Introduction

i.1The Stem Array (Gaṇḍa­vyūha) is a unique sūtra in that most of its narrative takes place in South India, far from the presence of the Buddha. It follows the journey of the young Sudhana from teacher to teacher, or kalyāṇamitra (literally “good friend”), beginning with his meeting Mañjuśrī when that bodhisattva came to South India. Another unique characteristic is that Sudhana’s teachers include children, non-Buddhists, a courtesan, merchants, and so on, among them a number of women. His teachers are both humans and deities, including eight night goddesses around the Bodhi tree and the forest goddess of Lumbinī, the birthplace of the Buddha. These teachers are often described as having received teachings from numerous other buddhas. For example, the bhikṣu Sāgara­megha describes how he received, from a buddha who appeared out of the ocean, teachings that would take more than a kalpa to write out. The kalyāṇamitras are described as having realizations and miraculous powers that test the limits of the imagination.

i.2The Gaṇḍa­vyūha forms the forty-fifth and final chapter of the Buddhāvataṃsaka (A Multitude of Buddhas) Sūtra, where it is called a “chapter” rather than a “sūtra.” According to the Degé colophon, the previous forty-four chapters form six sections, or sūtras, of the Avataṃsaka, with the Gaṇḍa­vyūha as the seventh sūtra. In his sixteenth-century survey of the major sūtras, Pekar Zangpo (pad dkar bzang po) divides the first group of chapters into two, so that the Gaṇḍa­vyūha is the eighth section of the Buddhāvataṃsaka. The Gaṇḍa­vyūha is one of the four sections that consist of a single sūtra, but it is by far the longest sūtra or chapter, comprising about a third of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra.

i.3In the Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra, the Buddha Śākyamuni never speaks: all the teachings in the forty-five chapters of the Avataṃsaka are given by others. In the first forty-four chapters or sūtras this is done in the Buddha’s presence. The Gaṇḍa­vyūha is unique in that most of this lengthy chapter takes place far from his presence, with other buddhas being presented as the sources of teachings received by the kalyāṇamitras whom Sudhana meets. However, the previous chapters of the Avataṃsaka have already presented the view that various buddhas are manifestations of the Buddha Vairocana, and it is by the name Vairocana that Śākyamuni is referred to in this sūtra.

i.4The previous forty-four chapters of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra take place during the two weeks after the Buddha’s enlightenment, at which time he sits in silence under the Bodhi tree yet is simultaneously present, still in silent meditation, in other locations throughout our universe: the Trāyastriṃśa paradise of Indra on the summit of Sumeru , the Yāma and Tuṣita paradises high above Sumeru , and the highest paradise in the realm of desire‍—the Para­nirmita­vaśa­vartin paradise. Bodhisattvas congregate around him, inspired by his presence to give such teachings as the Daśa­bhūmika Sūtra (Ten Bhūmi Sūtra), which is taught by the bodhisattva Vajragarbha in the Para­nirmita­vaśa­vartin paradise. The Daśa­bhūmika Sūtra had a great influence on the development of Buddhism, eclipsing the previous seven bhūmis of the Prajñāpāramitā (Perfection of Wisdom) sūtras.

i.5The Gaṇḍa­vyūha, on the other hand, begins with the Buddha in silent meditation in his Jetavana Monastery in Śrāvastī, where he spent most of his summer retreats. Human pupils are gathered around him along with a multitude of bodhisattvas that his human pupils are not advanced enough to perceive. While the Buddha sits silently in meditation, the bodhisattva Samanta­bhadra gives a teaching to the assembled bodhisattvas. The bodhisattva Mañjuśrī leaves the assembly for South India, and, rather than continuing to describe events and teachings in the presence of the Buddha, the sūtra follows Mañjuśrī to South India, where he meets Sudhana, and the narrative then follows Sudhana for the rest of the long sūtra. Although the beginning of the sūtra is set at a time later than that of the Buddha’s enlightenment, further on, in the night-goddess chapters, the Buddha is depicted as being present under the Bodhi tree. There are other temporal anomalies: the bodhisattva Maitreya, in the chapter where Sudhana meets him, is portrayed as being on earth and not yet passed away to be reborn in Tuṣita, even though he is said in the Māyādevī chapter, as is generally said in other Buddhist sources, to be already present in Tuṣita. Māyādevī, the Buddha’s mother, appears to Sudhana in Kapilavastu, the Buddha’s hometown, even though she is traditionally said to have passed away shortly after the Buddha’s birth and been reborn as a male deity in the Trāyastriṃśa paradise.

i.6The sūtra primarily describes (in successive long compounds in Sanskrit) both the inner qualities and the external displays of miraculous powers that have been attained by the various kalyāṇamitras whom Sudhana meets. It concludes with the bodhisattva Samanta­bhadra composing the Samanta­bhadra­caryā­praṇidhāna (“The Prayer for Completely Good Conduct”), which is regularly recited by contemporary Tibetan Buddhists.

Indian Origins of the Sūtra

i.7Mahāyāna sūtras first appeared through the medium of revelations after the tradition of written sūtras had developed. These sūtras appeared in various Buddhist traditions and in various locations. Mahāyāna sources show doctrinal similarities to the Mahāsāṃghika tradition. The Mahāsāṃghika was especially prevalent in southwest India, and a substantial number of Mahāyāna sūtras have indications of a South Indian provenance, with passing references to South Indian music, or, to take the Samādhirāja Sūtra as just one example, to a prominent South Indian personage, in this case the ṛṣi Ananta. Similarly, much of the Gaṇḍa­vyūha Sūtra takes place in South India, depicting teachers who appear to operate independently of Buddhist communities in the north. Douglas Osto echoes Qobad Afshar in suggesting that the site of Dhanyākara referenced in the Gaṇḍa­vyūha is in fact Dhānyakaṭaka/Dharaṇi­koṭa, an ancient city that existed on the banks of the Kṛṣṇa River in the southern region of Andhra. This place, Afshar and Osto believe, was probably where the Gaṇḍa­vyūha was first composed.

i.8In terms of its language, the Sanskrit of the Gaṇḍa­vyūha Sūtra has numerous nonclassical Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit (BHS) features and vocabulary. This is especially true of the verses, which are less prone to revision to Classical Sanskrit than the prose. It is frequently the case that the verses in a sūtra are older than the prose that accompanies them, or they at least retain the original form of the language in which the sūtra was composed. In the Gaṇḍa­vyūha, they favor the -u ending for the nominative case, where it would be -a in Sanskrit, -e in the ancient northeastern dialect, and -o in that of the northwest (and its continuation in Pali). The difference between these two kinds of Sanskrit is not evident in the Tibetan or the English translations.

i.9Concerning the relative chronology of the Gaṇḍa­vyūha, chapter 41 makes a clear reference to the Satyaka Sūtra (formally known as The Teaching of the Miraculous Manifestation of the Range of Methods in the Field of Activity of the Bodhisattvas), which describes a Jain master by the name of Satyaka , who advises a king on the polity of rulership and is eventually revealed by the Buddha to be a bodhisattva who takes on various forms in order to benefit beings. The Satyaka Sūtra briefly presents the single-yāna view that was expounded in The Lotus Sūtra, but it goes further by stating that all religious traditions in India occur through the blessing of the Buddha and are therefore included within the single yāna. This view of the Satyaka Sūtra is crucial for understanding one of the surprising elements in the Gaṇḍa­vyūha Sūtra‍—some of Sudhana’s teachers do not appear to be following a Buddhist path. There is the ṛṣi Bhīṣmottara­nirghoṣa, who is teaching young brahmins; and Jayoṣmāyatana, who is following the non-Buddhist ascetic practice of “the five heats” (sitting amid four fires under the noonday sun); and there is even Mahādeva, also known as Śiva. Therefore, in terms of the succession of sūtras, it would appear that the Gaṇḍa­vyūha postdates both The Lotus Sūtra (though not necessarily its later chapters) and the Satyaka Sūtra.

i.10The depiction of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara in the Gaṇḍa­vyūha is surprising in that he is presented as an apparently human guru living on the Potalaka Mountain in South India, with no mention of his association with Amitābha’s pure realm of Sukhāvatī, where earlier sūtras locate him. The Potalaka Mountain was an important place of pilgrimage for both the Buddhists and Śaivites of South India, as the abode of both Śiva, who was known as Lokeśvara (Lord of the World), and Avalokiteśvara. This earthly abode of Avalokiteśvara, in Tibet known as the Potala Mountain, would become prominent in Tibetan and Chinese Buddhism, as evidenced by the Potala Palace in Lhasa and Mount Putuo Island in China.

i.11The Gaṇḍa­vyūha Sūtra first existed in India as an independent sūtra and still exists as an independent sūtra in Sanskrit manuscripts. The successive Chinese translations reveal a gradual growth in the contents of the sūtra, with the addition of more teachers in the Indian version before its eventual translation into Tibetan. Even so, the number of kalyāṇamitras met by Sudhana is still smaller than the number that Maitreya, toward the end of the sūtra, proclaims that Sudhana has met on his journeys‍—110.

i.12There was an Indian version longer than the one that was translated into Tibetan, though no Sanskrit manuscript of this version has survived. It is known only from the version sent to China by the king of Orissa, who gave a copy to the Chinese emperor in 795. This version was translated by the Kashmiri monk Prajñā in 798, two or three decades before the Tibetan translation was made. The Chinese translations also indicate that the Gaṇḍa­vyūha had a different title in the seventh century, which can be reconstructed from the Chinese 入法界品 (Ru fa jie pin) as Dharma­dhātu­praveśana (Entry into the Realm of the Dharma).

i.13Earlier versions concluded with the Maitreya chapter. The Mañjuśrī and Samanta­bhadra chapters were added subsequently, and finally the sixty-two-verse “Prayer for Completely Good Conduct,” which has continued to exist as an independent text, was added as the sūtra’s conclusion. This prayer was translated into Chinese in a forty-four-verse version by Buddhabhadra in the early fifth century. Amoghavajra’s (705–74) eighth-century Chinese translation of the prayer has sixty-two verses because of the addition of fifteen verses on Amitābha. This longer version appeared as the conclusion of the Buddhāvataṃsaka in the translation into Chinese made in 798 and in the early ninth-century translation into Tibetan. “The Prayer for Completely Good Conduct,” particularly its first twelve verses, is regularly recited in Tibetan Buddhism, and it also exists independently in the Kangyur with an additional concluding verse.

i.14There are no surviving Sanskrit manuscripts of the Gaṇḍa­vyūha from the first millennium, but there is a complete Sanskrit text that dates to 1166 ᴄᴇ, three hundred years later than the Tibetan translation. It consists of 289 palm-leaf pages and was sent from Nepal to the Royal Asiatic Society in London by Brian Houghton Hodgson (1800–1894) in the early nineteenth century. Cataloged as Hodgson 2 (A), this is the earliest extant Sanskrit manuscript of the Gaṇḍa­vyūha. The Sanskrit Buddhist tradition has continued in Nepal, where the Gaṇḍa­vyūha remains one of the nine central works of Newar Buddhism.

The Gaṇḍa­vyūha Sūtra in China

i.15The Gaṇḍa­vyūha Sūtra was first translated into Chinese as an independent text by a monk named Shengjian sometime between 388 and 408 ᴄᴇ. In that translation there are only twenty-five kalyāṇamitras. Compared to the extant Sanskrit version, the first nine kalyāṇamitras after Mañjuśrī and those after the thirty-fourth are not present. Therefore, it may represent an unfinished translation or an earlier form of the sūtra, or both.

i.16Not long afterward, in 420, Buddhabhadra (359–429 ᴄᴇ), an Indian monk who had migrated to China, translated with his team the entire Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra, which at that time was composed of thirty-four chapters with the Gaṇḍa­vyūha Sūtra as the final chapter. Buddhabhadra’s translation contains not only additional chapters when compared to Shengjian’s translation, but also additional verses and passages within the chapters.

i.17Interestingly, the Indian monk Paramārtha (499–569 ᴄᴇ), who flourished not long after Buddhabhadra’s time, refers to the Buddhāvataṃsaka as a Bodhisattva­piṭaka (“basket” or “collected teachings for bodhisattvas”). This is echoed by a copy of this sūtra found in the Mogao Caves at Dunhuang, which bears the title Bodhisattva­piṭaka Buddhāvataṃsaka. While the presently available Sanskrit does not give the title Bodhisattva­piṭaka , the Tibetan colophons feature this designation, though the sense of it shifts depending on the given colophon’s grammar, which may suggest that there was some confusion among Tibetan scholars about the term’s significance.

i.18The Buddhāvataṃsaka had grown even further in size by the time of its translation into Chinese under the direction of the Khotanese Śikṣānanda (于闐國實叉難陀, 652–710 ᴄᴇ). This was made between 695 and 699 ᴄᴇ and had an additional five chapters, with the Gaṇḍa­vyūha Sūtra still in final place as the thirty-ninth chapter. The translation of the Gaṇḍa­vyūha in this version varies little from that of Buddhabhadra, with a few exceptions: the final two verses of the Veṣṭhila section have been added, Avalokiteśvara’s mountain is now named Potalaka rather than Prabha, and a short verse greeting appears in the final section.

i.19Śikṣānanda’s version of the Buddhāvataṃsaka became the basis for the Huayan school of Chinese Buddhism, huayan being the Chinese translation of avataṃsaka as “flower garland,” and it is Śikṣānanda’s version that was translated by Thomas Cleary into English as The Flower Ornament Scripture. In Śikṣānanda’s Chinese, the title of the Gaṇḍa­vyūha Sūtra was 入法界品 (Ru fa jie pin), which could have come from the Sanskrit Dharma­dhātu­praveśana­parivarta and in English could be translated as The Chapter on Entering the Realm of the Dharma. Thomas Cleary translated this as Entry into the Realm of Reality, while Douglas Osto translated it as Entry into the Realm of Dharma, and Patrick Carré as l’Entrée dans la dimension absolue (“Entry into the Absolute Dimension”). The term dharma­dhātu­praveśana does occur in the text, as for example in verse 44 of chapter 1.

i.20There is a longer version of the Gaṇḍa­vyūha Sūtra that was translated into Chinese as an independent sūtra in 798 by the Kashmiri monk Prajñā. This was the first among the Chinese translations to include “The Prayer for Completely Good Conduct.” Prajñā’s translation was based on a Sanskrit manuscript that the king of Orissa sent as a gift to the Chinese emperor, who received it in 795. The additions in Prajñā’s version are not found in any surviving Sanskrit edition, nor are they found in the early ninth-century Tibetan translation made just a few decades after Prajñā’s translation. In Prajñā’s translation the Gaṇḍa­vyūha Sūtra is called The Vow Concerning the Course of Conduct of Samanta­bhadra and the Entry into the Range of Inconceivable Liberation (入不思議解脫境界普賢行願品, Ru bu si yi jie tuo jing jie pu xian xing yuan pin), which could be reconstructed in Sanskrit as Acintya­vimokṣa­gocara­praveśana­samanta­bhadra­caryā­pranidhāna).

i.21As mentioned, the Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra became the basis for the Chinese Huayan school of Buddhism. Li Tongxuan (635–730 ᴄᴇ) was particularly influential in the spread of this tradition, and he wrote a commentary (華嚴論, Huayan lun) on the Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra, in which he identifies a deeper structure and meaning in the Gaṇḍa­vyūha’s narrative, and that part of Li Tongxuan’s commentary has been translated into French by Patrick Carré. Li also composed a summary of that commentary and a chapter-by-chapter synopsis of the Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra itself. This tradition spread to Korea and Japan, where it became, respectively, the Hwaeom and Kegon schools of Buddhism.

Gaṇḍa­vyūha and Borobudur

i.22The Gaṇḍa­vyūha Sūtra, and in particular its Maitreya chapter, was an inspiration for what is arguably the greatest Buddhist monument ever built: Borobudur in Indonesia. This was built in the ninth century by the Buddhist kings of the Śailendra dynasty in Java. The massive structure has a series of encircling terraces that hold 504 statues and 2672 carved panels. The upper terraces, the third and fourth galleries, are entirely dedicated to the Gaṇḍa­vyūha, with 460 panels illustrating the sūtra. Of these, it appears that 218 panels are dedicated to the Maitreya chapter, and from among those twenty are dedicated to the description of Maitreya’s kūṭāgāra and thirty-five to the various manifestations of Maitreya. In fact, 334 panels are dedicated to the conclusion of the Gaṇḍa­vyūha: Maitreya, the brief return to Mañjuśrī, Samanta­bhadra, and the “Prayer of Good Conduct.” This reflects the importance of the Gaṇḍa­vyūha and particularly of Maitreya’s kūṭāgāra‍—an edifice that embodied enlightenment‍—for the constructors of Borobudur, who were also trying to create an edifice that embodied enlightenment.

i.23Although the number of accounts of Sudhana meeting kalyāṇamitras grew in succeeding recensions, they did not reach the number given in the sūtra itself in chapter 54, where Maitreya states that Sudhana, following his initial meeting with Mañjuśrī, has visited 110 kalyāṇamitras. Borobudur, possibly to accord with that statement, does have that number of panels dedicated to the illustration of that part of the Gaṇḍa­vyūha, but even so it does not represent 110 kalyāṇamitras but instead repeats the illustration of certain visits, in addition to portraying Sudhana traveling and depicting incidents in past lives of the kalyāṇamitras.

The Gaṇḍa­vyūha Sūtra in Tibet

i.24The Buddhāvataṃsaka as translated into Tibetan is composed of forty-five chapters and 115 fascicles, with the Gaṇḍa­vyūha Sūtra still retaining its position as the last of the chapters. According to the Degé Kangyur, the entire Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra, including the Gaṇḍa­vyūha, was translated into Tibetan by Yeshé Dé, Jinamitra, and Surendrabodhi, which would have been during the reign of King Senalek (r. ca. 800/804–15) or King Ralpachen (r. 815–36). Yeshé Dé and Jinamitra had been working at Samyé Monastery since the reign of King Trisong Detsen (r. 742–98), but Surendrabodhi appears to have come to Tibet after Senalek, Trisong Detsen’s youngest son, became king. Senalek was in turn succeeded by his son Ralpachen, the end of whose reign also saw the end of state-sponsored translation. Therefore, this translation appears to have been made sometime between 800 and 836, but it may incorporate even earlier translation work, particularly in the case of the Gaṇḍa­vyūha.

i.25By the time of the sūtra’s translation into Tibetan at the beginning of the ninth century, the number of chapters in the Avataṃsaka Sūtra had increased from thirty-nine to forty-five. But this is primarily because of the division in Tibetan of what is the Chinese chapter 5 into chapters 5 through 9, with some additional material, and the additional chapters 11 and 32. This Tibetan translation provides the earliest indication of when the forty-fifth chapter was named Gaṇḍa­vyūha.

i.26According to Tashi Wangchuk, who wrote the colophon to the eighteenth-century Degé edition, and also according to the historian Ngorchen Könchok Lhundrup (1497–1557), the Buddhāvataṃsaka is composed of seven sūtras or sections, while Pekar Zangpo divides the first of these into two, making eight sections.

i.27Whereas the Chinese version of the Buddhāvataṃsaka retained the traditional beginning of the Gaṇḍa­vyūha Sūtra as an independent sūtra, commencing with “Thus did I hear…” and so on, the version translated into Tibetan omits it, as do the surviving Sanskrit versions.

i.28The Gaṇḍa­vyūha Sūtra, which in Tibetan is interpreted to mean, ambiguously, The Stem Array Sūtra, is the forty-fifth and last chapter in the Tibetan version of the Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra, which is made up of four volumes as found in the Degé Kangyur. This chapter is by far the longest, beginning halfway through the third volume and occupying the entire fourth volume of the Buddhāvataṃsaka. It is composed of 72 of the 115 fascicles that make up the entire sūtra, beginning with fascicle 44 (the twenty-fourth in volume Ga). Fascicles refer to the bundles of pages in the original Sanskrit manuscripts, usually joined up through two holes in the center of each page. In this translation the beginning of a fascicle is simply marked with the letter B (from the Tibetan for fascicle: bam po) and a number, for example, [B24].

i.29The quality of the Tibetan translation differs from the rest of the Buddhāvataṃsaka, either because of scribal corruption or choices of translation. The Tibetan has peculiarities not shared with all other parts of the Avataṃsaka. For example, it retains the archaic spelling of myi and myed instead of mi and med. The translation is less reliable than usual, as it contains frequent, possibly inadvertent omissions and misspellings that must have occurred early in the scribal transmission, as some of these errors in the sūtra are found in all Kangyurs.

i.30It also exhibits a certain idiosyncrasy of translation, in that the terms may not match what was established in the Mahāvyutpatti (bye brag tu rtogs par byed chen po) and Madhya­vyutpatti (sgra sbyor bam po gnyis pa), the early ninth-century Sanskrit–Tibetan dictionaries produced within the same state-sponsored translation project responsible for the translation of this sūtra. For example, vyūha is regularly translated as rgyan (“adornment”) instead of bkod pa (“array”), even in the title of the sūtra, in spite of its being generally known in Tibetan as sdong po bkod pa. These and other variations of the title are touched upon in the Avataṃsaka’s editorial colophon in the Degé Kangyur (c.­10).

i.31According to that colophon, this edition of the Avataṃsaka was prepared in 1722. This was eight years before the eighth Tai Situpa Chökyi Jungné (1700–1774) began his work as chief editor of the Degé Kangyur. He states in his account of the creation of the Kangyur: “I began in the Iron Dog year,” which was 1730, and the carving and printing of the Degé woodblocks did not begin until 1737 and was completed in 1744. It was nevertheless done under the command of the Degé King Tenpa Tsering (1678–1738), as was the entire Degé Kangyur, and therefore may be an earlier edition that Situ incorporated into his edition of the Kangyur. The colophon also states that it was based on the Lithang Kangyur, also known as the Jangsa Tham Kangyur. The creation of this Kangyur took five years, from 1609 until 1614. The Lithang was the second printing of the Kangyur, which otherwise only existed in manuscript form. The first printing was the Yongle in 1411.

i.32The colophons of the Narthang, Lhasa, Stok Palace, and some other Kangyurs ascribe the editing, or perhaps revision, of the Buddhāvataṃsaka to a Vairocana­rakṣita: “Lotsawa Vairocana­rakṣita was the chief editor and established the text.” The great Sakya master Ngorchen Könchok Lhundrup also mentions Vairocana­rakṣita’s involvement.

i.33The long note by the Degé editor after the colophon states, “It is taught that Surendrabodhi and Vairocana­rakṣita acted as chief editors for a Chinese translation.” As the Indian master Surendrabodhi came to Tibet during the reign of King Senalek (ca. 800/804–15), the identity of this Vairocana­rakṣita is a mystery, as he could not be the eleventh-century translator Vairocana­rakṣita, nor could he be the eighth-century Vairocana. Tashi Wangchuk adds, “I have not seen any histories or texts that recount translation work done by lotsawas or paṇḍitas other than those listed in the colophon here,” thus apparently rejecting the attribution of Vairocana­rakṣita as the editor.

Translations into Western Languages

i.34The Gaṇḍa­vyūha Sūtra was translated into German from Buddhabhadra’s Chinese version by Dōi Torakazu as Das Kegon Sutra, Das Buch vom Eintreten in den Kosmos der Wahrheit in 1978.

i.35The entire Avataṃsaka Sūtra has been translated from the Chinese by Thomas Cleary and published in 1993 as The Flower Ornament Scripture. The Gaṇḍa­vyūha Sūtra is therefore included as the final chapter, chapter 39, under the title “Entry into the Realm of Reality.”

i.36The Śikṣānanda version has been translated from the Chinese into French by Patrick Carré. There is as yet no translation of the longest Chinese version, which was translated by the Kashmiri Prajñā in 798.

i.37There have been partial unpublished translations from the Sanskrit by Mark Allen Ehman in 1977 and Yuko Ijiri in 2005.

i.38Douglas Osto has translated the first part of chapter 1 and chapters 3, 54, and 55 from the Sanskrit of the Gaṇḍa­vyūha, with its title given as The Supreme Array. They are available to read on his website. He has also included excerpts from other chapters of the sūtra in his book Power, Wealth and Women in Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism: The Gaṇḍa­vyūha-sūtra.

The Meaning of the Title as Translated into Tibetan

i.39As mentioned above, the sūtra’s title in Chinese translations differs from that in Tibetan, and it was evidently known by other names in earlier centuries. By the ninth century, however, it was known by this obscure title Gaṇḍa­vyūha. This translation follows the ambiguous meaning assigned to it by the early ninth-century translators into Tibetan.

i.40There are two versions of the Tibetan title. In the Kangyur, the title is only mentioned in the colophon, where it is given as sdong pos rgyan. As stated above, rgyan (“adornment”) is used throughout as the translation of vyūha instead of the usual bkod pa (“array”). Nevertheless, it is usually referred to in Tibetan literature as sdong po bkod pa. The Sanskrit compound does not indicate the grammatical connection between the two terms gaṇḍa and vyūha, but the Kangyur colophon’s sdong pos rgyan ascribes an instrumental case to gaṇḍha, while its popularly known title sdong po bkod pa has no such case. Neither Sanskrit nor Tibetan specifies whether gaṇḍa is singular or plural. The title appears to have no connection with the content, unless it is taken to refer to the successive joints in a bamboo stem, as an analogy to the successive episodes in Sudhana’s journey.

i.41Gaṇḍa in Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit can have two meanings: “stem” or “stalk” and “pieces” or “parts” or “sections,” and the Pali specifies that, as a variation of gaṇṭha, it can mean the section between the joints of a stem, in addition to such things as a swelling, a boil, an excrescence, and so on. As the sūtra is composed of a series of episodes in which Sudhana meets a succession of teachers, the intended meaning could well have been “an array of parts” or, more freely, “a series of episodes.” The only use of the word gaṇḍa in the sūtra itself is within a compound in verse 112 in the Maitreya chapter: pañca­gaṇḍa­gati­cakra­mohitam. Pañcagaṇḍika is a standard BHS term for the five classes of existence, and therefore that compound could be translated as meaning “the ignorance of the wheel of the five sections of existence,” referring to hells, pretas, animals, humans, and devas. However, because the meanings of gaṇḍa can include boil, blister, abscess, goiter, cheek, or bubble (as well as harness, button, joint, bone, and so on), the Tibetan here translates gaṇḍa as “blister” (shu ba) so that the Tibetan translation of this compound is shu ba’i lam rgyud lnga yi ’khor lor rmongs (“the ignorance of the wheels of the blisters of the five existences,” which seems unlikely to have been the original intended meaning).

i.42Douglas Osto also points out that gaṇḍa has been used as the first element of a compound in Sanskrit to mean “great” or “supreme,” and he therefore has translated gaṇḍa­vyūha as “Supreme Array,” which would have made for a reasonable title.

i.43However, the English translation of the title here, “Stem Array,” follows the better-known version of the Tibetan title, preserving its peculiar ambiguity, while the less familiar title as given in the colophon could have been translated as “An Adornment by Stems.”

The Meaning of the Title Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra

i.44The title of the sūtra in which the Gaṇḍa­vyūha is the final chapter has also been interpreted variously. The word avataṃsaka is a substantiate of avataṃsa. In Classical Sanskrit, avataṃsa describes a garland or any circular ornamentation. For example, karṇāvataṃsa (ear avataṃsa) means “earring.” One peculiar Tibetan translation of buddhāvataṃsaka is “Buddha’s earring” (snyan gyi gong rgyan). A kusumāvataṃsa (flower avataṃsa) is a flower garland that is worn by a person, hence another Tibetan translation of buddhāvataṃsaka is “Buddha’s garland,” using an obscure archaic word for garland that has various spellings (rmad ga chad, rma ga chad, or rmag chad). Thomas Cleary, translating into English from the Chinese Huayan, calls it Flower Ornament. However, in Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit (BHS), avataṃsaka means “a great number,” “a multitude,” or “a collection.” Therefore, we have the Tibetan version of the title as A Multitude of Buddhas (sangs rgyas phal po che). phal po che is used elsewhere in the Kangyur to translate Sanskrit words meaning “multitude,” such as nicaya, for “a great assembly of beings” (skye bo phal po che for mahat janakāya). Although this is the title given in all Kangyurs, some, such as the Urga and Degé have the title Flower Garland (rma ga chad) at the conclusion of each chapter, a possible indication that this was the earlier translation of the title, which has been left unchanged within the body of the text. However, the Mahāvyutpatti dictionary has phal po che for avataṃsaka, and neither rma ga chad nor its variant forms appear anywhere in the dictionary. This contradiction between the chapter colophons and the main title is absent in the Lhasa, Stok Palace, Narthang, Lithang, and Shelkar Kangyurs. This translation follows the example of those latter versions so as to avoid such an evident contradiction.

i.45Whatever the intended meaning of the title, the Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra does depict a multitude of buddhas, among which are multitudes of the Buddha Śākyamuni, all of whom are emanated by the Buddha Vairocana.

i.46During the course of the Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra we find that the Buddha Śākyamuni is but one of countless manifestations of the Buddha Vairocana. Śākyamuni is even referred to as the Buddha Vairocana. The Buddha Śākyamuni is depicted as being simultaneously present in various locations in our world realm: at the Bodhi tree, in the Trāyastriṃśa paradise of Indra, which is 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. Śākyamuni is also depicted as being present in these same locations not only in our world realm but in countless other world realms. The Buddha Vairocana prayed to manifest in this way and to have vast assemblies that his manifestations would teach to, and these buddhas are the result of his prayer. According to the Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra, not only is Vairocana the source of all buddhas everywhere, but all the bodhisattvas whom those buddhas teach were previously pupils of Buddha Vairocana.

i.47This depiction of Śākyamuni as a Vairocana emanation has its precedent in a sūtra that was never translated into Tibetan, the Brahma­jāla­sūtra, which introduces the Buddha Vairocana as the buddha who is the source of ten billion Śākyamunis simultaneously existing in various worlds. This sūtra should not be confused with the early Buddhist Brahma­jāla­sūtra, which has an identical title but entirely different content. That Brahma­jāla­sūtra was translated into Tibetan and is included within the Pali canon.

i.48The Buddha Vairocana is therefore portrayed in the Buddhāvataṃsaka as the fundamental buddha who is the source of countless manifestations of the Buddha Śākyamuni. The Buddha Vairocana would also later become the central buddha in tantric traditions such as the Shingon tradition of Japan, which is based particularly on the Mahā­vairocanābhisambodhi Tantra (Toh 494). Even in the higher tantras Vairocana still retains his position as the central buddha in the five-buddha-family system.

Who Is Sudhana and What Is a Śreṣthin?

i.49The Borobudur panels portray Sudhana as a prince-like young man with a retinue, whereas there are Chinese and Japanese depictions of him as a chubby child. Many years pass in the course of his wanderings. In chapter 8 it is stated that he spent twelve years searching for the head merchant Muktaka, so even if he were a child at the beginning, he would be an adult by the end. However, the conventional passage of time is not a feature of this sūtra. Sudhana is introduced as being part of one of four groups that come to see Mañjuśrī when he goes to South India. There are laypeople‍—the male upāsakas and female upāsikās ‍—and dārakas and dārikas (“sons and daughters” or “boys and girls”), which, like the compound strī­puruṣa­dāraka­dārikāḥ much later in the sūtra, appears to imply parents and their children, and this is specifically indicated when Mahāprajña, the first of the eleven named upāsakas, is identified as the father of the first of the daughters. However, the definition of the terms dāraka and dārika includes unmarried males and females up to the age of twenty, and each of these sons and daughters who come to meet Mañjuśrī is accompanied by a retinue. Therefore, the implication is that Sudhana is not a child but presumably around eighteen or nineteen years old. As Sudhana is the first of the eleven named sons listed, the implication appears to be that, as the most prominent of the sons, he is also the son of Mahāprajña. The only description of his family is the vast, miraculous wealth they obtained upon his birth.

i.50Throughout the sūtra he is referred to as a śreṣṭhidāraka. The word śreṣṭhin in Classical Sanskrit can mean “distinguished,” “eminent,” “a person of high position,” and, more specifically, the president of a guild or a head merchant. Edgerton, for the Buddhist Hybrid, gives “guild leader” and “capitalist.” The Pali equivalent seṭṭhi, according to the Pali Text Society’s dictionary, can mean “the foreman of a guild,” “a treasurer,” “a banker,” or “a wealthy merchant.” Douglas Osto, in Power, Wealth and Women in Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism: The Gaṇḍa­vyūha-sūtra, used “merchant-banker’s son” to describe Sudhana, but subsequently in his translation of parts of the sūtra he used the simpler “merchant’s son.” Cleary and Carré, translating from the Chinese, have, respectively, “youth” and jeune (“young”), omitting a translation of śreṣṭhin. Here I follow the Tibetan translation of śreṣṭhin as tshong dpon, literally “head merchant.”

i.51In chapter 8, Muktaka is simply called a śreṣṭhin, translated into Tibetan as tshong dpon (“head merchant”), and this translation follows the Tibetan, although his work is not described. Cleary translates śreṣṭhin as “distinguished man” and also as the adjective “noble”; Carré, translating from the Chinese, has aîné (“elder” or “superior”).

i.52In chapter 18, Ratnacūḍa is said to be a dharmaśreṣṭhin, which was translated into Tibetan as chos kyi tshong dpon, literally “head merchant of the Dharma,” presumably meaning that he is a wealthy patron of the Dharma. Cleary translates as both “eminent person” and “religious eminent,” while Carré translates from the Chinese simply as aîné (“elder” or “superior”). Ratnacūḍa is twice associated with a market in the narrative and therefore does seem to be an extremely wealthy merchant, and his ten-story house of gold is filled with Dharma activities and even visions of buddhas and bodhisattvas.

i.53In chapter 19, Samanta­netra is said to be a gāndhika­śreṣṭhin, translated into Tibetan as tshong dpon spod tshong (“head-merchant perfume seller”). Cleary translates this as “eminent perfumer,” which would correspond to the Sanskrit, and Carré has simply aîné (“elder” or “superior”), omitting reference to gāndhika.

i.54In chapter 24, Utpalabhūti is also called a gāndhika­śreṣṭhin, translated into Tibetan slightly differently than in chapter 19 as spod tshong gi tshong dpon. Cleary again translates this as “eminent perfumer,” while Carré has simply parfumeur (“perfumer” or “perfume seller”), omitting reference to śreṣṭhin.

i.55In chapter 26, Jayottama is simply called a śreṣṭhin, translated into Tibetan as tshong dpon (“head merchant”). Cleary translates as “eminent man,” and Carré, translating from the Chinese, has marchand (“merchant”). However, in the narrative there is no mention of the work he does, but instead he is said to be advising householders on civic duties, doing so in terms of the Dharma.

The Numbers

i.56Chapters 10 and 15 of the Gaṇḍa­vyūha have two long lists of numbers that demonstrate the innumerable beings for whom bodhisattvas seek enlightenment. Any number, no matter how large, does not encapsulate the scope of their salvific agenda. These two lists of numbers should have been identical. As this is a unique list of numbers, they have proved to be very susceptible to corruption or omission. There are differences between the two lists in the surviving Sanskrit and also for the same lists in different Sanskrit editions. Moreover, the same numbers were translated differently into Tibetan in the two chapters even though the translation in chapter 10 of the Gaṇḍa­vyūha is reproduced exactly in chapter 36 or the 36th sūtra in the Avataṃsaka as The Teaching on Using Numbers on Being Questioned by Cittarāja. The Gaṇḍa­vyūha lists were recorded in the Mahāvyutpatti Sanskrit–Tibetan dictionary, revealing not only that variations already existed but that they also differed from the Kangyur versions. The Chinese should be the earliest witness to the condition of the lists. However, Buddhabhadra and Śikṣānanda omitted most of the numbers in the Gaṇḍa­vyūha chapter, instead writing “and so on” and jumping to the last number. Therefore, they are not found in Carré’s translations, and Cleary reproduces the version found in the Sanskrit. Meanwhile, Prajñā recorded the list in Chinese phonetics. The phonetics of Chinese ideograms have varied over time and regions, but they are still able to give an indication of the list. However, because of being a long sequence of names for incalculable numbers, it may have suffered from the same defects through successive copying. In addition, Śikṣānanda transliterated the list as it occurs in chapter 36 of the Avataṃsaka. In our translation there is an attempt to supplement omissions that have occurred in the two lists and to find the correct Sanskrit spelling for the numbers, with the Mahāvyutpatti record of the numbers being particularly important, so as to create a uniformity between the lists. Some of the recorded forms of the numbers in chapter 15 have the nominative case in -u, which may well be a remnant of the original Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit of the sūtra. It may never be possible to ascertain the original condition of the lists, but their purpose was not to create a reliable mathematical tool but to overwhelm the mind with an inconceivable vastness of numbers. Therefore, a disproportionate amount of time has been spent on these pages of numbers, even though a reader may very well skip over them.

i.57The system of enumeration reaches numbers of such enormous value that they exceed even the extensive system of names for large numbers that have been developed in English in modern times, the highest being the googolplex (a 1 followed by a hundred zeros, and the source for the name and verb Google). Even such a number is dwarfed by the vastness of the universe of the Gaṇḍa­vyūha, where even within each atom there are as many buddhas as there are atoms in total. Therefore, an attempt to provide equivalent English names foundered, and the inconsistency in the Tibetan has resulted in choosing the Sanskrit names for this translation, though the various Tibetan, Chinese, and Sanskrit equivalents or variants are supplied in the endnotes.

