Vimalakirti Sutra (Paperback)

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Vimalak rti Nirde a S tra or Vimalak rti S tra is a Mah y na Buddhist s tra. Among other subjects, the sutra teaches the meaning of nonduality. An important aspect of this scripture is that it contains a report of a teaching addressed to both arhats and bodhisattvas by the layman Vimalak rti, who expounds the doctrine of nyat, or emptiness, to them. This culminates with the wordless teaching of silence. Translator Burton Watson argues that the Vimalakirti Sutra was likely composed in India in approximately 100 CE. Vimalak rti is the central figure in the Buddhist Vimalak rti Nirde a S tra, which presents him as the ideal Mahayanist lay practitioner and a contemporary of Gautama Buddha (sixth to fifth century BC). There is no mention of him before his appearance in the eponymous sutra. According to the twelfth chapter, Vimalakirti originally lived in Ak obhya's land of Abhirati.