Removing The Sheen From Buddhism

[Husky]

Post 10/?





- The comments at the end of the previous post are also important:

they show how Sudhana's visits to Buddhist characters other than Avalokiteshwara - and any settings they're in - should be taken into account, as well as the direction of travel (especially the interesting "going further south to Jambudvipa" bit).



- This post contains ONLY all the excerpts referring to Potalaka in the Avatamsaka Sutra. (Having already confirmed that references to Potalaka only occur in the Gandavyuha Sutra section of the AS.)





Returning to how in an earlier post, I'd wondered about the (unterminated) direct quote that Lokesh Chandra attributes to the Avatamsaka Sutra - the one featuring a description of Potalaka that Lokesh presented as relevant to his points (and which Rajeev Srinivasan had quoted/referred to):

[Lokesh Chandra in his book The Thousand-Armed Avalokitesvara:] The Avatamsaka Sutra describes the earthly paradise of Avalokitesvara: "Potalaka is on the sea-side in the south, it has woods, it has streams, and tanks, and is in fact a sort of earthly paradise. Buddhabhadra (A.D. 420) calls Kuan-yin mountain Kuangming or 'Brilliance', which is usually given as the rendering for Malaya, but a later translator, ShikShAnanda, transcribes the name Potalaka" (Watters 1905:2.231)

So, having looked up the Avatamsaka Sutra (see previous post for larger excerpts to provide context) to confirm for myself, it

turns out Lokesh Chandra's alleged "direct quote" from the Sutra is a (conveniently) semi-mangled version of what's actually in there:



- the "is in fact a sort of earthly paradise" bit of the line is indeed not part of the text, just as one could surmise. But more importantly



- Potalaka isn't "on the sea-side in the south". It is both "south of" where Veshthila - who directs Sudhana further south - is, AND "it is in the ocean" [implying island] as per Cleary's translation of Shikshananda's 7th century Chinese translation of the Avatamsaka (which translation referred to the name "Potalaka")

The point being, Lokesh has made it sound like the Sutra says that Potalaka is 'at the southernmost area on the seaside', whereas the Sutra merely said that Potalaka was south relative to where Sudhana's previous host Veshthila was, AND that Potalaka is in fact north of the next waystation that Sudhana visits: Dvaravati, which in turn is north of the next waystation "Magadha in Jambudvipa" (being further south still). [And people will need to check the Gandavyuha sutra to find out how many places are further south than that.] <- Now, wasn't all that something that Lokesh should have mentioned - if indeed he were a sholar and not an opportunist out to selectively collect data as will conform to his [Bauddhifying] story?



- even more importantly, Lokesh and his parrot Rajeev (and his numerous parrots on the web) have missed out on the non-earthly sounding bit in the alleged direct quote:

"Mount Potalaka - in the ocean - is MADE OF JEWELS" (plus being "a pure abode of the valiant" enz). Shabarimalai is NOT made of jewels. It's also not in the ocean... Same for Potiyil. Etc.





Quoting from Cleary's translation of the Avatamsaka Sutra (from the early Chinese translation by Shikshananda)

Gandavyuha Sutra section. Again: because it's the only section in the Avatamsaka Sutra that contains all things "Potalaka"



archive.org/stream/AmitabhaSutra/Ganduvyaha%20Sutra_djvu.txt

(prose section, deemed older

"South of here is a mountain called Potalaka, where an enlightening

being named Avalokiteshvara lives. Go ask him how to learn and carry out

the practice of enlightening beings."



(verse section, deemed later

Then Veshthila said in verse,

Go, Sudhana, to Mount Potalaka in the ocean, a pure abode of the valiant,

Made of jewels, covered with trees, scattered with flowers, complete

with gardens, ponds, and streams.

On the mountain the steady, wise Avalokiteshvara dwells for the bene-

fit of the world.

The above section (albeit in Cleary's translation) is the bit of the Avatamsaka Sutra that Lokesh was claiming to refer to. (Thomas Cleary is more reliable because he can actually read and understand Chinese. I seriously doubt Lokesh can. He couldn't even get basic things right.)



For completeness, am providing the other sections of the Avatamsaka sutra mentioning or describing Potalaka (i.e. specifically from Gandavyuha, since that's all that mentions Potalaka in the AS):

(Another prose section, deemed earlier



focusing his attention on the inconceivable action of buddhas, Sudhana

made his way to Mount Potalaka.



Climbing the mountain, he looked around for Avalokiteshvara and saw

him on a plateau on the west side of the mountain, which was adorned with

springs, ponds, and streams, sitting wakefully on a diamond boulder in a

clearing in a large woods, surrounded by a group of enlightening beings

seated on various jewel rocks, to whom he was expounding a doctrine called

"light of the medium of great love and compassion," which concerns the

salvation of all sentient beings.



[...]



(Another verse section, deemed later

Sudhana, well controlled, went south.

On a cliff of a mountain he saw Avalokiteshvara,

the seer who abides in compassion.



On a diamond slope, adorned with jewels,

Sitting on a lion seat in a lotus calyx, the Steadfast,

Surrounded by various creatures and enlightening beings,

Expounds the Teaching to them.

People can decide for themselves whether Lokesh Chandra is being disingenuous or not.



But have already made up my own mind about him: Lokesh is not just 'not a scholar'. He lied for Buddhism* in order to force-fit Potalaka onto Shabarimalai in order to claim Ayyappa/Shabarimalai for Buddhism in order to brainwash modern Hindus into Buddhist claims and make them parrot it on. And he has clearly succeeded. (See two posts back, where everyone on the searchable internet was repeating Lokesh's mangled "direct quote" thanks to his brainwashing Rajeev Srinivasan into being his intermediary.)



* There's No Way that it was "all just an innocent error" by Lokesh. He was demonstrably lying, i.e. consciously: because in his alleged direct quotation from the Avatamsaka Sutra, he has left out all the salient bits ("made of jewels") and mistranslated another/massaged another into a better fit ("on the sea-side" instead of "in the ocean") - that is, he left out the very descriptions that underline how Potalaka is not Shabarimala - nor Podigai/Potiyil nor ANY part of India. [But it could be Treasure Island - well, for those who still insist on taking it as a literal, geographic site, a.o.t. the Buddhist spiritual vision for meditation that it is.]





And just in case the UnScholar Lokesh tries to claim his Avatamsaka direct quote was from some other recension:



- Note that Thomas Cleary (Buddhist himself IIRC and famous translator of Mahayana texts from Chinese and Japanese) is *directly* translating from ShikShananda's Chinese translation (7th century) of the Avatamsaka Sutra. All extant Skt versions of at least the Gandavyuha are IIRC later.

[See www.chibs.edu.tw/ch_html/chbs/10/chbs1011.htm again, which said: "The oldest surviving Sanskrit manuscript is Nepalese and dates from the end of the twelfth century." This may argue for Shikshananda's version being more authoritative/closer to the original descriptions on Potalaka.]



- More importantly, the relevance of ShikShananda's translation to Lokesh Chandra's speculations become clear from Lokesh's own words in his own book:

Citing Watters he admits that Buddhabhadra's (IIRC 5th century) Chinese translation rendered the name of Avalokiteshwara/KuanYin's mountain to Kuang-ming, but that it was the 7th century Shikshananda whose Chinese translation transcribed it as "Potalaka". And since Lokesh's alleged "direct quote" from the Avatamsaka Sutra referred specifically to "Potalaka" and not "Kuangming", Lokesh is likely to be referring to Shikshananda's translation/recension:

Buddhabhadra (A.D. 420) calls Kuan-yin mountain Kuangming or 'Brilliance', which is usually given as the rendering for Malaya, but a later translator, ShikShAnanda, transcribes the name Potalaka" (Watters 1905:2.231)

For version information:



