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What is the role and symbolism of the goddess who appears in the sutra?
The radiant earth-goddess who bursts forth beneath Vimalakirti’s couch is nothing short of a cosmic mic drop. Towering hundreds of feet, she reminds that true wisdom isn’t confined to monastery walls or ascetic robes—she embodies the seamless dance of form and emptiness. When celestial bodhisattvas debate detachment as if it were a lofty theory, her very arrival turns the tables: wisdom isn’t a dry concept; it’s alive, pulsing through every grain of soil.
Symbolically, she channels Prajñāpāramitā, the “Perfection of Wisdom” often portrayed as the universal mother of all Buddhas. Her emergence underscores how the feminine principle—intuition, creativity, compassionate embrace—must stand side by side with disciplined insight. Just as modern movements champion diversity of voices, her appearance shatters any notion that enlightenment is one-dimensional. Beauty and power spring from the earth, not from some distant, ethereal realm, and she urges everyone to recognize that our everyday world already brims with awakened potential.
Her speech to the assembled bodhisattvas reads like a wake-up call: avoiding attachment isn’t about burying oneself under layers of doctrine, but about seeing through duality and living with effortless fluidity. In today’s climate of sharp divides—political, social, even environmental—her message rings louder than ever: embrace unity-in-diversity, honor the wisdom that comes from roots as much as from soaring intellect.
When she returns beneath the earth, it isn’t a vanishing act but a reminder that the ground of being holds boundless insight. Every step on dusty paths, every breath drawn under open skies, can be a ceremony of non-duality. The goddess offers both a mirror and a promise: the sacred and the mundane are two sides of the same coin, spinning in unison.