Challenges in the Translation

i.58Although the translation is based on the Degé edition, and the numbers of the xylograph Degé folios are included within the translation, it is the Comparative Edition of the Degé that has proved invaluable, as it contains detailed annotations of the discrepancies with other editions of the Kangyur, often revealing errors in the Degé. Some of these errors are evidently the result of the copyist mishearing a word being dictated by a reader. The sūtra existed only in handwritten copies for five centuries before the first woodblock printing (the Yongle edition made in China) in 1410. Not included in the Comparative Edition but consulted for this translation is the Stok Palace Kangyur, which belongs to another group of Kangyurs and has occasionally been alone in preserving the correct spelling, for example, rnyi (“snare”) translating the Sanskrit jāla (“net”) while all other available Kangyurs have snying (“essence” or “heart”).

i.59The Sanskrit often provides a witness as to which Kangyur has the correct spelling. Sanskrit manuscripts are themselves just as subject to corruption, and surviving Sanskrit manuscripts date to a later period than the Tibetan translation. At times the Tibetan is evidently translating from a word similar to that in the presently available Sanskrit, and therefore it may have been translated from a manuscript in which particular words were not yet corrupted, or it could be translating from a manuscript that contained an error. The Chinese translations are the earliest witness to the condition of the sūtra in Sanskrit; at times the Chinese agrees with the Tibetan and at times with the available Sanskrit. The work of our Chinese consultant, Ling Lung Chen, has been illuminating in this respect. An example of where the Tibetan and the Chinese are correct and the present Sanskrit is not is where mukha (“gateway”) has been misspelled as sukha (“bliss”). There are also cases where the Classical Sanskrit meaning of a word has been incorrectly adopted for the Tibetan translation instead of the Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit meaning. Another problem is inadvertent omission of words, particularly in lists, which may have occurred in the Sanskrit manuscript being used or early in the process of manuscript copying in Tibet. These missing words are included in the translation, even though the meaning would not be affected by their omission.

i.60The Sanskrit has also been helpful when the meaning in Tibetan translation is vague and open to interpretation or seems dubious in its accuracy. Another challenge particular to this sūtra is the repetition of long descriptive compounds that are not stock phrases and are meant to be overwhelming, describing qualities beyond the grasp of the ordinary mind. The meaning of words in this context and their interrelationship is open to a wider interpretation than usual; for example, if sarva (“all”) begins a compound, it has been open to interpretation as to which part of the compound it refers to. Generally, however, in this translation the Tibetan interpretation is followed unless there appears to be an egregious (and noted) error or an inadvertent omission. Instances of discrepancies among the Tibetan, the Sanskrit, and the Chinese are included in the notes.

i.61Tibetan does not have the precise cases that Sanskrit has; therefore, the Sanskrit has been invaluable in indicating singular or plural as well as where in long passages the compounds change case, such as from nominative to instrumental in the long passage describing Sudhana at the beginning of chapter 56.

i.62Also, when Sanskrit compounds are translated into Tibetan, it is not always clear where one compound ends and the other begins. This is sometimes indicated by the shad, the vertical line in Tibetan orthography, but as the Tibetan editor’s colophon indicates, the placement of the shad is at times arbitrary and confusing, the likely result of the process of copying, as some of the errors are evidently transcription errors from listening to the text being read. The Vaidya Sanskrit edition in Roman letters has added punctuation that does not always agree with the Tibetan interpretation of the structure of the sentence. The Suzuki edition of the Sanskrit has also been useful for finding transcription errors in the Vaidya. Tibetan also tends to translate the prefixes of Sanskrit words, while a direct translation from Sanskrit into English would choose a word from the more extensive English vocabulary. This translation tends to follow the latter approach rather than the translation of prefixes. Words can be multivalent in Sanskrit, their meaning altered according to context, and can even be interpreted as having more than one meaning simultaneously. There are Sanskrit poems written with a carefully chosen vocabulary to create verses that can be read as having two different meanings. There are some terms in this sūtra where a choice of translation necessarily means rejecting another possible meaning; for example, vajra can refer to a thunderbolt or a diamond, and these two can be seen in that culture as identical. In particular, however, there are two prominent terms in this sūtra that present such a problem: dharmadhātu and samantabhadra­bodhi­sattva­caryā.

i.63The word dharmadhātu is a compound made of two elements: dharma and dhātu. Dharma has a great number of meanings, from “the Buddha’s teachings” to “law,” “justice,” “qualities,” “nature,” “phenomena,” and so on, while dhātu can indicate a realm, an element, or a constituent and can be used to mean sensory elements, the relics from an enlightened being’s cremation, and so on. In the term lokadhātu, used over and over in this sūtra, dhātu can mean “realm,” as in “world realm” or “a realm of worlds.” The term dharmadhātu has been used to mean “essence or true nature of phenomena,” such as emptiness, and so the Chinese title, which could be translated as Entering the Dharmadhātu, has been translated by Carré as l’Entrée dans la dimension absolue (Entry into the Absolute Dimension) and by Cleary as Entry into the Realm of Reality. Osto has used the more literal “realm of the Dharma,” which has in certain contexts been used in this translation. However, often the meaning appears to be “the realm of phenomena” when something is said to spread everywhere, and occasionally it could mean either, or simultaneously both.

i.64The ambiguity of samantabhadra­bodhi­sattva­caryā is reflected in differing translations. It is a compound used repeatedly in the sūtra, and the question is whether samantabhadra (“completely good”) is an adjective for bodhi­sattva­caryā (“bodhisattva conduct”) or whether it means the conduct of the bodhisattva Samanta­bhadra. The sequence of the words in the compound (this is not evident in Tibetan) would appear to signify the former meaning, but its use in the Samanta­bhadra chapter appears to indicate the latter. At times it could mean both simultaneously.

i.65Neither the Tibetan nor the Chinese‍—nor therefore the Sanskrit from which they were translated‍—had a division of the Gaṇḍa­vyūha into chapters. The later Sanskrit has a division into fifty-six chapters, and because this will make the reading of the sūtra much easier and more accessible for the reader in English, that chapter division has been adopted for this translation.

Detailed Summary of The Stem Array Sūtra

i.66The Buddha Śākyamuni is in Jetavana in Śrāvastī with five thousand bodhisattvas and five hundred śrāvakas. In their minds they wish for a teaching, and therefore the Buddha enters samādhi, and countless buddha realms appear there within a vast kūṭāgāra. Bodhisattvas also come from other realms to Śrāvastī. The śrāvakas, lacking in the necessary merit, are unable to see this miraculous display. Then ten bodhisattvas who have come from the ten directions‍—Vairocana­praṇidhāna­nābhi­raśmi­prabha, Duryodhana­vīrya­vega­rāja, Samanta­śrī­samudgata­tejorāja, Asaṅga­śrī­garbha­rāja, Dharma­dhātu­praṇidhi­sunirmita­candra­rāja, Dharmārciṣmattejorāja, Sarva­māra­maṇḍala­vikiraṇa­jñāna­dhvaja­rāja, Vairocana­praṇidhāna­ketu­dhvaja, Sarvāvaraṇa­vikiraṇa­jñāna­vikrānta­rāja, and Dharma­dhātu­praṇidhi­tala­nirbheda‍—recite verses describing what has occurred.

i.67The bodhisattva Samanta­bhadra recites verses to the bodhisattvas describing the inconceivable pervasion of phenomena by the buddhas. In addition, the Buddha, still in samādhi, emanates a ray of light from between his eyebrows so that the bodhisattvas can see these countless buddha realms, and in a state of great joy the bodhisattvas emanate countless manifestations. On seeing this, Mañjuśrī recites verses describing this event.

i.68Through the Buddha’s blessing, Śāriputra is enabled to see Mañjuśrī, who is departing for South India. Accompanied by his sixty pupils, he follows Mañjuśrī. He praises Mañjuśrī to his pupil Sāgara­buddhi. They all go to Mañjuśrī and pay homage to him, and Mañjuśrī teaches them ten motivations. Then Mañjuśrī goes to Vicitra­sāla­dhvaja­vyūha Forest near the city of Dhanyākara. The laypeople of the city, hearing that Mañjuśrī is in the forest, go to see him. Among them is Sudhana, the son of a prominent upāsaka. Mañjuśrī describes the miracles that occurred at Sudhana’s birth, praises Sudhana, and teaches him and the others about the nature of buddhas. Mañjuśrī departs; Sudhana follows him and in verse praises him and requests teaching. Mañjuśrī instructs him to develop bodhisattva conduct by relying on kalyāṇamitras. He tells him to go to the bhikṣu Meghaśrī, who is on Sugrīva Mountain in the southern land of Rāmāvarānta.

i.69Sudhana arrives in Rāmāvarānta and finds the bhikṣu Meghaśrī walking on a plateau on the summit of a mountain. Meghaśrī describes how he can see all tathāgatas in every direction. However, he states that his knowledge is limited, and he cannot describe the various accomplishments that enable other bodhisattvas to see all the tathāgatas, and he instructs Sudhana to go to the bhikṣu Sāgara­megha in Sāgara­mukha so as to receive instruction on the way of the bodhisattva.

i.70Sudhana meets Sāgara­megha, who describes how by focusing on the ocean and its qualities over twelve years he saw a buddha seated on a giant precious lotus arise from the ocean, with countless deities of various kinds paying homage to that buddha, who gave him a teaching called All-Seeing Eyes, which was so vast that even one chapter of it was too long to ever be written out. Sāgara­megha then gave this teaching to the nonhuman beings who came from all directions. However, he states that his knowledge is limited to this teaching and instructs Sudhana to go receive instruction on the way of the bodhisattva from the bhikṣu Supratiṣṭhita in Sāgara­tīra.

i.71Sudhana searches for Supratiṣṭhita and eventually sees him walking in the sky accompanied by a vast gathering of various kinds of deities, who pay homage to him. Supratiṣṭhita states that he has attained a wisdom called the unimpeded apex, so that he knows past lives, all past buddhas, all languages, when to guide beings, and so on, and can perform all kinds of miracles. However, he states that his knowledge is limited to this liberation and instructs Sudhana to go receive instruction on the way of the bodhisattva from a Dravidian named Megha in the town of Vajrapura in the land of Draviḍa.

i.72Sudhana finds Megha teaching on a throne in a courtyard in the town of Vajrapura. Megha comes down from his throne and makes many offerings to Sudhana. He praises the bodhisattvas through various analogies, and light rays shine from his mouth, spreading throughout the universe. Many deities of various kinds come to listen. Then Megha sits back on his throne and states that he has attained Sarasvatī’s power of retention, so that he knows the languages of all the different kinds of deities and other beings throughout all worlds. However, he states that his knowledge is limited to this Sarasvatī power of retention, and he instructs Sudhana to go receive instruction on the way of the bodhisattva from a head merchant named Muktaka in the land of Vanavāsī.

