STEPHANIE BALKWILL 65
eventually deliver once questioned by some unwitting disciple, or
even high-level bodhisattva, about the female body in which they
currently appear. Despite being infants and children, the female
protagonists in these texts speak with the rhetorical skill of buddhas,
and they use this skill to debate the Buddha’s foremost disciples on
the empty nature of all reality, including, but not limited to, physical
sex. In such conversations, their own small bodies bear the incred-
ible burden of locating the profound lesson that they all want to
teach: physical sex, like all dharmas, is absolutely void of inherent,
permanent, nonchanging existence. The raison d’être shared by all of
these texts is the discussion of the very existence of the body of the
protagonist itself; advanced, supernatural, young, and female, the
much-discussed body and the long bodhi tenure it manifests is the
teaching mechanism of choice for the protagonist, arming her with a
physical manifestation of her argument that all forms are empty, and,
as such, equal and nondifferentiated. To be sure, though the protag-
onists in texts like The Sutra of the Girl Marvelous Wisdom appear
in female forms, what they teach to the assembly is that their form
is truly formless, and only the limited understanding of the Bud-
dha’s disciples prevents them from understanding this abstruse truth.
More than questioning Shakyamuni about the path of the bodhisat-
tva, teaching this lesson to his most advanced disciples seems to be
why they appear among his assembly.
Let’s return to the story of Marvelous Wisdom to see how she
uses her small body as a mechanism for teaching. In the story, Man-
jushri, “prince of the dharma,” asks Marvelous Wisdom about her
vow to save all beings, a line of questioning that ultimately, but
rather obliquely, arrives at a question about her own religious attain-
ment. He asks, “In what dharma did you reside when giving rise
to this sincere vow?” Marvelous Wisdom rebuts with, “Manjushri!
Your question is false! Why? Because in the dharma realm there
is no place to reside.” In response, Manjushri refines his question:
“What is it that is called ‘bodhi’?” Marvelous Wisdom responds,