Summary: History Versus Myth in Man’s Quest for Meaning 148

Author: Sangharakshita
Context: Lecture reflecting on an experience during the 2500th Buddhajayanti year (1956–57), with a deeper meditation on two archetypal figures—Vimalakirti and Manjusri—as representations of history and myth, respectively.

1. Personal and Historical Backdrop

  • 1956–57 was a pivotal year for Sangharakshita, filled with significant events:
    • Lived in Kalimpong, met the Dalai Lama.
    • Encountered the Ambedkarite Buddhist movement after Ambedkar’s death.
    • Founded the Triyana Vardhana Vihara.
    • Participated in Indian government-sponsored Buddhajayanti celebrations, including a journey by special train to Buddhist sites.

2. The Pivotal Encounter: A Chinese Mural

  • At a major exhibition of Asian Buddhist art in New Delhi, Sangharakshita saw a large Tang dynasty mural showing:
    • Manjusri (youthful, radiant Bodhisattva of Wisdom).
    • Vimalakirti (elderly lay sage from the Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra).
  • The mural illustrated their famous encounter, which begins in Chapter 5 of the Vimalakirti Nirdesa.

3. Vimalakirti and Manjusri: The Encounter

  • Manjusri, despite awareness of Vimalakirti’s immense spiritual power, visits him, supported by the Buddha’s “adhisthana” (non-dual spiritual presence).
  • Vimalakirti’s illness is explained as arising from compassion: he suffers because all beings suffer.
  • A deep, paradox-laden dialogue ensues, rich with Mahayana dialectics.

4. Symbolic Roles: Vimalakirti as History, Manjusri as Myth

  • Vimalakirti (History):
    • Concrete, determinate existence in time, space, society.
    • Represents historical realism.
    • Subject to aging, societal role, personal identity.
  • Manjusri (Myth):
    • Timeless, placeless, idealised.
    • Represents archetypal reality, spiritual symbolism, the realm of myth.
    • Eternal youth, radiant with beauty, beyond causality.

5. The Role of Myth

  • Myth is not abstract or clearly defined—it is felt, experienced, lived.
  • Includes symbols, poetry, archetypes, imagination—a realm of undefined meaning.
  • Myth connects with inner aspects of ourselves that history and logic do not reach.

6. The Dialectic as Spiritual Friendship

  • The clash between Manjusri and Vimalakirti is not egoic, but mutual testing.
  • Reflects Blake’s insight: “Opposition is true friendship.”
  • True friendship—especially spiritual friendship—is rigorous, demanding, not indulgent.

7. The Realm of the Mahayana

  • In the Pali Canon, the Buddha is historical: a mendicant in 6th-century BCE India.
  • In the Mahayana, the Buddha becomes transcendental, surrounded by light, teaching timeless truth to infinite beings.
  • Mahayana sutras reflect a dehistoricisation and universalisation of Buddhism, expressing archetypal and spiritual reality.

8. Manjusri’s Origin and Purpose

  • Manjusri emerges from the realm of myth itself.
  • He is not found in early texts but arises naturally as part of the Mahayana vision.
  • His emergence shows the need for symbols and archetypes that spark deep inner responses.

9. Myth as an Inner Mirror

  • Mahayana myth connects us to our deeper nature:
    • Just as the sun is visible because we have “sun-like” faculties, myth is knowable because we have archetypal elements within us.
  • Like in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, visions of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are our own mind’s projections.

10. The Danger of Losing Myth

  • Citing Darwin and John Stuart Mill, Sangharakshita warns of atrophy of imagination due to excessive reliance on science and logic.
  • Blake criticised Newton and Locke for imprisoning the mind in a world of only time, space, and causality.

11. Integration: History and Myth Together

  • The lecture’s conclusion advocates not choosing between history and myth, but integrating both.
  • Man’s quest for meaning is a quest for wholeness: both his concrete, historical life and his inner, symbolic, imaginative life.
  • Final message: “Vimalakirti is Manjusri, and Manjusri is Vimalakirti. Time is eternity. Eternity is time. Rupa is Sunyata. Sunyata is Rupa.”

Core Insight

Meaning arises when we integrate the historical realism of life with the mythic dimension of the soul—when the temporal and the eternal meet within us. Both history and myth are essential aspects of the human quest for self-understanding.