i.73After twelve years Sudhana reaches Vanavāsī and finds Muktaka. Muktaka enters a state of meditation through the power of retention called the assembly of all the buddha realms , and countless buddhas, their deeds, their realms, and their pupils become visible within his body. He comes out of his meditation and states that through the liberation called the unimpeded display, he can see any buddha in any realm or time that he wishes to, and he is aware that his mind’s perceptions are the mind’s own illusions and that all attainment is the attainment of the mind. However, he states that his knowledge is limited to this liberation called the unimpeded display, and he instructs Sudhana to go receive instruction on the way of the bodhisattva from a bhikṣu named Sāgara­dhvaja in the land of Milaspharaṇa at the southern tip of India.

i.74Sudhana arrives at Milaspharaṇa and finds the bhikṣu Sāgara­dhvaja sitting in meditation at the end of a meditation walkway. He is emanating various kinds of beings, bodhisattvas, and buddhas from different parts of his body, and these emanations are spreading throughout all the buddha realms, accomplishing various kinds of activities. Sudhana sits before him for six months and six days, until Sāgara­dhvaja rises from his samādhi. He describes to Sudhana the nature of the samādhi he has attained, but he states that his knowledge is limited to that and instructs him to go to request teaching from the upāsikā Āśā in a park outside the town of Mahāprabhasa.

i.75Sudhana arrives at Samanta­vyūha Park, which is miraculously beautiful and made of precious substances. The upāsikā Āśā is seated on a throne inside a magnificent palace, with vast numbers of beings of various kinds paying homage to her. She tells Sudhana she has attained the bodhisattva liberation called the banner of bliss without sorrow and recounts her past as a pupil of innumerable buddhas. She emphasizes how bodhisattvas are dedicated to the welfare of all beings. However, as her knowledge is limited to her bodhisattva liberation, she instructs him to go to the ṛṣi Bhīṣmottara­nirghoṣa in the land named Nālayu.

i.76Sudhana arrives in Nālayu and finds the ṛṣi Bhīṣmottara­nirghoṣa, along with ten thousand young brahmin pupils, in an ashram in a miraculously beautiful forest. Bhīṣmottara­nirghoṣa tells his pupils of Sudhana’s greatness, and they make offerings to him. Bhīṣmottara­nirghoṣa tells Sudhana that he has attained the bodhisattva liberation called the banner of being invincible to others. He places his hand on Sudhana’s head, and Sudhana sees innumerable buddha realms and hears the teachings of those buddhas for innumerable kalpas. When Bhīṣmottara­nirghoṣa removes his hand, Sudhana is back in the forest at that same time. Bhīṣmottara­nirghoṣa says his knowledge is limited to this bodhisattva liberation and instructs him to go to the brahmin Jayoṣmāyatana in the land of Īṣāṇa.

i.77Sudhana finds the brahmin Jayoṣmāyatana undertaking the ascetic practice of sitting beneath a cliff surrounded by four fires and under the noonday sun. He tells Sudhana that if he climbs to the top of the precipice above him and jumps into a fire, he will have pure conduct. On hearing this, Sudhana has doubts about Jayoṣmāyatana, but deities appear in the sky describing how Jayoṣmāyatana’s asceticism has benefited them on the path to buddhahood. Sudhana then obeys the brahmin’s instructions, and leaping into the fire, he is unharmed and attains samādhi. Jayoṣmāyatana then tells Sudhana that his own knowledge is limited to this bodhisattva liberation called the unceasing domain and therefore he should go to Princess Maitrayaṇī in the city of Siṃha­vijṛmbhita.

i.78Sudhana finds Princess Maitrayaṇī with an entourage of five hundred maidens in a miraculous palace. She instructs Sudhana to look around the palace, and he sees innumerable buddhas in every object. She tells Sudhana that she has attained the gateway to the perfection of wisdom called the complete display of memory, but as her knowledge is limited to that, he should go to the bhikṣu Sudarśana in the land called Trinayana.

i.79After a long search, Sudhana finds the bhikṣu Sudarśana attended by devas while practicing walking meditation in a forest. He tells Sudhana that within his lifetime, he has been the pupil of innumerable buddhas for vast lengths of time and perceives countless buddhas as he practices his walking meditation. However, his knowledge is limited to this bodhisattva liberation called the never-extinguished lamp of wisdom. Therefore, he instructs Sudhana to go to a boy named Indriyeśvara in the city of Sumukha.

i.80Sudhana finds Indriyeśvara playing in the sand with ten thousand other children. Indriyeśvara tells Sudhana that he has been the pupil of Mañjuśrī and has mastered all kinds of branches of knowledge. In particular he relates at length the system of enumeration that bodhisattvas use. However, his knowledge is limited to this gateway called the wisdom that possesses clairvoyance in all crafts. Therefore, he instructs Sudhana to go to the upāsikā Prabhūtā in the town of Samudra­pratiṣṭhāna.

i.81Sudhana finds the young girl Prabhūtā in a marvelous house, wearing a simple white robe and no jewelry, with just a small pot before her and no other provisions in her house. Ten thousand beautiful maidens are present as her attendants. She tells Sudhana that she has attained the bodhisattva liberation called the unceasing display of the treasure of merit. Through this she is able to provide countless beings in all directions with whatever they wish out of her small pot. With the food from her pot, she aids śrāvakas, pratyeka­buddhas, and bodhisattvas in countless realms in attaining their enlightenments. Sudhana witnesses countless beings arriving at her home and receiving whatever they wish from the pot. Prabhūtā then says that as her knowledge is limited to this bodhisattva liberation, he should go to the householder Vidvān in the town of Mahāsaṃbhava.

i.82Sudhana finds Vidvān upon a throne on a platform at the crossroads in the center of the town. Vidvān tells Sudhana that he has attained the bodhisattva liberation called the merit that arises from the treasury of the mind. Therefore, he is able to provide beings with whatever they wish, and he has brought his entourage of ten thousand musicians onto the path to enlightenment. Sudhana sees countless beings arrive. When Vidvān looks up into the sky, all that the beings wish for comes down into Vidvān’s hands, and he gives it to them. However, Vidvān says his knowledge is limited to this bodhisattva liberation and instructs Sudhana to go to see the head merchant and Dharma patron named Ratnacūḍa in the town of Siṃhapota.

i.83Sudhana finds Ratnacūḍa in the town’s market. Ratnacūḍa takes him to his ten-story home made of gold. On the first four floors he witnesses bodhisattva activity of generosity, and on the fifth floor and upward he sees bodhisattvas discussing the Dharma. On the tenth floor all the bodhisattvas are in their last life. Ratnacūḍa tells Sudhana how in the past he made an offering of incense to a buddha and the aroma covered the entire world for a week. This resulted in his attaining the bodhisattva liberation called the unimpeded display of the field of prayer, through which he can see all buddhas and bodhisattvas. However, as his knowledge is limited to this bodhisattva liberation, he instructs Sudhana to go to a perfume seller by the name of Samanta­netra in the town of Samanta­mukha.

i.84Sudhana finds Samanta­netra in a perfume shop in the middle of the town. Samanta­netra describes how he can cure all illnesses, heal beings, and set them on the path to enlightenment. He is also able to make an offering of perfume to all buddha realms. However, his knowledge is limited to this gateway called the forms of perfume that satisfy all beings and through which in every way one sees, makes offerings to, and honors the buddhas. Therefore, he instructs him to go to King Anala in the town of Tāladhvaja.

i.85Sudhana finds King Anala sitting on the throne in judgment on hundreds of thousands of criminals as a horde of terrifying executioners punish them in various ways, creating a lake of blood and a mountain of body parts. Sudhana has doubts as to whether King Anala is a bodhisattva, but deities appear in the sky and tell him not to doubt. King Anala takes Sudhana into his palace and explains that what he has seen is an illusion the king creates to inspire beings to avoid bad actions. He states that his knowledge is limited to this bodhisattva liberation called the attainment of illusions and therefore instructs Sudhana to go to King Mahāprabha in the city called Suprabha .

i.86After a long search, Sudhana finds the city of Suprabha , which appears to be miraculously made of precious materials. He finds King Mahāprabha seated on a throne in the city along with vast amounts of goods, animals, and women arranged as gifts. King Mahāprabha tells Sudhana that he has attained the bodhisattva conduct called the banner of great love from countless buddhas. He provides everyone in his kingdom with whatever they wish. He states that some beings see the city as ordinary, while others see it as made of precious materials, and this is according to their realization. The king demonstrates entering a samādhi that causes the entire country to shake. Beings, deities, and even mountains and plants bow in his direction. In the same way he brings happiness and serenity to beings in countless realms. King Mahāprabha states that his knowledge is limited to the banner of great love and instructs him to go see the upāsikā Acalā in the city called Sthirā.

i.87Sudhana reaches the city of Sthirā and finds the upāsikā Acalā at home with her parents in a house shining with a golden light that causes Sudhana to enter states of samādhi. She is extremely beautiful, shining with light, and has an exceptional aroma. Acalā describes her past life as a princess during the time of the Buddha Pralambabāhu. One night she saw him shining in the sky, and since that time she has followed his instructions for many kalpas. She demonstrates her miraculous power of revealing to him a vision of countless buddha realms made of beryl. She states that her attainment is limited to a certain conduct, samādhi, and the liberation called the essence of the wisdom that is difficult to attain, and she instructs Sudhana to go see the parivrājaka Sarvagamin.

i.88After a long journey, Sudhana reaches the town of Tosala in the land called Amitatosala. Having searched through the town, he goes to a shining hill called Sulabha to the north of the town. At its summit he finds Sarvagamin being honored by ten thousand brahmins. Sarvagamin describes how through the samādhi called the light of the practice of all gateways he can benefit beings in many ways throughout many worlds. He instructs Sudhana to go to the perfume merchant Utpalabhūti.

i.89Sudhana arrives in the land called Pṛthurāṣṭra and finds the perfume merchant Utpalabhūti, who tells Sudhana of his mastery of perfumes that have magical and spiritual effects. He tells Sudhana to go to a mariner by the name of Vaira.

