Encyclopedia of Buddhism Volume One A -L Robert E. Buswell

S ANSKRIT, BUDDHIST L ITERATURE IN
endowed with manuscripts of the navadharma, which
includes the following sutras: Saddharmapundarlka
(Lotus Su tra), Astasahasrika-prajñaparamita, LAṄKA-
VATARA-SU TRA, Daśabhu miśvara, Gandavyu ha, Samadhiraja,
and SUVARN APRABHASOTTAMA-SU TRA; plus
the LALITAVISTARA, a śravakayana biography of the
Buddha that is built around guides to the main pilgrimage
sites of the Buddha’s life (Foucher), and the
Guhyasamaja-tantra, a Vajrayana work. These texts
and others express a range of doctrinal views and a
number of them were among those considered authoritative
and thus expounded by Mahayana doctrinal
traditions, such as the MADHYAMAKA SCHOOL and
the YOGACARA SCHOOL.
Vajraya na. From the middle of the first millennium
C.E. until the demise of institutional Buddhism in India
in the twelfth century, there began to appear Buddhist
tantric works, written in Sanskrit, employing
instrumental magic and ritual to achieve specific goals.
Retrospectively these have been assigned to four
classes: kriya or “action” TANTRAS; carya or “conduct”
tantras, dominated by the Mahavairocanabhisam bodhi
Tantra (Tantra on the Perfect Awakening of Maha-
Vairocana); yoga or “meditation” tantras, dominated
by the Sarvatathagatatattvasam graha (Compendium on
the Essence of all the Tathagatas); and the anuttarayoga
or “supreme meditation” tantras, among which is included
the Guhyasamaja Tantra (Tantra on the Secret
Assembly). The last tantra composed in India before
the final demise of institutional Buddhism there was
the eleventh-century Kalacakra Tantra, a major work
seeking not just soteriological goals but also offering a
defense against contemporary Muslim domination.
Texts in the higher classes of tantra tend toward asserting
feminine representations of the ideal, employing antinomian
practices (e.g., consumption of forbidden
substances, sexual transgression of monastic rules and
caste boundaries), and, although written in relatively
normal Sanskrit, employ a secret or allusive vocabulary
called sandhyabhasa, in which actual referents are
disguised by euphemisms and elaborate symbolism. A
minor example of this appears in the opening phrase
of the Guhyasamaja Tantra, which forgoes the familiar
formula and asserts instead that the Buddha delivered
the tantra while residing in the “vagina of the
Vajra Lady,” which is understood to mean “while residing
in the wisdom of enlightenment.”
Commentaries. This entire body of canonical material
inspired COMMENTARIAL LITERATURE usually composed
by known historical individuals, although this
too has fared badly and relatively little survives in its
original language. There is no definitive catalogue of
Sanskrit commentaries, but it has been estimated in relation
to the Tibetan canon that, of 120 commentaries
translated into Tibetan, only ninety remain current; allowing
for duplications, these offer comment on only
thirty-four, or 10 percent, of the sutras extant in the
same canon (Schoening). Commentaries vary widely
in length, from single folios to several volumes, and
some sutras have attracted much more attention than
others—the HEART SU TRA, a short Perfection of Wisdom
text, having seven commentaries. There are also
subcommentaries on primary commentaries, the
Abhisamayalam kara apparently inspiring something in
excess of twenty.
Noncanonical literature
Canonical materials alone do not exhaust Buddhist literature
in Sanskrit. In fact, the larger part of the field
is made up of noncanonical materials, which are even
more diverse than their canonical counterparts. In the
following survey, the subcategories employed are by no
means exclusive, merging in some cases with each
other and with canonical materials.
Narrative. Narrative is a, if not the, dominant genre
of Buddhist literature, and happily many examples
have survived into the present day. The canonical literature
already reviewed is replete with narrative materials
that were redacted to form new compilations of
pure narrative, such as the AVADANAŚATAKA (One Hundred
Stories of Edifying Deeds) and the DIVYAVADANA
(Divine Stories of Edifying Deeds), the latter probably
redacted from the Mu lasarvastivada-vinaya. The
Avadanaśataka subsequently inspired further cycles of
verse renderings of sets of its stories, which were composed
probably in the second half of the first millennium
C.E. These texts, clearly the result of a concerted
attempt to revise the entire Avadanaśataka by what was
probably a tradition of specialists in this kind of narrative
literature, were termed mala (garlands), and typically
employ a frame story involving a dialogue between
the emperor AŚOKA and a monk named UPAGUPTA
(Strong).
Ritual texts. The Nepalese community has preserved
a host of ritual texts of a variety of kinds. Many of these
are transmitted from Indian originals and include compendia
of meditation texts giving guidance on the visualization
and worship of buddhas, bodhisattvas, and
various tantric figures, such as the Sadhanamala and
Nispannayogavall. There are also more miscellaneous
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