Overall Teaching

Dharmodgata teaches that Tathāgatas neither come nor go anywhere, as they are suchness, which cannot so come or go. Sadāprarudita then rises in the air and offers himself as a servant, the girl and her maidens to likewise. Dharmodgata accepts and then returns the offering, so he gets merit. Then after entering a samādhi for seven years, and after Sadāprarudita and the others remained standing to wait for seven years, Dharmodgata exited and taught PW. Sadāprarudita then enters millions of samādhis on the topics Dharmodgata taught.

Summary

1.     The Coming and Going of the Tathāgatas

a.     Dharmodgata answers: Tathāgatas neither come nor go anywhere, as they are non-production, the reality limit, and suchness, etc.—these things cannot come nor go. Likewise, suchness is completely non-dual. [512]

b.     Just like a mirage, someone who thinks water in a mirage comes or goes in any direction would be foolish. Likewise, Tathāgatas cannot come or go anywhere. Like conjured illusions or dreams. [513]

c.     Foolish common people imagine Tathāgatas as coming and going—adhering to their name-body and form-body. But those who practice in PW know that the Tathāgata’s true nature is not like that. [514]

d.     But the bodies of the buddhas are not without causes—they arise due to causes in the past, from cultivation of the perfections. However, it is not anywhere in the ten directions. It manifests when conditions arise, and becomes inconceivable/unmanifest when the conditions cease. [515]

e.     Just like sound from a harp: the combination of conditions related to the harp give rise to the sound (e.g. shape of its body, plectrum, person who plays it) but sound does not come from any specific location. Knowing this is practicing PW. [516]

f.     After this was taught, the earth shook and plans bent towards Dharmodgata, and flowers came up out of season and flowered down on him. Then the devas praised him.

i.     Sadāprarudita asked why this happened.

ii.     Dharmodgata explained that it is because many beings have attained patience acceptance of the non-production of dharmas, aroused bodhicitta, and gained the Dharma-eye. [517]

2.     Sadāprarudita’s Self Sacrifice

a.     Sadāprarudita was so delighted at the weal wrought through asking his question that he raised seven palm trees high into the air and wondered how he could honour Dharmodgata. Śakra offers him māndārava flowers for this purpose.

i.     Sadāprarudita scatters the flowers over Dharmodgata and offers himself as Dharmodgata’s servant from that day onwards. [518]

ii.     The merchant’s daughter and her maidens offered themselves to Sadāprarudita as servants, and he then presents them to Dharmodgata.

iii.     Śakra applauds this, and says that Tathāgatas of the past acted similarly. [519-20]

b.     Dharmodgata accepts Sadāprarudita’s offering, so he can gain merit, and then returned it and went into his house.

i.     Sadāprarudita decided that it would be unseemly if he were to sit or lie down before Dharmodgata exited the house in order to reveal the Dharma again.

ii.     Dharmodgata remained in one samādhi for seven years in his house.

iii.     Sadāprarudita remained in the same posture for seven years and never felt any tiredness or sense desires or self-satisfaction, only wondering when Dharmodgata would exit from his samādhi [520] to teach PW. The merchant’s daughter and the maidens did likewise.

c.     Eventually a voice was heard which proclaimed Dharmodgata would exit in seven days. They all were jubilant and prepared a seat with the seven jewels and spread their garments out over it for him to teach. [521]

i.     Sadāprarudita wanted to sprinkle the ground to get rid of the rising dust but could not find any water, which was all hidden by Māra.

ii.     So he resolved to use his blood to sprinkle the ground and resolved that it would be better to die for such a cause than for something useless. [522]

iii.     Thereafter, piercing his body with a sharp sword on all sides he sprinkled the ground with blood and the merchant’s daughter and the maidens did likewise, but they never had any alteration of thought.

d.     Śakra was amazed by this and changed all the blood into sandalwood scented water and allowed the scent to fill the air for a hundred leagues around. He then praised his intention and love for Dharma. [523]

e.     When looking for flowers to sprinkle the ground and scatter over Dharmodgata, Śakra provided Sadāprarudita with his māndārava flowers..

3.     Dharmodgata’s Demonstration of Dharma

a.     Dharmodgata exited his samādhi, came out and sat, and taught PW. [524]

i.     When this happened Sadāprarudita felt the happiness of first entering the first dhyāna.

b.     Dharmodgata’s teaching was that PW is self-identical, isolated, immobile, devoid of mental acts, unbenumbed, of one single taste, boundless, non-produced, non-stopping, boundless, brilliant, unfashioned, self-identical, undifferentiated, non-apprendable, remains the same whatever it may surpass, [525] is powerless to act, and is unthinkable because all dharmas are of such a nature.

c.     Sadāprarudita then entered a king of samādhis called the Sameness of All Dharmas, followed by samādhis on each of the above topics Dharmodgata taught, and then he attained six million samādhi doors. [526]

Notes about the History of the Story

There are four versions of the Sadāprarudita story. The latest study on this topic that I am aware of is Hung-yi Yang’s A Study of the Story of Sadāprarudita, a dissertation at the University of Sydney submitted in 2013. Yang’s explanation of the four versions is as follows: there are core similarities between the two versions found in different recensions of the Prajñāpāramitā, with differences in the ending of the section that ends in Chapter 30 in this Sanskrit edition and some other select passages in Chapter 30, and with differences in the section in Chapter 31 which involves the list of samādhis in comparison to the early Chinese translations. The samādhi names are different between these two versions, but the main narrative is the same. The first version, the Sanskrit tradition, developed the samādhi names independently. The second version, which exists in Chinese, apparently borrowed samādhi names from a different source, but they do not match the Sanskrit ones.

            The third version is a jātaka in a text called the Liu Duji Jing (The Six Pāramitās Sūtra). This version is most similar to the first version (Sanskrit). According to Yang, it is most likely that the Liu Duji Jing version added the Sadāprarudita story later, making it unlikely that the first version was drawn from a lost Indian version of the Liu Duji Jing, rather, the version in the Liu Duji Jing was likely adapted from the first version. The fourth version is in Uighur (a central Asian language), which is a verse and prose Avadāna. Yang believes that this was compiled from multiple different sources, primarily the second version. Only the first and second versions are likely to be derived from an earlier common Sanskrit original.

            As regards the samādhis in chapter 31 of the first version, some of these occur in Chinese versions of the Saṃyuktāgama, indicating that they were not necessarily additions from nowhere. It is also possible that the samādhi “viewing all tathāgatas,” where Sadāprarudita sees Buddhas teaching PW in Samādhi, could be one of the ways in which the Mahāyāna sūtras arose—a channel for revelation and inspiration.

            Jan Nattier suggested that this story is absent in the 25,000 line version. However, this is only true for some recensions of the 25,000 line version, and the Chinese translation by Mokṣala (291 CE) does include the Sadāprarudita story. I believe it is more likely that the story was simply dropped from later recensions of the 25,000 line version, particularly those in Sanskrit, than that the story was never included.