Narrative of the Sutra

The Contemplation Sutra is presented as a sermon delivered by Śākyamuni at the request of the Queen Vaidehī 韋提希 of Magadha, while she was imprisoned by her son, Ajātaśatru 阿闍世, as punishment for covertly feeding her husband (Ajātaśatruʼs father), King Bimbisāra 頻婆娑羅, whom Ajātaśatru had imprisoned in order to starve him to death. The scripture teaches sixteen kinds of meditation 十六觀 as a means for attaining rebirth in the Pure Land. The topics of those sixteen meditations are, in order:

1. The setting sun
2. Water
3. The ground of the Pure Land
4. The jeweled trees of the Pure Land
5. The ponds of the Pure Land
6. General view of the Pure Land
7. Amitâbhaʼs lotus throne
8. 'Contemplation of the Buddha image' (Amitâbha and flanking Bodhisattvas)
9. The body and marks of Amitâbha
10. The Bodhisattva Avalokitêśvara 觀音
11. The Bodhisattva Mahāsthāmaprāpta 勢至
12. Visualizing oneself reborn in the Pure Land
13. The 'miscellaneous' visualization of the Pure Land as a whole
14. Superior grade of sentient beings reborn into the Pure Land
15. Middling grade of sentient beings reborn into the Pure Land
16. Lower grade of sentient beings reborn into the Pure Land (superior, middling and inferior 上中下 are subdivided into three grades each to yield a total of nine grades 九品).

Geographical and Art-historical Dimensions

Regarding the geographical origin of this sutra, one notable piece of evidence is found in mural paintings at Toyok, Turfan. (Yamabe, 1999) The content of this sutra has often been depicted in paintings, and many of them survive in Dunhuang. These paintings are usually called Guanjing bianxiang 觀經變相. In addition, a very famous tapestry based on this sutra is kept in Taimadera 當麻寺, Japan and is usually called Taima Mandara 當麻曼荼羅.2

Commentaries

This Contemplation Sutra was commented on profusely in East Asian Buddhism, the most important early commentary being that of Shandao 善導 (613–681), 觀無量壽佛經疏 T 1753 (translated by Pas); with others by Jingying Huiyuan 淨影慧遠 (523–592), 觀無量壽經義疏 T 1749 (translated by Tanaka); and Jizang 吉藏 (549–623), 觀無量壽經義疏 T 1752. Another important commentary, 觀無量壽佛經疏 T 1750, is ascribed to Zhiyi 智顗 (538–597), but Fujita notes that this is probably a later composition ascribed incorrectly to the patriarch (Fujita 166 n. 4). The Contemplation Sutra also served as a fundamental teaching text for Pure Land masters including Tanluan 曇鸞 (c. 476–572), Daochuo 道綽 (562–645) and Hōnen 法然 (1133–1212).

Issues regarding Provenance

Complications in the testimony regarding this text from traditional Chinese Buddhist bibliographers are discussed in Fujita, 151–154. In sum, the ascription of the translation to Kālayaśas is first found in Huijiaoʼs 慧皎 (497–554) 高僧傳 Gaoseng zhuan of 519; however, the testimony of the catalogues is conflicted and complex, and the overall picture they provide is inconclusive.

Some evidence has led modern scholars such as KASUGAI Shinya to propose that the text may be of Central Asian origin. Evidence for this possibility includes the fact that the ostensible translator of the text (as with like texts, such as 觀彌勒菩薩上生兜率天經 T 452; 佛說觀普賢菩薩行法經 T 277; 觀虛空藏菩薩經 T 409; and 觀佛三昧海經 T 643) was from Central Asia; the practice of contemplating Buddha-images, characterized by the thirty-two major and eighty minor marks, as found in the text (and others in this group), which may be linked to the emergence of statuary in Central Asia, often of gigantic proportions (such as the famous images at Bamiyan) (Fujita 157–158; note that the first evidence for such statuary in China, under the N. Wei 北魏, only emerges after these texts are translated, and then in the North).

With evidence for the provenance of the text thus unclear, other evidence has led different scholars, such as Tsukinowa Kenryū and Suzuki Munetada, to propose that the text may not have been translated at all, but rather, be of Chinese authorship. Evidence for this view includes the following. There are no known Sanskrit or Tibetan versions of the text. A Uighur translation does exist, but is thought to be from the Chinese (Fujita 154). The text also contains material clearly indebted to the Buddhabhadra 佛陀跋陀羅 (359–429) and Baoyun 寶雲 (379–449) translation of the Larger Sukhāvatīvyūha T 360, dating to 421 (such phrases as 'Bhikṣu Dharmâkara,'  法藏比丘願力所成 T 365.12.343a11–12; 法藏比丘四十八大願 T 365.12.345c3–4, cf. T 360.12.267b19-c10, 269b7, 269c2–07; 'ten moments of thought,'  具足十念 T 365.12.346a19, cf. T 360.12.268a27, 272c6). Other telling phrases suggest possible influence from other texts already translated into Chinese (三心, T 365.12.340c9, 344c12, cf. Kumārajīvaʼs Vimalakīrtinirdeśa; or 念佛三昧 T 365.12.343b13, 343b29, 諸佛現前三昧346b03, and 是心作佛是心是佛 T 365.12.343a21, for which cf. Pratyutpannabuddhasammukhāvasthitasamādhi sūtra). There is evidence the text was also influenced by the 觀佛三昧海經 T 643 and the Maitreya Contemplation Sutra 觀彌勒菩薩上生兜率天經 T 452. The division of the text into a number of contemplations (here sixteen) is also possible evidence of influence from Kumārajīvaʼs Chan miyao fa jing 禪祕要法經 T 613, which has a division into approx. 30 contemplations. It also contains the practice of name recitation, which is only known in East Asia (Fujita 161).