i.90Sudhana goes to the city of Kūṭāgāra and finds the mariner Vaira at the city’s gate on the shore of the ocean, where he is telling tales of the sea to a hundred thousand merchants and many hundreds of thousands of other people and describing the qualities of the Buddha. He tells Sudhana that he practices the bodhisattva conduct called the banner of great compassion, aids beings in various ways, knows the locations of islands and treasures and the ways of sailing on the ocean, and sets beings toward enlightenment through his teaching. However, his attainment is limited to the bodhisattva liberation called remembering to abide with the fruitful hearing and seeing of the banner of great compassion, and therefore he instructs Sudhana to go to see the head merchant Jayottama.

i.91Sudhana reaches the town called Nandihāra and finds Jayottama in a forest on the eastern side of the town, speaking about civic duties to many thousands of householders. He tells Sudhana how in many worlds he teaches the Dharma, pacifies disputes and wars, guides people away from bad behavior, and sets them on the path to enlightenment. He tells Sudhana to go see a bhikṣuṇī by the name of Siṃha­vijṛmbhitā.

i.92Sudhana arrives in the town of Kaliṅgavana in the land of Śroṇāparānta and finds Siṃha­vijṛmbhitā in a park named Sūrya­prabha that, because of her miraculous power, is covered with jewels and other miraculous manifestations. There are thrones at the foot of jewel trees, on all of which sit Siṃha­vijṛmbhitā teaching the Dharma to various kinds of beings and bodhisattvas. She tells Sudhana that she has attained the bodhisattva liberation called the eradication of all conceit, which enables her to go in various forms to various worlds to make offerings to buddhas and bodhisattvas. Stating that her realization is limited, she instructs him to go see a courtesan named Vasumitrā.

i.93Sudhana arrives in the city of Ratnavyūha in the land of Durga and searches for the courtesan Vasumitrā. The people who do not know her qualities wonder why a practitioner like Sudhana would want to see her. Those who do know her qualities tell him where her home is. It is vast, comprising many buildings made of precious materials and divine in appearance. She is beautiful and skilled in languages and all arts and treatises. Her body illuminates her residence. She tells Sudhana that she takes on a beautiful form among various kinds of beings who are under the power of desire and teaches them the Dharma to free them from desire, and that they also become free from desire on seeing her, touching her, kissing her, and so on. She describes that in a past life she was a head merchant’s wife who offered a bell to the Buddha Atyuccagāmin, who had entered their city accompanied by miraculous events. Mañjuśrī was an attendant of that buddha and set her on the path to enlightenment. She states that her attainment is limited to the bodhisattva liberation called the complete attainment of freedom from desire and instructs him to go see the householder Veṣṭhila.

i.94Sudhana goes to the town of Śubhapāraṃgama, where he meets the householder Veṣṭhila, who attained the samādhi called the display of the unceasing family of the buddhas when he opened the door of a shrine. Through this samādhi he sees countless buddhas of the past, present, and future. He instructs Sudhana to meet the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara.

i.95Sudhana goes to the Potalaka Mountain and on its western side finds Avalokiteśvara teaching within a forest grove. Avalokiteśvara places his radiant hand on Sudhana’s head and tells him that he has the bodhisattva activity called the unimpeded gateway to great compassion. He describes how he benefits beings through various manifestations and emanations, freeing them from various kinds of fear. However, being limited to that activity, he instructs Sudhana to go to the Cakravāla mountain range to see the bodhisattva Ananyagāmin, who has just come from another world realm in the east.

i.96Sudhana goes to see the bodhisattva Ananyagāmin, who says that in the eastern realm of Śrīgarbhavatī he has attained the bodhisattva liberation called the arising of every gateway at the feet of the Buddha Samanta­śrī­saṃbhava, and that it has taken him countless kalpas to reach this world, even though he passed countless realms with each step. He also made offerings to all the buddhas in those realms and manifested bodies to benefit the beings there, and he did this while approaching this world from all other directions simultaneously. He tells Sudhana that his attainment is limited to the bodhisattva liberation called the arising of every gateway and instructs him to go see the deity Mahādeva.

i.97Sudhana reaches the city named Dvāravatī and finds the deity Mahādeva in a temple in the center of the city. When Sudhana asks him for instruction, he extends his four arms to the four great oceans and brings back water to rinse out his mouth. He praises bodhisattvas, who are so difficult to meet, and states that he has attained the bodhisattva liberation called the net of clouds. Through that liberation he manifests heaps of jewels and precious objects in front of Sudhana for him to use as offerings to the buddhas in order to gain merit. In that way he establishes countless beings in the practice of generosity. He manifests ugliness to those with desire, terrifying manifestations to the proud, and dangers to the lazy, so that they will follow the Dharma. As he is limited to this bodhisattva liberation, he instructs Sudhana to go from South India to Magadha in North India, to the site of the Buddha’s enlightenment, and see the earth goddess Sthāvarā there.

i.98Sudhana leaves South India and reaches the bodhimaṇḍa in Magadha. As he approaches the earth goddess Sthāvarā, another million earth goddesses declare that a great realized being is approaching. They manifest an array of miraculous appearances. Sthāvarā states that Sudhana has accumulated merit in this place in past lives and demonstrates its result by stamping on the ground so that there appear millions of treasures that Sudhana will always be able to use. She states that she has attained the bodhisattva liberation called the essence of invincible wisdom, as a result of which she has practiced the Dharma and protected bodhisattvas since the time of the Buddha Dīpaṅkara. She received this liberation from the Buddha Sunetra many kalpas previously and since then has always been in the presence of buddhas. As she is limited to this bodhisattva liberation, she instructs Sudhana to go to Kapilavastu, the hometown of the Buddha Śākyamuni, to see the night goddess Vāsantī.

i.99Sudhana reaches Kapilavastu, and after sunset he sees the night goddess Vāsantī in the sky above the town. She has a golden body, and he sees in her pores the realms of beings she has liberated and her various emanations, and he also hears from her pores the Dharma teachings she has given. She tells Sudhana that she has attained the bodhisattva liberation called the gateway to guiding beings through the radiance of the Dharma that eliminates the darkness of all beings. She describes how she helps various beings who are distressed in various ways in darkness, and how she liberates beings from the darkness of saṃsāra and protects and saves beings from physical and spiritual dangers. Then she describes these activities in verse. She then explains that many kalpas previously, she had been a queen who was awoken one night by a night goddess named Suviśuddha­candrābhā, who told her that the Buddha Sarva­dharma­nigarjita­rāja had just attained buddhahood in a nearby forest and had manifested a miraculous light. She went to that buddha, entered the Dharma, and in every lifetime that followed had a fortunate rebirth and accumulated merit. After countless kalpas, she became the beautiful daughter of a head merchant, and the night goddess Suviśuddha­candrābhā had become a night goddess named Viśuddha­netrābhā. One night the night goddess revealed herself to the merchant’s daughter and told her of the Buddha Sumeru­dhvajāyatana­śānta­netra­śrī, who had attained buddhahood seven days previously and was the first of five hundred buddhas who would appear in that kalpa. The merchant’s daughter went to that buddha and on seeing his face remembered her previous lives. It was from that buddha that she received the bodhisattva liberation called the gateway to guiding beings through the radiance of the Dharma that eliminates the darkness of all beings. As a result, she could be in countless realms before many buddhas simultaneously, knew the languages of beings in countless realms, and manifested to them in various ways. However, she says that she is limited to this attainment and instructs Sudhana to go back to the bodhimaṇḍa to see the night goddess Samanta­gambhīra­śrī­vimala­prabhā.

i.100Sudhana returns to the bodhimaṇḍa and sees the night goddess Samanta­gambhīra­śrī­vimala­prabhā. She instructs him in ten qualities that bodhisattvas need to attain. She states that she has attained the bodhisattva liberation called complete subjugation through the bliss of the peace of śamatha , through which she can see all the buddhas in the three times, receive all their teachings, and ripen beings in various ways. Stating that she is limited to this liberation, she instructs Sudhana to go see the night goddess Pramudita­nayana­jagad­virocanā, who is nearby.

i.101Sudhana goes to the southern side of the bodhimaṇḍa, where he sees the night goddess Pramudita­nayana­jagad­virocanā. Sudhana sees emanated bodies, as numerous as all beings, coming from all her pores, teaching the path of the bodhisattva to beings in different languages and forms. Sudhana praises her in verse and then asks her when she attained her bodhisattva liberation called the banner of the power of vast, stainless, completely good joy. Pramudita­nayana­jagad­virocanā replies in verse, describing how in a previous world in the distant past she was the queen of a cakravartin. She was awoken by night goddesses on the night that a buddha named Śrisamudra attained buddhahood and shone with a miraculous light. She woke the king, the court, and the other queens, and with a great mass of people they went to the Buddha. That was when she first developed the aspiration to attain buddhahood, and she particularly prayed to become like those night goddesses. She lists the numerous buddhas whom she offered to and received teachings from throughout a number of worlds and kalpas. Finally she received and attained her bodhisattva liberation from the Buddha Ratna­śrī­pradīpa­guṇa­ketu and then, out of compassion for beings, took on her present form as a night goddess. However, she states that she is limited to that attainment and instructs Sudhana to go to the night goddess Samanta­sattva­trāṇojaḥ­śrī, who is nearby among the assembly at the bodhimaṇḍa.

