Saddavimala

Saddavimālā (Lao: ສັດທະວິມະລະ , lit. Purity through Words) is a vernacular Buddhist text preserved in Lao and Khmer manuscript traditions and edited by the French scholar François Bizot together with François Lagirarde. The work is associated with yogāvacara/kammaṭṭhāna meditation lineages of Mainland Southeast Asia and has been used by scholars as evidence for a wider “Southern Esoteric Buddhism.”^[1]

Title and language

The title Saddavimālā appears in Lao and Khmer manuscripts; EFEO projects use the transliteration conventions published in the Bizot–Lagirarde edition.^[2]

Discovery, manuscripts, and edition

Working from Lao and Cambodian sources, Bizot and Lagirarde produced the first critical presentation of the text in 1996 (EFEO). Their edition also notes comparative material from a Northern Thai manuscript tradition.^[1][3]

Contents and themes

Scholars identify passages linking body–syllable visualizations and cosmological schemata typical of yogāvacara/kammaṭṭhāna materials. One study notes the mapping of the five syllables na–mo–bu–ddhā–ya to five Buddhas—an exegetical motif also seen in related traditions.^[4] A brief section near the beginning incorporates the imagery of the “five-branched fig tree,” resonating with other Khmer/Lao yogāvacara texts.^[5]

Relation to yogāvacara / kammaṭṭhāna

Saddavimālā is frequently cited in discussions of the Tai–Khmer kammaṭṭhāna (yogāvacara) tradition documented by Bizot and later scholars, which emphasizes ritualized syllables, diagrams, and internal visualizations alongside standard Theravāda practices.^[6][7]

Scholarship and interpretation

The EFEO volume includes philological studies such as Ole Holten Pind’s analysis of Saddavimālā 12.1–11 and its possible Mūlasarvāstivādin sources.^[8] More recent work situates the text within broader discussions of Dhammakāya-type visualizations and “Southern Esoteric Buddhism.”^[9][10]

See also

• Yogāvacara's manual
• Kammaṭṭhāna
• Theravāda Buddhism
• French School of the Far East