajātaśatru. These three themes are repeated in later tathāgatagarbha texts coming out of India, but this combination resonated in a major way with people who wrote on Pure Land themes in medieval China, first in the recognized patriarchs like Lushan Huiyuan 蘆山慧遠 (334–416), Tanluan 曇鸞 (476–542), Daochuo 道綽 (562–645) and Shandao 善導 (613–681), but also figures not commonly studied as having been influential in the development of Pure Land thought, such as Huiyuan of Jingying Temple 慧遠〔淨影寺〕(523–592) and Jizang 吉藏 (549–623), as well as relatively minor figures like Jiacai and Huaigan, and even people normally associated with other traditions such as the Chan patriarch Yongming Yanshou. Scholars like Matsuo Ekō focus on these themes but generally restrict themselves to well-studied patriarchs whose influence in Japan was particularly strong, namely Lushan Huiyuan, Daochuo, and Shandao (See E. Matsuo 2008; Kobayashi 1980, etc.). But in fact Jingying-temple Huiyuan, Jizang, Jiacai, Huaigan, and Yongming Yanshou also played a significant role in establishing this perspective (Murakami 1995; Nagao 2018; Hakamaya 2000). A complete presentation of this topic would go far beyond the bounds of this essay, so I will restrict this discussion to the perspectives of Jingying Huiyuan and Jizang with allusions to Shandao because he was so influential but who came after these other two thinkers. Other medieval scholars who had significant influence on how the Nirvana Sutra was read in China, such as Guanding 灌頂 and Chengguan 澄觀, are also not included in this study because they did not significantly influence the development of Pure Land thought.

At the very center of my argument is the oft-quoted phrase fanfu wangsheng 凡夫往生, “birth in the Pure Land by ordinary persons”, that was coined by the sixth-century Huiyuan of Jingling temple, distinguished from the earlier Huiyuan associated with Mount Lu named above (Hachiriki 2000; Itō 2011; Kobayashi 1980; E. Matsuo 2005, Okamoto 2020; Yamana 2023). This phrase epitomizes the incorporation of the tathāgatagarbha perspective within a Pure Land context and later comes to occupy a central theme in many writers who composed materials on Pure Land themes. The term fanfu is one of many Chinese forms used to express the Indic notions of pṛthagjana and bālajana, meaning “ordinary person” and “infantile/foolish person” respectively.1 Another term in Chinese for bālajana and is yufu 愚夫, but we do not have any examples of 愚夫往生 in currently searchable digital textual materials. Of course the term fanfu is a common occurring term in many different contexts in the Buddhist canon, and since the valorization of advanced knowledge and understanding is so high in Buddhism, fanfu is often preceded by adjectives denoting ignorance or stupidity as in the forms yuchi fanfu 愚痴凡夫 or maodao fanfu 毛道凡夫, both yuchi and maodao are taken to represent the Indic form bāla.2

Whether one focuses on the “foolish” or the “ordinary” in expressions like 愚痴凡夫, these expressions clearly designate a category of adults whose personalities and/or attitudes about life reflect the opposite of the idealistic values generally promoted in Buddhism.3 That is, their personalities are dominated by self-centered, impatient, pleasure-seeking urges, and this often leads to unethical, even harmful behavior toward others. It is important to note that there is no mention of “ordinary persons” in any version of the Sukhāvatīvyūha sutra. The end of the Larger Sutra, including the section on five “evils”, a striking chapter about the mentalities in some people that turn them away from the Buddha’s Dharma would certainly include “ordinary persons” in terms of content, but the term fanfu or one of its synonyms does not occur.

It is also true that the “ordinary person” rubric is quite broad and often ill-defined. A case can be made that language such as this reflects a certain degree of hermeneutic processing of the core teachings within the canon; perhaps we can infer that the concept of “ordinary persons” expresses a certain degree of refinement of those teachings, resulting in this new linguistic form aimed at reaching a broader audience. I make this guess because there clearly is a link between this conception and the conceptions embedded in tathāgatagarbha thought. Here we must take notice of the fact that the Nirvana Sutra repeatedly makes use of this term: fanfu appears over 200 times in the northern edition in Chinese. Similarly, another influential tathāgatagarbha text, the Laṅkâvatāra Sutra refers to fanfu over 150 times. I would suggest that the question of providing a pathway for the morally and/or mentally troubled reflects a disturbing problematic for many in the early Mahāyāna movement wherein the universal affirmative statements of spiritual potential embodied in the tathāgatagarbha doctrine needed to deal with prevailing presumptions of the impossibility of ignorant, foolish individuals succeeding on the Buddhist path. The general solution would be to affirm the presence of buddha-nature in every sattva as a given, regardless of how they live their lives. The challenge was to also provide something concrete about how this can be realized for those who are not gifted in practice or philosophical study.

The Guanjing, or Contemplation Sutra (Blum 1994; Chen 2006), is central to this history, for it is the first Pure Land sutra to mention fanfu. The text’s origins in Central Asia or the northwest of China present intriguing questions about which communities or monastic centers it and its sister sutras whose Chinese translation all begin with the same word guan 觀 represent, and which all appear in China in the middle of the fifth century (Ryukoku University Translation Center 1984, pp. xiv–xxvii; Yamabe 1999; Kagawa 1999, pp. 13–37). A case can be made for the influence of tathāgatagarbha doctrines and the Nirvana Sutra specifically on the Guanjing in at least two major ways. One is the clear parallel between the opening frame story of the Guanjing, within which no less than five elements in the narrative are found in a similar presentation in fascicle 34 in the northern edition of the Nirvana Sutra. That is, Devadatta is responsible for convincing Ajātaśatru that he should kill his father, King Bimbisāra; Ajātaśatru thereupon imprisons his father without food or drink and forbids anyone from seeing him; Queen Vaidehī tries to see him anyway by ordering the guards to let her into his room; when Ajātaśatru learns of this, he loses his temper, takes out his sword and threatens to kill his mother; and then Jīvaka steps in and pleads with Ajātaśatru to release her, stating that no sin justifies you killing your mother, and he then let’s go of her.4

This shows an undeniable link between the two presentations of this event, though it is possible they may both come from a common, third source. In the context of Pure Land Buddhist doctrine, while there are mentions of broad categories of e ren 惡人 or evil individuals, Ajātaśatru is only mentioned in the Guanjing and his function in that narrative is to focus the listener’s attention on his mother, Vaidehī, to whom the sutra is preached. After the initial opening section, Ajātaśatru is not mentioned again in the Guanjing text; but in the Nirvana Sutra he is the subject of much attention. Putting the two discourses together leads to the obvious conclusion that he would be categorized at the lowest or ninth level in the Guanjing’s presentation of its scheme of nine grades of practitioners, with those at the ninth level described in a similar way to the icchantika category of people broached in the Nirvana Sutra. That is, these are individuals who are described as shameless, who habitually engage in unethical behavior, and have difficulties mounting a sustained mindfulness that would enable them to get out of their irresponsible way of living. Although they may seem like similar categorizations, the Nirvana Sutra does not talk about icchantikas and ordinary persons in the same way; to wit, icchantikas hold wrong views on many points of doctrine and are generally held up as paradigmatic individuals who are irresponsible, and often cause damage by their upside down view of things, whereas fanfu are more akin to simpletons, they may have a good heart and live responsibly, but they are not able to do practices that require sustained concentration. In fact, there is a third category of “problematic individuals” in the Nirvana Sutra called e ren, meaning bad or evil person, where e generally designated dangerous and/or harmful behavior. Typical examples of each are as follows: an icchantika could be someone who is so attached to the non-Mahāyāna forms of Buddhism that they attack Mahāyāna sutras or doctrines as not being Buddhist, an ordinary person could be a lay Buddhist who is not judgmental about distinguishing correct from incorrect teachings but has only limited experience in their praxis, an example of an e ren is Ajātaśatru before his conversion, as this is precisely how he is described in the opening lines of the nineteenth fascicle of the sutra.

The Guanjing does not mention icchantikas, and in fact this term is rarely used in other sutras, but it does talk about fanfu, e ren, and Ajātaśatru. Given the absence of fanfu or similar vocabulary in the previous Pure Land texts, the prominence of the word fanfu in the Nirvana Sutra and subsequent tathāgatagarbha literature, the strategic way fanfu is woven into the Guanjing discourse did not go unnoticed at that time as there was keen interest in both texts during that period in China. This is confirmed by the fact of the appearance and discussion of fanfu in the first generation of extant commentaries on the Guanjing, as all of them mention fanfu, and all of those authors repeatedly display detailed knowledge and appreciation of the Nirvana Sutra. I am referring to the contents of the earliest extant Guanjing commentaries written by Huiyuan, Jizang, Shandao, and one attributed to Zhiyi that probably dates to the late seventh century or early eighth century.5 At the same time, there are essays or commentaries on the Nirvana Sutra by the same Huiyuan, Jizang, and Zhiyi’s disciple Guanding 灌頂 (561–632). Shandao makes frequent allusions to it even though he did not compose an essay on it that we know of.

The Guanjing itself mentions fanfu three times. First is Śākyamuni’s promise to detail the practices by which “all ordinary people” can attain Birth in the Land of Bliss. Second is within the dialog between Śākyamuni and Vaidehī where he announces that he will enable Vaidehī and everyone in the future to see the Pure Land, which enables them to attain anutpattika dharmakṣānti followed by him explicitly telling her that she is “an ordinary person whose thinking is weak”,6 and therefore she cannot normally see that far, but he and other buddhas have ways to enable her to see it. She then confirms that she has indeed now seen the Pure Land. The third mention is within the context of the twelfth visualization practice of a figure of a buddha sixteen feet tall, which the sutra then comments that the actual size of the buddha is beyond measurement, but the mental power of ordinary people cannot grasp it, so this is the form that is shown. The Nirvana Sutra has many similar statements to the third instance, pointing out the limitations of “ordinary thinking,” but it is the connection between buddha and individual person of limited perceptual capacity in the first two instances that have been the major focus in Pure Land exegetical thought, and in that context Vaidehī took on a symbolic role that resonated for centuries.

Vaidehī’s role has three major dimensions or aspects: she is not merely an ordinary person but one whom the Buddha chooses to help, she is a victim of circumstances beyond her control, and she is a woman and therefore it is a given that she has less than full control over her own situation despite being the queen and the mother of the next king. It is also worth noting that the attainment of anutpattika dharmakṣānti in many contexts is described as confirming that one has attained nonbacksliding status on the bodhisattva path. Huiyuan identifies it as indicating the seventh bhūmi. In any case, both Jizang and Shandao discuss how a fanfu can attain Birth in buddha land where the buddha is in a Reward Body (saṃbhogakāya) state, with Shandao insisting that the Amida Buddha that we know is in a Reward Body hence his realm is a Reward Body land, while Jizang does not go that far.

As depicted in the Guanjing, Vaidehī is thus the quintessential symbol of someone in a difficult situation for which they do not have the means themselves to escape. If the “ordinary person” status had not been so clearly applied to her in the sutra narrative, her story might have been taken as one in which the Buddha noticed her need and responded because she was the queen. The twice mentioned fanfu in the context where the Buddha responds to her cries for help therefore result in a universal frame for her difficulties. She may be a queen, but in the eyes of the Buddha she is ordinary, hence in the eyes of followers of the Buddha, she is also seen as ordinary.

Why does this sutra statement matter? It seems an obvious point if you have read the sutra because she is shown to be in a state of fear and anxiety after being threatened and then imprisoned by Ajātaśatru. What Shandao points out in his Guanjing Commentary is that through Śākyamuni’s intervention in her thinking, she sees Amitābha’s realm, his pure land, which results in her choosing that location as her postmortem rebirth aim.

Shandao is famous for focusing on this statement in his commentary because of its affirmation that fanfu, including women, can attain visions of the Pure Land, which confirms their Birth therein. Here I wish to point out that while this had a big impact in the development of Pure Land thought after Shandao, who is always included in the list of patriarchs in the Pure Land tradition, he was not the first to notice this. In fact, we see the same discussion before Shandao by two of the earlier figures mentioned above, namely Huiyuan and Jizang, in their respective commentaries on the Guanjing. Huiyuan is quite explicit about Vaidehī identity including her identification as a fanfu, mentioning this point at least four times.7 For Huiyuan, the liberation of Vaidehī as an ordinary person is how we know to identify the teachings of this sutra as leading to sudden rather than gradual awakening. This occurs at the beginning of his Commentary, where presents an outline of the five major themes of the sutra, one of them being the sudden versus gradual question. Elsewhere Huiyuan clarifies that the benefit she gains as an ordinary person wherein the Buddha shows her the Pure Land and confirms her future Birth there has the effect of enabling all fanfu who cultivate pure practices or engage in good behavior (修淨業) will also attain Birth as such. Where he differs from Shandao is that he does not insist that this Pure Land is that of a Reward Body Buddha.

For Shandao, Amitābha always shows himself and his realm to humans in his Reward Body (saṃbhogakāya) state, but visions of a reward-body buddha is normally precluded for an ordinary person, as the “reward” refers to a sort of gratuity given to bodhisattvas at an advanced stage, and is often described as indicating that the person has entered the path of seeing (darśana-mārga) which puts them at the first of the ten bhūmi, or sometimes understood as those who have attained nonbacksliding status within the bhāvanā-mārga that covers ten-bhūmis.8 How could an ordinary person see a reward-body buddha? For Shandao, this is precisely because of the power of buddhas to override karmic limitations within individuals who seek religious advancement. Shandao’s vision of things is that after the Buddha died, the world entered an age characterized by five kinds of decay or defilement. In this environment, the path to the Pure Land is open to anyone but everyone is tainted in some way, and therefore everyone should be considered ordinary (Inaoka 2009). He pushes the discourse into another level by matching all nine grades in the Guanjing as different types of fanfu: the upper three grades he categorizes as great ordinary beings (大凡夫), the middle three grades are small ordinary beings (小凡夫), and the lower three grades are labeled e fanfu (惡凡夫) bad/evil ordinary beings (T 37.249a29-b3). The implication seems to be that since we know that the Buddha is present in certain situations in a Reward Body and since at the present time everyone is at the stage of ordinary persons or pṛthagjana, therefore Reward Body buddhas must be available to ordinary persons in certain situations. What is even more striking given this paradigm is that even ordinary beings at the lowest ranking can reach a saṃbhogakāya Pure Land, that is, a buddha-realm where the buddha is in a Reward Body. Note that while Huiyuan and Jizang affirm Birth in a Pure Land for fanfu, they see this to be a Pure Land in which the Buddha is in a Transformation Body.9 The promise in the eighteenth vow of the Larger Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra that those who attain Birth will be at a stage of nonbacksliding was cited by many in support of Shandao’s position.

Another dimension of this development is seen in how these exegetical treatises treat the figure of Ajātaśatru, and how the salvation narrative of Ajātaśatru in the Nirvana Sutra stresses the importance of confession (N. Matsuo 2011; Mochizuki 1988; Hayashi 2018). As mentioned above, in the Guanjing, he is described in wholly negative terms, and in the Nirvana Sutra initially his persona is described in even more pejorative language, where is explicitly characterized as an e ren (惡人) or “evil person”. But a contrasting view is presented in the “conversion story” of Ajātaśatru presented in a long narrative in fascicles nineteen and twenty of the Nirvana Sutra, where he experienced a change of heart about his insensitive, cruel way of living that included the murder of his father (Ogasawara 2020).

Ritual confession was not typically a form of practice for lay Buddhists prior to Mahāyāna. But another aspect of vocalized nianfo practice as it developed in China was conceiving its use for purposes of confession. Confession was set up within the Saṃgha and a ritual done in a monastic setting for monks and nuns every fortnight, but the traditional form was such that one only spoke up when they had something specific they wanted to mention. Usually, the focus was on violating monastic precepts.

But confession became an important part of the Chinese Buddhist tradition for everyone, not only for professional clergy, as it often shows up in biographies. One of the most widespread uses of nianfo in the Buddhist canon is part of the formula for the threefold refuge—verbalizing the phrase, “I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the Dharma, I take refuge in the Saṃgha”. But nian is often used as a replacement for the word guiyi 歸依 where one is affirming their trust in the Three Jewels in ritual settings, thus we find the phrase nianfo nianfa nianseng 念佛念法念僧 as something people recite wherein nian refers to directed thought as an expression of respect. Rather than a meditation on the Three Jewels, this expresses acceptance and affirmation of a mindset in which the practitioner places themselves squarely within the Buddhist tradition.

This aspect of nianfo has particular resonance when we see how it is used in the context of the Ajātaśatru conversion story in the Nirvana Sutra mentioned above. What happens is that when Ajātaśatru tells Śākyamuni that he does not deserve a meeting with the Buddha because he killed his father, one of the biggest and strongest supporters of the Buddha’s religious movement, Śākyamuni responds by telling him that what he needs to do is show how contrite he feels by confessing his sins. The Buddha tells him that without doing so, there will be no meaningful commitment on Ajātaśatru’s part in the form of the bodhicitta, and therefore no way out of his troubles. In other words, confession is framed as a sine qua non for him to be accepted by the Buddha and his devoted followers.

In this context, Śākyamuni also tells his audience that he has decided that despite his previous announcement of his own imminent death, he has now decided that seeing Ajātaśatru beginning to come around has changed his mind. At the beginning of fascicle twenty, Śākyamuni makes this noteworthy statement,

“Now for as long as that king remains in the world—no matter how many kalpas—I shall not enter nirvāṇa.”

(T 12.480c2)

For Huiyuan, it was important to describe what happens when, after the Buddha makes this statement and then he is urged on by his father speaking to him from heaven, Ajātaśatru completes his long journey to see the Buddha, finally arrives before him. Without mentioning his source, in his Guanjing Commentary Huiyuan alludes to the dramatic scene described in the Nirvana Sutra when he throws himself on the ground before Śākyamuni. In this context Huiyuan goes into some detail about Ajātaśatru’s nature that is most likely based on the various descriptions of him in the Nirvana Sutra, including the fact that he is called an evil person because he did evil things, that he was involved in sinful behavior in his previous life, so he encountered evil people in this life, and so forth. Again, without naming his source, perhaps because it was so well known, he describes a scene in the conversion narrative in the Nirvana Sutra mentioned above where Ajātaśatru confesses his sins in order to destroy the karmic causality that is otherwise awaiting him. Huiyuan infers from the Nirvana Sutra descriptions that Ajātaśatru was seeking the pity of the Buddha when he confessed and apologized. He then returns to the Guanjing context in remarking that Vaidehī herself asks when did she sin so badly that she gave birth to such an evil child, and wanting to know what she had done so she could confess her own mistakes (T1749 at 37.177c15ff). It is worth noting that in the Guanjing commentaries attributed to Zhiyi as well as of that of the northern Song period scholar Yuanzhao (1048–1116), we find a very similar description of Ajātaśatru’s encounter with Śākyamuni. We know that both the Zhiyi-attributed essay as well as the one by Yuanzhao were influenced by Huiyuan’s Commentary because both mention the wuti toudi prostration (“throwing five body parts to the ground”) by Ajātaśatru before the Buddha when in fact the Nirvana Sutra passage only states that he threw himself to the ground—wuti toudi is not mentioned.10

In the conversion narrative in fascicles nineteen and twenty of the Nirvana Sutra, Ajātaśatru confession before the Buddha gives him the confidence he needs to overcome his personal misgivings about what steps he needs to take in following the Buddha’s directives to enable him to overcome his horrible karmic record. In the end, his confession, his arousing of the bodhicitta, his sincere taking of refuge in the Three Jewels, and his single-minded devotion to practice while observing the precepts under the buddha’s guidance leads to rapid progress. His original declaration that he is sure that his rebirth in Avīci Hell had already begun before his death is thereby reversed, and the narrative in the Nirvana Sutra ends with him being declared a bodhisattva committed to achieving anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi.

Another important aspect of the Nirvana Sutra narrative in this regard is the way in which Ajātaśatru’s emotional and spiritual conversion also serves to inspire others. At the end of chapter eight, his commitment to attain full liberation is noticed by others and they are inspired by it. To wit,

“At that moment, countless numbers of people throughout the nation of Magadha resolved to attain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi by putting forth the bodhicitta. And as a result of so many people thus producing this great aspiration, the heavy guilt within King Ajātaśatru suddenly abated. The king and his consorts, concubines, and their female attendants themselves all brought forth the same aspiration for anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi.”

(T 12.484c19-23)

We see a definite similarity with a similar statement in the Guanjing that ends the specific impact of Vaidehī’s “awakening”. Thus,

“At that time, when the World Honored One had spoken these words, Vaidehi and her five hundred attendant-women, having heard what the Buddha had expounded, saw at once the breadth and extent of the World of Utmost Bliss; and being able to see the body of the Buddha [of Immeasurable Life] and the two bodhisattvas, joy welled up in their hearts. Marveling at this unprecedented occurrence, Vaidehi, as if clouds of doubt had cleared, attained the great enlightenment and acquired the insight into the non-origination of all existence. Her five hundred attendant-women, having awakened the mind aspiring for anuttarā-samyaksaṃbodhi, desired to be born in that land. The World Honored One predicted that they would all attain birth and that after they were born in that land, they would acquire the samadhi in which buddhas appear? The countless heavenly beings also awakened the mind aspiring for the highest enlightenment.”

