Vimalakirti was a bodhisattva who took the form of a householder and lay practitioner of Buddhism. Despite his incarnation in this form, he is portrayed as possessing a degree of enlightenment surpassing the other bodhisattvas. He is the central character of the Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa Sūtra, the document from which most of the information about him is derived.
Vimalakirti is unique in many respects. He is said to be a contemporary of the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, though he is not mentioned in the written record until much later, after the time of Nagarjuna. He is depicted as a householder and patron of Buddhism who is well-known to both the Buddha and the many bodhisattvas. While it is said that he has 'manifested' wives and children, he has also kept his chastity. He enters brothels and gambling houses (to save those within from their vices), and is never made unclean by entering into such places. He is a shrewd businessman and possesses immense wealth, but is totally unattached to his riches and freely uses it to help the less fortunate. This image of a layperson impossibility complete in the attainment of the Mahayana while still involved in the affairs of the world resonated with the Chinese, especially the literati. Vimalakirti provided an ideal for the lay Buddhist follower to strive for, and suggested that even a man with wealth and family ties could be a spiritual teacher of celestial bodhisattvas. Effectively, the sutra places Vimalakirti above almost all of Buddha's famed disciples and the many bodhisattvas in terms of understanding.
However, the reason for Vimalakirti's skillfulness is also revealed as deriving from his origins in the Buddha Akṣobhya's Pure Land, wherein Vimalakirti once dwelt. He decided to take a birth in the human world in order to lead on sentient beings to liberation - and therefore, the guise of rich householder is one that Vimalakirti only appears to take on for the purposes of teaching, just as he feigns illness at the beginning of the sutra in order to expound the Dharma.
Chinese readers were fascinated with the figure of Vimalakīrti, and it is usually said that he represented a type of religious ideal with which unordained literati could identify. Here was a rich and educated layman who could outperform everyone around him except, of course, the buddhas themselves—in every conceivable form of endeavor. He enjoyed every imaginable privilege, yet used his energies solely for the benefit of the community around him, a type of service that resonated with Confucian social ideals. No doubt the popularity of the scripture in East Asia has something to do with this congruence with indigenous social ideals and the fascination Chinese Buddhists and interested intellectuals had in a figure of such diverse and remarkable talents. We should not overlook the active role local clienteles played in determining the selection of Buddhist texts that were presented for them in Chinese translation—the residents of East Asia were not passive recipients of Buddhist missionary activity, but very proactive consumers.
In contrast to the relative obscurity of this text in India and Tibet, where there is no record of even a single commentary nor even of any art historical imagery based on it, from at least the third century of the common era the Vimalakīrti Sutra became one of the favorites of the East Asian tradition. There are over fifteen hundred depictions of Vimalakīrti and Mañjuśrī in dialogue known from East Asian painting and sculpture traditions, as well as a series of influential commentaries, and innumerable occasional references to the text and its ideas in both religious and secular writings. This is but one example of the manner in
which East Asian Buddhism draws on the universalistic themes developed in the Indian homeland of the religion, even as the overall configurations of the Mahayana in South and East Asia are so profoundly different. (McRae)
Unlike the Avatamsaka Sutra, the Lotus Sutra, Pure Land Sutras or Lankavatara Sutra, the Vimalakirti Sutra never had sufficient influence to produce a distinct school of thought modeled after its teaching. Vimalakirti, for whatever reason, did not seem a suitable figure for worship, even if his actions and lifestyle were exemplary or praiseworthy. He was seen as a worthy ideal to emulate rather than prostrate before. However, it should be noted that Vimalakirti's goal is not to produce more lay disciples, but to convince his audience to undertake the bodhisattva vows and the Mahayana path, which involves abandoning home. Vimalakirti is only able to live within worldly affairs so skillfully because of his accumulated merit and past incarnations, and even goes as far as to suggest that those listening become Hinayanists if that is so suited to their capacities. Despite these factors, Vimalakirti's sutra became one of the most popular by virtue of the fact that it was commonly read an expounded by multiple schools, though simply never as the main scripture. It has particular appeal to the Zen sect, given its "brash humor" and flexibility. Some traditions hold that Layman Pang was Vimalakirti's reincarnation.
Burton Watson argues that the Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa Sūtra was likely authored around 100 CE. A version in the original Sanskrit has been recovered amongs the Chinese government's Potala collection in Tibet. It was translated into Chinese several times, the first being produced in 188 CE.