Source: Nōnin 2011

The "Five Evils" section 五惡段 is found only in the larger Sukhāvatīvyūha ascribed to Zhi Qian 支謙 T362 [which Harrison has argued is actually by *Lokakṣema---MR]; the larger Sukhāvatīvyūha ascribed *Lokakṣema 支婁迦讖 T361 [which Harrison has argued is actually by Zhi Qian---MR]; and the smaller Sukhāvatīvyūha ascribed to 康僧鎧 T360 [which most modern scholars think is by Buddhabhadra and Baoyun---MR]. Thus, it is absent from the Tang (無量壽如來會 T310(5)) and Song versions (大乘無量壽莊嚴經 T363, 大阿彌陀經 T364), as well as from Tibetan and Sanskrit.

Nōnin gives a convenient overview of prior scholarship on the passage, dividing scholars into supporters of the theory that the "Five Evils" section was composed in China (Ogiwara 荻原 1938, Mochizuki 望月 1946, Fujita 藤田 1970) and supporters of the theory that it was a genuine translation from an Indic original (Ikemoto 池本 1958, Sonoda 園田 1960, Shikii 色井 1968). The main reasons adduced by proponents of Chinese composition were the presence of Chinese-sounding ethical theories and concepts, and phraseology. Proponents of Indic origin argued that the section was indispensible to the thought and structure of the text as a whole. The preponderant tendency, according to Nōnin, has been to support Chinese composition. Sueki 末木, in 1980, concluded that there was insufficient evidence to decide the issue either way. Oyama (?} 尾山 suggested in 1983 the passage was a response to the incursions of foreign powers into India, and similar to the kāliyuga thought of the Mahābhārata. Hayashi 林 (1986) sought the roots of the passage in Zoroastrianism. Okayama 岡山 (1991) returned to the idea that the passage was to be explained by tendencies in the Chinese thought of the time. Fujita (2007) argued that there is no necessary basis in Indian literature for the passage; it is missing from manuscripts found in Afghanistan, though immediately preceding passages are present.

Nōnin (2011): argues that the "Five Evils" section was written in China by a process of free exposition by a translator, probably Zhi Qian; but that it had a valid basis in shorter passages in an Indic text. The Sanskrit Sukhāvatīvyūha does contain elsewhere a passage on five "harshnesses" or "blemishes" (kaṣāya) characterising the Sahā world, namely, the depredations visited upon sentient beings by (other) sentient beings, wrong views, passions/defilements, (short) lifespan, and the epoch in which they live (sattvakaṣāya, dṛṣṭikaṣāya, kleśakaṣāya, āyuṣkaṣāya, kalpakaṣāya). The gist of the passage is to praise Śākyamuni for achieving the difficult task of preaching the Dharma in a world with these shortcomings, which make it difficult for sentient beings to receive the message of his teaching. Nōnin argues that the Skt sentence in question strongly resembles a key sentence in the Chinese "Five Evils" section. The resemblance between the rubric of the five kaṣāyas and the "five evils", however, has in part been obscured by an assumption that the five evils correspond point-by-point to the five precepts, which are defences against them; this understanding is so widespread it is even a commonplace in reference works. Nōnin, rather, carefully shows analogies to particular parts of the detailed exposition of each of the "five evils" in passages in Indic works expounding the five kaṣāyas, especially the Bodhisattvabhūmi.

Nōnin therefore suggests that the "five evils" passage has a sound basis in a shorter passage in an Indic text, upon the basis of which someone in China who was familiar with broader Indian ideas about the five kaṣāyas has freely expounded in greater detail in a Chinese style, drawing upon analogous Chinese concepts, to argue that these "evils" should be countered by the antidote of the five precepts. Nōnin suggests that Zhi Qian would be the most likely candidate to have added this passage, given that he demonstrably knew the rubric of the five kaṣāya (Nōnin cites passages in his Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa and Taizi ruiying benqi jing, 4).

Nōnin then has to account for the fact that the passage is missing (from the relevant locus) in the Sanskrit Sukhāvatīvyūha. He argues that the passage "disappeared" 消えた from the text in the course of its transmission, and that its original presence in the earlier text is evidenced by the presence of the "Five Evils" section in the three earliest Chinese translations. He identifies another passage featuring the five kaṣāyas in Skt, which *is* found in the Tang and Song texts, but not in Zhi Qian and *Lokakṣema (a complementary distribution to the "Five Evils" section). This passage is part of a vow that all will be reborn into the Pure Land, *except* bodhisattvas who themselves have vowed to be continually reborn into worlds characterised by the five kaṣāyas. Nōnin proposes that this reflects a shift in the bodhisattva ideal behind the text. In the early period, the default model of the bodhisattva was Śākyamuni, who is born into this Sahā world (a world of the five kaṣāyas) to save other sentient beings. Precisely through the success of the Pure Land ideal, Nōnin argues, the default shifted to the idea of the avaivartika (non-regressing) bodhisattvas, who are also ekajātipratibaddha, or destined to only one further rebirth (in the Pure Land) before final liberation. For this reason, Nōnin supposes, the earlier passage extolling the merits of Śākyamuni, upon which the "Five Evils" section was based, no longer fit the overall worldview of the text, and the passage fell out of later versions.

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