Manjusri and the Cult of the Celestial Bodhisattvas

文殊師利與神聖菩薩崇拜

何離巽(Paul M. Harrison)

《中華佛學學報》 13期(下) (2000/05) Pp. 102-126

https://doi.org/10.6986/CHBJ.200005.0102

摘要

菩薩理想很顯然地是大乘佛教教理與修行的核心，但是它的歷史發展在許多方面仍然晦澀不明。為了嘗試注入些許光明，本文試著檢視「神聖菩薩」（celestial bodhisattva）的概念。雖然這個用語在當代佛教學術界似乎頗為流行，但是到底它有效嗎？或真的有意義嗎？它能與佛教固有的分類相對應嗎？審視在西元二世紀末由大月氏的支婁迦讖（Lokaksema）最早翻譯成中文的大乘經，深入探究其中描畫文殊師利的細節，而祂可說是所謂「神聖菩薩」的典型範例。研究結果，證明在這些經典中，文殊師利扮演了一個非常重要的角色，而觀世音則相對地並不存在。以文殊師利為例，本文結論認為「神聖菩薩」不是一個有效的觀念，而且也沒有一個明確的傳統對應用語。本文也針對菩薩理想的早期歷史與大菩薩崇拜做了一些推論，依本文資料證明，大菩薩崇拜是屬於稍後及第二階段的發展。

關鍵字

文殊師利 ； 神聖菩薩 ； 大乘 ； 支婁迦讖

並列摘要

While it is clear that the bodhisattva ideal lies at the very heart of Mahayana Buddhist doctrine and practice, in many respects its historical development remains obscure. In an attempt to shed some light on this, the following paper examines the notion of the ＂celestial bodhisattva.＂ Although this notion enjoys a wide currency in contemporary Buddhist scholarship, it is appropriate to ask whether it is at all useful, or indeed meaningful, and whether it corresponds to any indigenous Buddhist category. Focusing on the first Mahayana sutras translated into Chinese by the Indo-Scythian Lokaksema in the late 2nd century C.E., the paper explores the details of their portrayal of Manjusri, who may be regarded as a paradigmatic case of a so-called celestial bodhisattva. It turns out that in these texts Manjusri plays a very important part, while Avalokitesvara is a comparative non-entity. Using Manjusri as a test case, the paper concludes that the concept of the ＂celestial bodhisattva＂ is not a useful one, and has no clear indigenous referent. It also offers some general hypotheses about the early history of the bodhisattva ideal, and about the cult of the great bodhisattvas, which appears on the basis of the evidence reviewed here to have been a later and secondary development.

並列關鍵字

Manjusri ； Celestial Bodhisattva ； Mahayana ； Lokaksema

參考文獻

佛說放缽經。

Gombrich, Richard(1990).The Buddhist Forum 〈Vol. 1〉.

Snellgrove, David(1986).The Encyclopedia of Religion.