Preacher and Audience: A Look at Select Verses from the Sukhavihāraparivarta

This paper examines the figure of the dharmabhāṇaka (“preacher of the dharma”) and their audience as depicted in the Sukha-vihāra-parivarta (“Chapter on Dwelling in Ease”) of the Saddharma-puṇḍarīka-sūtra (hereafter, Lotus Sūtra), through a close reading of select stanzas from the verse portions of the chapter. Through this study, we will see that these verses have much to say about some aspects of the preacher and their listeners, such as the rhetoric the preacher employs, the subject-matter of their sermons, their style of exegesis, and the circumstances of the dharmabhāṇaka’s delivery. At the same time, we will see that verses leave other aspects implicit, such as questions of the dharmabhāṇaka’s identity, the genres of their preaching, and the specifics of how they interact with audiences. This study thus underscores the ways that some Mahāyāna Buddhist sūtras envisioned their own bearers, transmitters, preachers, and auditeurs.