Apple_Vimalakirti_copy.pdf

! ! Vimalak!rti James B. Apple University of Calgary Calgary, Alberta jbapple@ucalgary.ca Definition: Legendary bodhisattva figure in the Vimalak!rtinirdea. ! Vimalak!rti is a celebrated legendary bodhisattva most famously known for his teachings and miraculuous activities in the Mahyna scripture called the Vimalak!rtinirdea (‘The Teaching of Vimalak!rti’). The scripture has enjoyed for centuries great popularity among Mahyna Buddhists in India, Central Asia, China, Tibet, and Japan. The Vimalak!rtinirdea is one of the oldest and more famous texts of Mahyna Buddhist literature. Although the central figure of Vimalak!rti is presented as the ideal Mahyna lay practitioner and a contemporary of Gautama Buddha (6th–5th centuries BCE), the Vimalak!rtinirdea was likely composed in India in approximately 100 CE (1, xcviii). Indirect evidence for the presence of Vimalak!rti in ancient northwest Gandhra has been found in a recently identified framentary Gndhr! scroll which describes an encounter between the Buddha and the young son of Vimalak!rti, the licchavikum#ra Sucitti (2, 11). As far as currently known, no mention of Vimalak!rti appears in any text earlier than the s#tra. The Vimalak!rtinirdea is known as the “jewel of the Mahyna s#tras” and exhibits a dramatic narrative, filled with dialogue and miraculous events that ostensively teach the wisdom of emptiness ($nyat#) fused with skill in liberative technique (up#ya) to indicate the inconceivable profundity of ultimate reality (acintyavimok%a) (3, 7). However, the Vimalak!rtinirdea is also a great example of the rhetoric of Mahyna discourse which recreates and relocates authority, legitimacy, and sanctity to overcome traditional forms of Buddhism in To appear in the Encyclopedia of Indian Religions, ed. by Arvind Sharma (Springer, 2015). ! #! order to advocate textualized Mahyna forms of Buddhism in the reading or listening experiences of its audience (4). Although the actual popul