Surveying this evidence, Fujita concludes that neither hypothesis can be conclusively proven, and advocates a compromise position that sees the text being based upon a core form of meditation transmitted (perhaps orally) from Central Asia, and then elaborated upon in China in light of ideas known there from recently translated texts (Fujita 163).

Yamadaʼs 1976 study (cited in Silk 186–189) showed from the distribution of two different names for Amitâbha in the text that the text is a composite comprised of four originally separate parts: the prologue frame narrative; the section on meditative goods (first thirteen contemplations), the second on non-meditative goods (last three contemplations), and the epilogue. Within the prologue, further, the name of Devadatta differs, and Yamada argues that there is a further break in this short section, just before the episode where Ajātaśatru threatens to kill his mother and is prevented by his ministers. This latter portion contains narrative elements unusual in the Ajātaśatru complex as a whole – such as Ajātaśatruʼs threat to kill his mother, particularly the specific way it plays out. Silk agrees with this analysis (190), except for Yamadaʼs claim that it follows that the text must have been composed in China (187).

Silk closely examines a large set of Buddhist and Jaina parallels to the frame narrative of the sutra about Ajātaśatru and his parents, Queen Vaidehī and King Bimbisāra. He argues against scholars like Fujita and Sueki, who have held that details in this particular version of the narrative show that particular parts of it must derive from Central Asia and/or China. Silk shows, on the basis of broad comparisons with versions of the story from a wide range of literary sources, that the narrative was widespread in Buddhist and non-Buddhist traditions in both India and China, including key details upon which Sueki and Fujita rely in their theories. Silk concludes that of all the pieces identified by Yamada in the composite structure of the sutra as a whole, the frame narrative is in fact among the elements most likely to derive from India, given how widespread it is in various Indian traditions.

On the basis of his broad comparison of these many different versions of the Ajātaśatru story, Silk also argues that there is a narrative 'seam' (a join) in many versions at the same place that the join is found in the Contemplation Sutra, i.e. just after arrangements are made to ensure that the imprisoned Bimbisāra really will starve to death (Silk 213). Silk believes that the most likely origin for the text as a whole is "some area of Central Asia under strong Chinese influence" (214).

Julian Pas has advanced (highly speculative) arguments that the text originally comprised a set of ten meditations, divided into two symmetrical sets (Pas, “Origin and Literary Criticism” 204 ff.). Pas argues that ten is a more common number in Buddhism. He points out that the final three meditations, on the “nine grades” of being reborn in the Pure Land, is Chinese in origin and in any case heterogeneous with the remainder of the sutra ( "the three so-called meditations on the three grades of rebirth are secondary or interpolated.... these descriptions can hardly be called visualizations," 206). He then eliminates individual meditations among the first thirteen on various grounds, to arrive at two sets of five meditations, 'internal' vs. 'external,' thus:

The External Splendors

1. The Setting Sun
2. The Land of Amitâbha
3. The Trees
4. The Lakes
5. General View

The Internal Splendors

1. The Throne
2. The Images of Amitâbha and Bodhisattvas
3. The True Body
4. The Two Bodhisattvas
5. General View

References

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Fujita, Kōtatsu. 1990. “The Textual Origins of the Kuan Wu-liang-shou ching: A Canonical Scripture of Pure Land Buddhism.”  In Robert E. Buswell, Jr., ed. Chinese Buddhist Apocrypha. Honolulu:  University of Hawai`i Press. 149–173.

Inagaki, Hisao. 1995. The Three Pure Land Sūtras. Berkeley:  Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research.

Jung, C. G. 1943. “Zur Psychologie östlicher Meditation.” Bulletin de la Société Suisse des Amis de l'Extrême-Orient (Mitteilungen der Schweizerischen Gesellschaft der Freunde Ostasiatischer Kultur 5 : 33–53.

Kasugai Shinya  春日井真也. 1953. “Kan Muryōjubutsu kyō ni okeru shomondai 観無量寿仏経に於ける諸問題 (Some Problems in the Amitāyurdhyāna Sūtra). Bukkyō bunka kenkyū 3 : 37–50.

Pas, Julian. 1977. “The Kuan-wu-liang-shou Fo-ching: Its Origin and Literary Criticism.”  In Kawamura, Leslie, ed. Buddhist Thought and Asian Civilization. Emeryville, California:  Dharma Publishing.

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Silk, Jonathan A. 1997. “The Composition of the Guan Wuliangshoufo-jing: Some Buddhist and Jaina Parallels to Its Narrative Frame.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 25 : 181–256.

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Yamabe, Nobuyoshi. 2016. “How Was Visualization Depicted in Art?: A Comparative Study of Guanjing Bianxiang Mg. 17669 and Дx 316 Through digital Restoration.”  In Chuang, Kuo-pin, ed. Fojiao Chanxiu Chuantong: Bijiao Yu Duihua--2014 Guoji Yantaohui Lunwenji 佛教禪修傳統：比較與對話--2014國際硏討會論文集 (Buddhist Meditative Traditions: Dialogue and Comparison). Taipei:  Fagu Wenhua 法鼓文化. vol. 30 (4)171–211.

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Yamada, Meiji, et al. 1984. The Sutra of Contemplation on the Buddha of Immeasurable Life as Expounded by Śākyamuni Buddha. Kyoto:  Ryūkoku Univerity.