(T 12.346a27-b4. Translation by Ryukoku University Translation Center (1984), p. 111)

In this way, the ordeals of Ajātaśatru and Vaidehī becomes idealized models for society as a whole. Jizang and Huiyuan both noticed this, and therefore their characterization of them as “ordinary” or “saintly” was somewhat complicated by the dramatic progress that both of them make within each narrative, where both jump to advanced stages on the path. Odagiri Kenyū has presented a detailed analysis of how Jizang cleverly uses the “original and traces” (benji 本迹) hermeneutic to explain the dual personas of Ajātaśatru, Vaidehī, and Bimbisāra (see Odagiri 2000).

What this narrative communicates is that, once again, anyone can succeed in Buddhism in reaching an advanced degree of liberation even in this life, and certainly in the life to come should they direct their energy toward attaining Birth in Amitābha’s Pure Land. In three of the five extant Chinese translations of the Larger Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra, there are descriptions of five categories of people who have behaved badly and are berated for the lack of moral and ethical concern. At the end of each description, the sutra states that if they reform their ways, practice restraint, and from that point onward only practice good deeds, they will cross the heavens and reach nirvana. There is no mention of achieving Birth in the Pure Land for them, and the way their bad deeds are explained looks very Chinese. Moreover, the description in the three translations is nearly identical and we do not see anything like this in any of the extant Sanskrit manuscripts of this sutra, so there are various possibilities of the origins of this material that has been considered, probably from other Indic sources (see Nōnin 2011). In contrast to the generalized statements of the five evils, the story of Ajātaśatru committing the crime of patricide to assume the throne more quickly is attested to even in non-Buddhist sources, so today his crime is recognized as historical. The saga of Ajātaśatru, however, is another matter and assumed particular prominence within Buddhist literature, and the Mahāyāna treatment of his liberation this came to be a trope for the universality of the Buddhist message of hope when an individual makes a sincere conversion to the values of the faith and pursues the practices common to Mahāyāna thought. The Nirvana Sutra treatment of this story is not alone within the Buddhist corpus, but as this has been covered in detail in Radich (2011), there is no need to restate this aspect of the story. Suffice it to say, however, that the way this is presented in the Nirvana Sutra had particular resonance in East Asian Buddhism, most notably for Shinran in thirteenth century Japan, who quotes extensively from this sutra in his salient statement of faith in chapter two of his Kyōgyōghinshō. For Shinran, the description of Ajātaśatru’s spiritual conversion as laid out in the Nirvana Sutra provides an notable example of the Mahāyana ideal affirming the liberation of the worst form of ordinary person, in effect the very substance of the salvific paradigm for the Pure Land message of Amitābha taking anyone who has made a sincere pledge to take refuge in him and seek his Pure Land.

Consciousness of this link is made clear in Jizang’s commentary on the Guanjing. To wit,

Why did my craving the throne lead me to killing my father, the king? In my present body, I am stricken with leprosy, but this only is a karmic precursor of a future when I will fall into a hell. Kings of all nations, do not do such things because if you do, it will definitely lead to horrible results. This is to admonish people who have done evil regarding [their inclination to] do so again. In addition, I want to open the gate to the Pure Land. If I had not killed my father and bound my mother, there would have been no causal reason for me to open this sutra.

Moreover, it was in wanting to reveal the power of the Great Nirvana [Sutra] that the king’s body became diseased. If he had not heard the Nirvana Sutra, seven days later he would have fallen into a hell. By means of hearing the Great [Nirvana] Sutra, he confessed, and because of that, his sins were purified. By thus revealing the functional power of the sutra [the Buddha saved] a king who had committed patricide.

(T 1752, at 37.240a25-b3)

Jizang thus reminds the reader that while Ajātaśatru plays the role of a dangerous monarch in Guanjing narrative, the universality of the Pure Land doctrine needs to address his needs as well. On this point, the Nirvana Sutra is the obvious choice.

When we look at how Shandao treats this issue in his Commentary on the Guanjing, he presents a different way of approaching this problem, but, in the end, his narrative similarly stresses the spiritual transformation of Ajātaśatru. Recognizing the patricide as horrendous, Shandao nevertheless shifts the blame from Ajātaśatru to Devadatta. He does not mention the Nirvana Sutra by name but he spends considerable time paraphrasing a different narrative about Ajātaśatru and Devadatta from fascicle twenty-four of the same Nirvana Sutra wherein Ajātaśatru at the outset is portrayed as somewhat of a lost soul until Devadatta takes him under his wing and convinces him that they are natural comrades because both have had their rightful position as leaders taken from them. Devadatta thus convinces Ajātaśatru that they should both endeavor to murder their political rivals, Śākyamuni in Devadatta’s case and Bimbisāra in Ajātaśatru’s case.

Conclusions

In this brief investigation of how the Nirvana Sutra influenced the formation of Pure Land Buddhist thought in Chinese history, I have looked at well-known figures like Shandao, but also some of the more important scholars who have not been well studied, like the sixth-century Huiyuan, Fazang, and have shown some of their influence on later thinkers who wrote on Pure Land thought.

I chose to limit the discussion to commentaries written on the Guan wuliangshou jing, or Guanjing, because this is the first Pure Land sutra to employ the term fanfu, the most commonly used term in Chinese in the medieval period to indicate an “ordinary person,” or pṛthagjana in Sanskrit. How “ordinary” was conceived in fact varied widely, but it appears to throw down the gauntlet to medieval Chinese commentators who were forced to ask what the limits of that term implied. Here the figure of Ajātaśatru stands out because he was famous for killing his father and is similarly presented in the opening section of the Guanjing as wild, self-centered, and impervious to the impact he is having on others. Described as an “evil person” in the Nirvana Sutra, his karmic status and personality are not well explained in the Guanjing, but we see how all the commentators relied on the Nirvana Sutra to round out the story, helping to explain his actions in the Guanjing narrative, but also to address the obvious question raised by his presence in this Pure Land sutra, namely,

Does the universal access doctrine regarding reaching the Pure Land in one’s next life include people who would commit a heinous crime like murdering their father out of personal ambition, one of the five major crimes mentioned as excluding someone from the Pure Land in the eighteenth vow of the Larger Sutra?

In fact, none of the Pure Land sutras specifically address this point. But the Nirvana Sutra does provide a number of very useful narratives about Ajātaśatru, including his conversion to the Buddhist path and eventual attaining of an advanced stage on the bodhisattva path. Thus, his example provides a useful model for essentially ignoring the exclusionary clause in the eighteenth vow. Note that Jizang did not see any exception to the exclusionary clause, instead he dealt with the Ajātaśatru’s heinous crime by applying the interpretive tool whereby the manifest story is but a trace of the original truth.

One could argue that one of the most troubling problems for Buddhism in the Chinese context was the fact that its universalist appeal was mitigated by various scriptural statements that were clearly exclusionary. Although Vaidehī is not accused of committing any crimes that would exclude her, her son Ajātaśatru’s was explicitly responsible for the murder of her husband Bimbisāra, which marks him as guilty of one of the designated “five heinous crimes.” Given the explicit statement in the eighteenth vow, generally regarded as the most influential of all forty-eight vows proclaimed by Dharmākara Bodhisattva/Amitābha Buddha, which precludes anyone who commits any of the five heinous crimes from admission to his realm, this is one of the most salient problems for the tradition. Many see the Guanjing as providing a solution to the problem, but what I have argued here that the more coherent argument came from a paradigm presumed by many exegetes in the sixth and seventh centuries wherein the Guanjing together with its tathā-gatagarbha predecessor, the Nirvana Sutra, wherein those initially seen as outside the saintly model are in fact included within it. Bimbisāra, who is only depicted as a victim in the Guanjing, is shown in the Nirvana Sutra to be complicit himself in the murder of an innocent man—a saint, in fact—further complicating the story. Jizang, Huiyuan, and Shandao all view Bimbisāra, Ajātaśatru, and Vaidehī in the same category of ordinary individuals who, on the one hand, have clear karmic limitations, and who, on the other hand, nevertheless rise above their problematic circumstances after being helped by a buddha to attain significant advancement in their practice, thereby leaving behind any worry of the past karmic seeds preventing them from achieving final liberation.