Flipping the Script: Fetters, Prophecies, and Audience Engagement in the _Concentration of Heroic Progress_ and the _Precious Banner_

In his 1965 translation of the _Concentration of Heroic Progress_ (Skt. _Śūraṃgamasamādhisūtra_), Étienne Lamotte noted that the _Concentration_ and the _Precious Banner_ (Skt. _Ratnaketuparivarta_) share some thematic features, pointing particularly to the “the conversion of Māra” (Lamotte, 172 n. 186). This paper follows up on this note toward two ends. Both are to be reached in the same gesture, but the first will largely remain subtextual. First, I want to strengthen Lamotte’s note by showing that these two sūtras share not only thematic features but also an intertextual relationship. More specifically, I propose that the _Precious Banner_ at some point in its textual history became aware (so to speak) of the _Concentration_. My second aim is to show that the _Precious Banner_ differentiates itself from the _Concentration_ in ways that invite us to think about how these texts want audiences to receive them. Whereas the _Concentration_ presents itself as possessing unmediated soteriological power—a capacity to make future-buddhas out of even the most recalcitrant in its audience—the _Precious Banner_ opts to exchange such claims to power for status as a normative authority to which response at the level of persons is necessary.

As Lamotte pointed out so many years ago, the _Concentration_ and the _Precious Banner_ both tell fascinating stories of Māra. What he did not seem to notice, however, is that these two stories are mirror images of one another. The shared inverted story at issue centers on (1) the binding of Māra by a fivefold fetter and (2) the (non)reception of an (un)wanted prophecy to awakening. I tell the stories briefly here.

In the _Concentration_, a host of beings are discussing the _Śūraṃgamasamādhi_ meditation when, at one point, one notices that Māra has not come to disrupt the conversation. The “camera” then pans to Māra, somewhere far away from the assembly, trapped by a fivefold fetter (Skt. _pañcabandhana_) when he thinks to go disrupt the sermon, but freed when he thinks instead to leave the assembly alone. Māra can hear the _Śūraṃgamasamādhi_ being taught despite being so far away. Because of this, the Buddha Śākyamuni says, he will eventually overcome his wicked inclinations. A figure in the audience then goes to visit with Māra. He tells Māra that he could be free from the fivefold fetter if only he would aspire to attain awakening. So, this is what Māra does—though it is clear that he does so only out of self-interest. Freed from the fivefold fetter, Māra then thinks again to disrupt Śākyamuni’s sermon on the _Śūraṃgamasamādhi_. When he arrives at the assembly, however, he receives a prophecy to awakening. Deeply confused, Māra asks why the Buddha gave him a prediction he did not actually want. The prophecy eventually “takes,” so to speak—Māra later willingly gives Śākyamuni his palace for the purpose of teaching the _Śūraṃgamasamādhi_—and this is where Māra’s story in the _Concentration_ ends. 

In the _Precious Banner_, Māra is struggling to hold onto his kingdom as Śākyamuni continues to attract more and more followers. As part of his strategy, Māra dispatches small bands of cosmic māras to seduce the Buddha’s chief disciples away from monastic while the latter are begging for alms in Rājagṛha. But the plan fails. The disciples convert the cosmic māras, who then sit down in the center of Rājagṛha in anticipation of further Dharma talks. Śākyamuni knows that this has happened from outside the city. And to sate them, he causes a gigantic Dharma-emanating lotus to emerge before these cosmic māras. Māra sees and hears the lotus from far off in the distance and resolves to destroy it. He commands his troops to attack, but they do not listen. So, he takes matters into his own hands. He lashes out at the lotus, but he cannot so much as lay a finger on it. Instead, he finds himself stuck in the presence of this lotus—bound by a fivefold fetter. When he thinks to aspire to awakening, he is freed. But when he thinks of retreating to his palace, he is again bound. Eventually, Śākyamuni and a host of other buddhas and bodhisattvas from around the cosmos descend upon Rājagṛha to talk Dharma. Through all this, Māra grows increasingly miserable, powerless, and isolated. But that’s not how things have to be for him. If he would generate a sincere aspiration to attain awakening, Māra is told on more than one occasion, he would be freed from the fivefold fetter and receive a prophecy to awakening he forgot he asked for in a previous life.

These two stories of Māra have different audience reactions in view. The _Concentration_, it seems, presents its eponymous mediation, and thus itself, as a _powerful_ object that confers salvation (in the form of future-buddhahood) on its audiences regardless of how they receive the text in question. The _Precious Banner_, by contrast, opts to present itself as an _authoritative_ object that requires personal response for audiences to receive the promise of salvation on offer.