www.chibs.edu.tw/ch_html/chbs/10/chbs1011.htm

[9] The full title of the Avataṃsaka is Mahāvaipulyabuddhāvataṃsakasūtra (Dafangguang fohuayan jing 大方廣佛華嚴經)─“The Great Expanded Sūtra of the Flower Garland of the Buddhas”. There exist three versions of it in Chinese. The earliest one is the Sixty-fascicle Huayan jing translated by Buddhabhadra (Fotuobatuoluo 佛馱跋陀羅) in 418-20; Ru fajie pin is found there in fascicles 44-60 (T 278: 9, 676a-788b). Next, called the Eighty-fascicle Huayan jing was translated by Śikṣānanda (Shichanantuo 實叉難陀) in 695-695; Ru fajie pin is found in fascicles 60-80 (T 279: 10, 319a-444c). The latest version is the Fourty-fascicle Huayan jing translated by Prajñā (Banruo 般若) in 796-798 and consisting only of the Gaṇḍavyūha portion under the subtitle Ru busiyi jietuo jingjie Puxian xingyuan pin (入不思議解脫境界普賢行願品) (T 293: 10, 661a-851c). There exist also two fragmentary translations of the Gaṇḍavyūha. Luomojia jing (羅摩伽經) in three fascicles was translated by śramaṇa Shengjian (聖堅) between 388 and 412 (T 294: 10, 851c-876a,); and Dafangguang fohuayan jing in one fascicle translated by Divakara (Dipoheluo 地婆訶羅) in 680-s (T 295: 10, 876b-878c); the latter, however, does not contain the Avalokiteśvara chapter. The phonetic translation of the title Gaṇḍavyūha－Jiannapiaohe (健拏驃訶)－appears in Fazang’s (法藏) Huayan jing tanxuan ji (華嚴經探玄記) (T 1733: 35,121a) and Chengguan’s (澄觀) Dafangguang fohuayan jing shu (大方廣佛華嚴經疏) (T 1735: 35, 524b) obviously referring to the whole collection of the Avataṃsaka; see also Grohmann 1997: 52. The Eighty-Huayan is translated into English by Thomas Cleary, the Gaṇḍavyūha occupying a separate volume (Cleary 1989).



(Cleary's republication from 1991 or 1993 contains the entire Avatamsaka Sutra in one volume. Which is what I first looked at; the searchable Gandavyuha at the Archives link may be either the 1989 or 1991/3 publication.)



The Chinese title Ru fajie pin is supposed to render Sanskrit *Dharmadhātupraveśanaparivarta (“Chapter of the Entering into the Realm of Dharma”) but no Sanskrit version of the Gaṇḍavyūha under this title has survived. We may only hypothetically presume that the title Dharmadhātupraveśana was used in some earlier versions of the sūtra, circulating in Central Asia as an independent texts, or as a part of a pre-400 C.E. Avataṃsaka recension which was brought to China not later than the beginning of the fifth century, the time from which the first complete translation by Buddhabhadra dates. The subtitle for the Fourty-Huayan─Ru busiyi jietuo jingjie Puxian xingyuan pin─is the rendering of Sanskrit title Acintyavimokṣagocarapraveśanasamantabhadracaryāpraṇidhāna (“Entering into the Area of Inconceivable Liberation and the Vow of the Conduct of Samantabhadra”) under which the sūtra seemingly was circulating in South India from where it was brought to China at the end of the eighth century (see, e.g., Jan 1959). The oldest surviving Sanskrit manuscript is Nepalese and dates from the end of the twelfth century. It bears the title Gaṇḍavyūhasūtra. The most comprehensive English overview of the different Sanskrit versions and Chinese translations of the Gaṇḍavyūha is found in Gómez 1967: xviii-xxxii; see also Hirakawa 1993: 279-282.

Finally:

- Avatamsaka Sutra spoke of a spiritual Buddhist Potalaka. And factually, that's all that the text supports. Potalaka is not - and never was - in the physical geography of India, certainly not at any Hindu sites, be it Shabari, Potiyil or Tirupati or anywhere else. That means that Hsuan Tsang had simply chosen to identify Potalaka with the hearsay descriptions he had received of an Indian Shaiva Hindu temple site (complete with "Ishwara" or "PAshupata Yogin" manifesting, as per the very hearsay relayed by Hsuan-Tsang) and assumed it all "must have" concerned Potalaka/Avalokiteshwara instead.



- Lokesh Chandra is utterly unreliable. The word "fraud" actually comes to mind.

A new low for English-language Indian "scholarship".



- Don't know why other people don't have a habit of looking obviously-shady speculations up in primary sources. Much of it is online, after all. And much of that is available translated. Plus the average search engine places everything at one's fingertips. People can therefore look up various crazy claims for themselves, instead of blindly following along with the priestly class of middle-men playing at being scholars and pretending they can hog access to data.



- I know it's too much to ask modern Hindus to be Hindus and not get subverted by all the blatant subversions that get passed around like the flu, but surely it's not unreasonable to expect people to exercise their judgement and double-check unHindu claims made on Hindu religio-history, instead of ingesting every speculation and parroting it blindly and peddling it about all over the internet. 'Cause that's just environmental pollution of the internet.