Introduction

i.1The Dwellings of Bodhisattvas is the thirty-eighth of the forty-five chapters in A Multitude of Buddhas. This chapter continues the series of dialogues in A Multitude of Buddhas that take place in Magadha not long after the Buddha’s awakening. It enumerates twenty-three dwelling places of bodhisattvas, giving the names of the bodhisattvas who reside in the first nine while omitting the names of those who reside in the remaining fourteen. Throughout A Multitude of Buddhas, the Buddha Śākyamuni remains silent, and it is through his blessings that other prominent bodhisattvas offer these teachings. The Dwellings of Bodhisattvas and the two preceding chapters are taught by a bodhisattva named King of Mind.

i.2In A Multitude of Buddhas, we find that the Buddha Śākyamuni who lived in our world is just one of countless manifestations of the Buddha Vairocana. Śākyamuni is even referred to as the Buddha Vairocana. Śākyamuni is simultaneously present in various locations in our universe‍—at the Bodhi tree, in the Trāyastriṃśa paradise of Śakra on the summit of Sumeru, in the Yāma and Tuṣita paradises high above Sumeru, and in the highest paradise in the realm of desire, the Paranirmitavaśavartin paradise. Not only is he said to be simultaneously present in all these locations in our own world system, he is also said to be simultaneously present in countless other worlds.

i.3This proliferation of locations connected with the Buddha and his teachings allowed for Buddhist holy sites beyond India to assume greater significance. Notably, along with sites in northern India listed in this chapter we also find sites located in China, Kashmir, Gandhara, and Khaśa, here used as another name for the Central Asian city-state of Khotan that flourished during the first millennium ᴄᴇ. As with other canonical works that feature Khotan, including The Prophecy on Mount Gośṛṅga (Toh 357) and The Quintessence of the Sun (Toh 257), this reflects the importance of Khotan in the spread of Buddhism. It is notable that there are significant parallels between the sacred sites listed here in The Dwellings of Bodhisattvas and those found in the final chapter of The Quintessence of the Sun.

i.4The Dwellings of Bodhisattvas is found in the second of the four volumes of A Multitude of Buddhas in the Degé Kangyur. There is no colophon specific to this chapter, nor a colophon consistent across Kangyurs to the entire text of A Multitude of Buddhas, but it is generally accepted that it was translated by the Tibetan master-translator Yeshé Dé, together with Jinamitra and Surendrabodhi, indicating a translation made under Tibetan imperial sponsorship in the late eighth or early ninth century. This dating is confirmed by the fact that it is listed in both the Denkarma (Tib. ldan dkar ma) and Phangthangma (Tib. ’phang thang ma) imperial catalogs. While the colophons of the Narthang, Lhasa, Stok Palace, Ulaanbaatar, and Phukdrak Kangyurs mention only that the text was edited by Vairotsana, the catalog (Tib. dkar chag) of the Degé Kangyur mentions the three translators as above, but adds that Lochen Vairotsana acted as the editor.

i.5The Dwellings of Bodhisattvas is unavailable in Sanskrit, but is preserved in Chinese and Tibetan translation. A complete English translation of A Multitude of Buddhas has been published by Thomas Cleary based on Śikṣānanda’s Chinese version, with the English title The Flower Ornament Scripture.

i.6This, to our knowledge, is the first English translation from Tibetan. It was made from the Tibetan text in the Degé Kangyur, in consultation with the versions found in the Stok Palace Kangyur, the Lhasa Kangyur, and the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma).