Fragrant Imagination: The Vimalakirti Sutra as Speculative Fiction

This paper argues that the Vimalakirti Sutra, a 1st-3rd-century Mahayana Buddhist text, can be read as an early example of speculative fiction. Through world-building and narrative devices, it challenges assumptions about embodiment, perception, and reality, and its portrayal of multiple realms pushes against the idea that religious texts must rely on “truth claims” to be meaningful. The sutra also destabilizes normative embodiment through events like a goddess transforming the arhat Shariputra into a woman, challenging gender norms within and beyond Buddhist doctrine. Additionally, it emphasizes sensory perception—particularly smell—offering a model of embodied understanding that resists purely linguistic explanation. These strategies invite students to engage with religion as world-making rather than just doctrine, illustrating how speculative fiction can expand our thinking about embodiment, truth, and religious experience. By reframing the Vimalakirti Sutra as speculative fiction, we can explore religion as a dynamic, imaginative force that resists fixed categories.