One of the most popular Asian classics for roughly two thousand
years, the Vimalakirti Sutra stands out among the sacred texts of
Mahayana Buddhism for its conciseness, its vivid and humorous
episodes, its dramatic narratives, and its eloquent exposition of
the key doctrine of emptiness or nondualism. Unlike most sutras,
its central figure is not a Buddha but a wealthy townsman, who, in
his mastery of doctrine and religious practice, epitomizes the
ideal lay believer. For this reason, the sutra has held particular
significance for men and women of the laity in Buddhist countries
of Asia, assuring them that they can reach levels of spiritual
attainment fully comparable to those accessible to monks and nuns
of the monastic order.
Esteemed translator Burton Watson has rendered a beautiful
English translation from the popular Chinese version produced in
406 C.E. by the Central Asian scholar-monk Kumarajiva, which is
widely acknowledged to be the most felicitous of the various
Chinese translations of the sutra (the Sanskrit original of which
was lost long ago) and is the form in which it has had the greatest
influence in China, Japan, and other countries of East Asia.
Watson's illuminating introduction discusses the background of the
sutra, its place in the development of Buddhist thought, and the
profundities of its principal doctrine: emptiness.
General
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