The Mañjuśrībhāṣita-Vāstuvidyāśāstra:
Reviving a Lost Chapter of Buddhist History
A Promise Made
Venerable Tenzin Lekdron first heard about the Mañjuśrībhāṣita-Vāstuvidyāśāstra text in 1922 while working from Australia.
Through Bertram Liyanage, a scholar friend, she learned of an extraordinary situation: an ancient Sanskrit text attributed to Manjushri had been painstakingly translated by Professor Walter Marasinghe over fifteen years, yet even the part-published work had gone out of print and was largely forgotten. The professor himself was now in his nineties.
Venerable Lekdron acted immediately. She asked her brother Sanjaya to meet Professor Marasinghe and record his story. During that meeting, something remarkable happened. When Professor Marasinghe shared how his life’s work had slipped into obscurity, Sanjaya spontaneously suggested that the copyright be transferred to Venerable Lekdron so a proper new edition could be prepared under the professor’s stewardship.
Venerable Lekdron made the elderly scholar a promise: she would ensure this unique historical document was republished, guaranteeing its place in Buddhist history would not be lost.
A Fifteen-Year Labour
The challenge Professor Marasinghe had undertaken was almost unimaginable. The original fifth- to sixth-century text sat in the Sri Lankan Archives, where it had remained untranslated on palm leaves for centuries. But this was no ordinary translation task. The manuscript was written in an ancient form of Sinhala used to represent the sounds of Sanskrit—in other words, it was a Sanskrit text, but not written in Sanskrit script.
Professor Marasinghe had to accomplish three monumental tasks in sequence: first, work out the ancient Sinhala phonetics; second, determine what Sanskrit words those sounds represented; and third, translate that Sanskrit into English. This painstaking process consumed fifteen years of his life. The first half of his English translation was published in India in 1989.
It’s worth noting that Professor Senarath Paranavitana’s earlier discussion of this text in The Stupa in Ceylon (1971) was largely based on Marasinghe’s draft, though this contribution went uncredited at the time. Marasinghe’s 1990 publication remains the definitive scholarly version known to academia.
Why This Text Matters to the World
The Mañjuśrībhāṣita-Vāstuvidyāśāstra (also called Citrakarmāśāstra) is the only Sanskrit śilpa text of its kind ever found in India or Sri Lanka. Discovered in a Buddhist temple in central Sri Lanka, this work exclusively addresses ancient Buddhist monastic architecture and the art of modeling clay images that adorned monastery image-houses.
Dating to between the fifth and seventh centuries CE, it is clearly a product of the Mahāyāna school, preserving a very early śilpaśāstra tradition that flourished among the Mahāyānists of ancient Sri Lanka. The text discusses ground plans for twenty-four different types of Buddhist monastery, each designed for specific settings—whether in a town, village, royal park, near a river, by the sea, in a forest, or by a highway.
The specifications are remarkably comprehensive, covering site selection and soil testing, suitable trees for each monastic layout, preparation of glues and pigments, correct proportions for carved elephants and horses, instructions for obtaining measurements using plumb lines, auspicious times and materials for construction, consecration rituals, and proper placement of images.
Most remarkably, the text’s stipulations are still being followed by Sri Lankan artisans today, though often without full understanding of the historical and philosophical context. This living connection between ancient text and contemporary practice underscores the publication’s significance.
“Based on Vastu Vidya Sastra ascribed to Manjusri — deciphered & translated by Prof. W. F. W. Marasinghe”: this is a structured attempt to apply this silpa-text to a specific monument. The author, Udula Bandara Awusadahamy, is explicitly using this Sastra in a structured attempt to apply it to a specific monument in Sri Lanka.
Establishing Mahāyāna’s Early Role in Sri Lanka
The text’s greatest scholarly value may lie in what it reveals about Sri Lanka’s contribution to Mahāyāna Buddhism. After India, Sri Lanka made the largest contribution to Sanskrit literature by producing original works, whereas countries like China and Tibet mainly produced translations and commentaries on Indian texts.
As scholar Kellie Powell of UC Berkeley argues, appreciating the vibrant diversity of Sri Lankan Buddhist history helps counter dangerous narratives of Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism. Both Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna Buddhism have long been dismissed as foreign traditions that briefly invaded Sri Lanka but did not survive. The evidence in this text proves that argument is untenable.
The text contains instructions on building and consecrating stupas that closely parallel practices in the Tibetan tradition, establishing a vital connection between Sri Lankan and Tibetan Buddhism. This discovery challenges conventional narratives about the isolation of these traditions and reveals deep historical connections.
A Total Refurbishment
In early 2022, Venerable Lekdron renewed Professor Marasinghe’s enthusiasm for publishing the complete work. She secured sponsors to fund refinement of the translation, supporting months of intensive work by a team of scholars—including the professor’s best Sanskrit students—who carefully revised and refined the English text.
The team came together remarkably quickly. The most extraordinary addition was a Sri Lankan artisan who had been making statues using the Manjusri text. Known to Sanjaya’s wife Bhagiya, who worked at a replica center, this craftsman was recruited to the team. Because he worked with the text’s three-dimensional specifications daily, he was able to correct mistakes Professor Marasinghe had made, as the professor wasn’t familiar with practical 3D measurements.
The completed translation has now been submitted to the publisher and is currently being cross-checked by eminent Sanskrit scholars in preparation for publication.
Finding and Negotiating with the Publisher
Venerable Lekdron found a publisher and negotiated the book’s publication, securing sponsors to underwrite the entire endeavor. Renowned Buddhist publisher Wisdom Publications will be releasing this text. Her brother Sanjaya became instrumental in this effort, coordinating the project with professional expertise and capturing Professor Marasinghe’s wealth of anecdotes on film for posterity.
An Unrepeatable Achievement
This Wisdom edition will likely be the only authoritative version of the Mañjuśrībhāṣita-Vāstuvidyāśāstra ever produced. It is unlikely that anyone will ever again possess both the expertise to decipher ancient Sinhalese phonetics for Sanskrit and the ability to translate that Sanskrit into English. There is no other surviving version of this text anywhere in the world.
The survival of this manuscript is itself remarkable. Due to long-standing rivalry between the Mahāvihāra (the center of Theravāda Buddhism) and the Abhayagiri-vihāra (the Mahāyāna stronghold), nearly all of Sri Lanka’s Sanskrit literature was burned at least three times within a single century. Two kings and a queen associated with King Mahāsena, all adhering to the Theravāda school, destroyed these texts simply because they were written in Sanskrit, the language of the Mahāyāna tradition.
The sole surviving palm-leaf manuscript was preserved at Cakkindārāma, a Buddhist temple in Gampola, likely copied by an artisan who had migrated to central Sri Lanka during the Gampola period’s revival of Mahāyāna tradition in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
An Extraordinary Heirloom for Future Academia
Professor Marasinghe and other professors with deep knowledge of Vajrayāna Buddhism in Sri Lanka are now in their eighties and nineties. Venerable Lekdron, with the help of her brother Sanjaya, has been racing to film interviews with these scholars before this knowledge is lost forever. These recordings preserve their understanding of how Buddhist traditions developed in Sri Lanka, offering evidence-based history that counters simplified nationalist narratives.
This publication represents more than a scholarly achievement. It is a rescue mission—saving not just a text, but an entire dimension of Sri Lankan Buddhist history from oblivion. It stands as a truly Sri Lankan contribution to Mahāyāna Buddhism and a gift to future generations of scholars who will use it to understand the rich, complex, and interconnected history of Buddhism across Asia.
The volume is respectfully dedicated to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso.