Vimalakīrti

Vimalakīrti is the lay bodhisattva-hero of the Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa, a Mahāyāna sūtra (composed in the early centuries CE) in which a wise householder out-teaches the Buddha's leading monastic disciples, dramatizing the Mahāyāna ideal that deep realization is not confined to the monastery. He is a literary and scriptural figure, not a historical person, and is included here only as a descriptor so the name is correctly understood and not mistaken for a biography.