Abstract

In the “Chapter on the Benefits to the Performer of the Dharma” in the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka, the Buddha proclaims the many remarkable transformations that will take place in the six sense faculties of the performer of the dharma. An analysis of this chapter clarifies both the sūtra’s normative vision for the performance of the dharmabhāṇaka who announces his sensory enhancements and the nature of the bodily transformations that the sūtra promises to enact upon him as a consequence of his performance. This paper demonstrates that the performed sūtra enacts the interdependent rituals of abhi⋅eka and darśan through verbal practices of impersonation, self-praise, and ontological transformation. In the process, it sheds new light on the self-referentiality of some Mahāyāna sūtras as a form of performed and performative utterance that aims to transform both speakers and listeners. As in other traditions of sensory-somatic transformation through verbal impersonation in ancient South Asia, the ritual-dramatic utterance of the sūtra engenders a manifestation of presence that takes shape in the complex embodied intersections among the “original” speaker, the performer, and the audience.