i.102As Sudhana walks the short distance to see the night goddess Samanta­sattva­trāṇojaḥ­śrī, she radiates onto him a light ray that causes him to enter a samādhi and see worlds in the atoms of the ground, and to see her appearing in them all to guide and help beings through the power of her bodhisattva liberation called the manifestations that guide beings that appear in all worlds. Sudhana recites verses to her, describing this vision, and asks her when she attained that liberation. She describes how countless kalpas in the past, in a world called Vairocana­tejaḥśrī, she was a princess named Padma­bhadrābhirāma­netra­śrī­candrā, the daughter of a cakravartin who ruled all four continents. North of the capital there was a Bodhi tree, before which was a lake with a magical lotus in its center, upon which was the Buddha Samanta­jñāna­ratnārci­śrī­guṇa­ketu­rāja, the first of countless buddhas to appear in that kalpa. Over a period of ten thousand years, he radiated light rays to the beings in that world, informing them and preparing them for his eventual appearance as a buddha. At the moment of his attainment of buddhahood in that world, there were miraculous omens everywhere. The bodhisattva Samanta­bhadra appeared above the cakravartin’s palace, his radiance outshining all other lights. He informed the king that a buddha had appeared at the Bodhi tree. On seeing Samanta­bhadra, the princess wished to be with him always, in all her lives. The king manifested miraculously throughout the world, encouraging everyone to come and see the Buddha. On seeing the Buddha, the princess cast her jewels toward him, and they formed a miraculous display in the air. She had a vision of Samanta­bhadra’s presence throughout countless worlds and attained various samādhis. The buddha told her that in a past life Samanta­bhadra had instructed her to repair the statue of the buddha of that time and that this had been the cause of her good rebirths and connection with buddhas and Samanta­bhadra in all her lives. The night goddess Samanta­sattva­trāṇojaḥ­śrī then explains to Sudhana that she had been the princess, Maitreya was the king, and his queen, the mother of the princess, was the night goddess Praśanta­ruta­sāgara­vatī. Samanta­sattva­trāṇojaḥ­śrī describes how she attended and made offerings to a succession of buddhas through the kalpas, and she describes the teachings she received from some of them. She lists a number of buddhas in verse, and finally says that her attainment is limited to the bodhisattva liberation called the manifestations that guide beings that appear in all worlds and that Sudhana should go to see the nearby night goddess Praśanta­ruta­sāgara­vatī.

i.103Sudhana goes directly to the night goddess Praśanta­ruta­sāgara­vatī, who tells him she has attained the bodhisattva liberation called the display in each instant of mind of the arising of the power of vast delight. She explains that she teaches the Dharma everywhere in various ways to beings and that she can see all bodhisattvas wherever they are and whatever are they doing. In particular she sees how the Buddha, whom she calls Vairocana, in every instant radiates light rays everywhere that take on various forms to guide beings, and seeing this gives her great delight. She describes the vast qualities of her liberation, and when Sudhana asks her about her past, she states that in a world realm called Kanaka­vimala­prabhā­vyūha, beyond many worlds to the east, there was a buddha named Avivartya­dharma­dhātu­nirghoṣa, and she was a goddess at the bodhimaṇḍa of that world. On seeing him she first developed the aspiration to enlightenment, and subsequently in various lifetimes she attended every buddha that appeared in an innumerable succession in that world, thereby attaining various samādhis. Then she was reborn in this Sahā world, where she has attended the first four buddhas and will attend all those who will come. On seeing the present buddha, Vairocana, she attained her bodhisattva liberation. After that she could see as many realms and buddhas as there are atoms within each atom and was able to receive all their teachings in each instant of mind. However, as she is limited to this liberation, she instructs Sudhana to go to the nearby night goddess Sarva­nagara­rakṣā­saṃbhava­tejaḥ­śrī, who is there in Vairocana’s assembly.

i.104Sudhana sees the night goddess Sarva­nagara­rakṣā­saṃbhava­tejaḥ­śrī seated on a lotus throne and having a body that can appear to and communicate with all beings. She tells him she has attained a bodhisattva liberation called the entry into beautiful sounds and profound manifestations. She describes how she guides beings, teaching the Dharma in various ways, and how she sees the realm of phenomena in ten ways and teaches through thousands of powers of mental retention, ten of which she lists. She describes how in the distant past there was a kalpa in one world where countless buddhas appeared, the first of which was Sarva­dharma­sāgara­nirghoṣa­prabha­rāja. At that time there was a cakravartin king who after the buddha’s passing used his miraculous powers to create a display to revive the declining teachings. His daughter, who was a bhikṣuṇī, on seeing that miracle attained the bodhisattva liberation called the entry into beautiful sounds and profound manifestations. The night goddess reveals that she was the bhikṣuṇī and the king was the bodhisattva Samanta­bhadra. She then lists the names of just over a hundred of the countless buddhas of that kalpa, all of whom she was a pupil of, and for countless kalpas since, she has been attending buddhas. She says she is limited to this bodhisattva liberation and instructs Sudhana to go to the night goddess Sarva­vṛkṣpraphullana­sukha­saṃvāsā, who is nearby at the feet of the Buddha Vairocana, the name she uses for Śākyamuni.

i.105The night goddess Sarva­vṛkṣpraphullana­sukha­saṃvāsā is seated in a kūṭāgāra, on a throne made of precious branches. She tells Sudhana how night makes beings wish to return to their homes and how she leads beings to good conduct and liberation. She states she has attained the bodhisattva liberation called the arising of the vast radiating light of joy, which has the knowledge for gathering beings as pupils. Through it she remembers the past conduct, progress, and attainment of the Buddha, referred to as the Buddha Vairocana. She states that this bodhisattva liberation can only be comprehended by the buddhas, but through their blessing she can teach it, and she then repeats this in verse. Sudhana asks her when she gained this attainment, and she describes how in a past kalpa, in another world, beings were in distress because of famine and poverty caused by their bad conduct. They entreated the cakravartin king Sarva­dharma­nirnādacchatra­maṇḍala­nirghoṣa for help, and he arranged a great distribution of all his wealth to satisfy all beings. At that time a girl named Ratnaprabhā, on seeing the king, was inspired to attain enlightenment, and she recited to him verses that described his birth. She said that his father was King Jyotiṣprabha and his mother was Queen Padmaprabhā. At a time when no rain had fallen for years and everything was withered, there was a bright light in a lotus pond in their park for seven nights before his birth, during which all the lotus ponds filled with water that spread throughout the world, ending thirst and flattening the surface of the earth. On the seventh night their son appeared miraculously, sitting cross-legged in a gigantic lotus, and the king took him and gave him to his queen as her son. Light rays from his body eliminated all harm and illness throughout the world and made everyone kind and compassionate. When Ratnaprabhā finished her verses, the king gave her and her entourage of five hundred girls precious clothes, upon which the images of constellations and stars appeared. People said the girls were more beautiful than the goddess of the night. Sarva­vṛkṣpraphullana­sukha­saṃvāsā then tells Sudhana that King Sarva­dharma­nirnādacchatra­maṇḍala­nirghoṣa was the Buddha; King Jyotiṣprabha was Śuddhodana, the Buddha’s father in this life; Queen Padmaprabhā was Māyādevī, the Buddha’s mother in this life; and she herself was the girl Ratnaprabhā. She then says that her attainment is limited to her bodhisattva liberation and tells Sudhana to go to the night goddess Sarva­jagad­rakṣā­praṇidhāna­vīrya­prabhā, who is also present at the bodhimaṇḍa.

i.106Sudhana sees Sarva­jagad­rakṣā­praṇidhāna­vīrya­prabhā with the images of all the stars and so on in her body. She manifests bodies in various forms to beings throughout the realm of phenomena. Gazing upon her, Sudhana attains ten pure perceptions and numerous “commonalities” with the bodhisattvas. Sudhana addresses her in verse, and she tells him that she has attained the bodhisattva liberation called the origin of the roots of merit that inspire the ripening of all beings. This means that having realized the unreality of phenomena, she can manifest in any miraculous form in order to benefit beings in every instant. She states that while bodhisattvas have transcended concepts of time and so on, they are still engaged in benefiting beings in terms of their perceptions, like magical apparitions that have no reality. She describes how in a distant past she was a prince named Vijitāvin whose father had imprisoned many beings for their wicked behavior, and who through compassion for them offered to take their place if they were released. The ministers convinced the king that this was a dangerous plot, and so he sentenced the prince to execution. The queen obtained permission for the prince to make a charitable donation of all his possessions for a fortnight, and he did so without regret, giving everything away. On the last day of the donations, Dharma­cakra­nirghoṣa­gagana­megha­pradīpa­rāja, the buddha who had appeared in that realm, came there miraculously, inspiring faith, and the prince attained the bodhisattva liberation called the origin of the roots of merit that inspire the ripening of all beings and received permission from the king to become a bhikṣu. She states that the ministers of that time were Devadatta’s followers in this lifetime, but they would all become buddhas in a future kalpa. The freed prisoners were the buddhas of the present kalpa and numerous other bodhisattvas. The king’s many queens and harem guards were the Jain followers of Satyaka , whom the Buddha Śākyamuni had declared to be a bodhisattva. Sarva­jagad­rakṣā­praṇidhāna­vīrya­prabhā lists some of the many buddhas she followed in the intermediate time. After summarizing in verse what she has told him, she states that her attainment is limited to this bodhisattva liberation and tells Sudhana to go to the forest goddess Sutejomaṇḍala­rati­śrī in Lumbinī.

i.107Sudhana goes to the Lumbinī Forest and sees Sutejomaṇḍala­rati­śrī inside a kūṭāgāra made of precious tree branches, teaching a sūtra to millions of forest goddesses. She teaches Sudhana in prose and again in verse the ten kinds of birth through which a bodhisattva enters the family of the tathāgatas. She states that she has attained the bodhisattva liberation called the miraculous manifestations at the birth of bodhisattvas throughout all the perceptions of countless kalpas . She states that through her past prayers she was born in this forest to observe the birth of the Buddha and describes the ten omens that presaged his birth, the ten omens of light when the Buddha’s mother came to the forest, and the ten miraculous manifestations at the time of his birth. She states that she sees such miraculous births in every world and that she sees the buddhas that are in every atom in all worlds. She describes how countless kalpas ago, she was a nurse named Vimala­saṃbhava­prabhā who was present when the Buddha Īśvara­guṇāparājita­dhvaja was born to Queen Suharṣita­prabheśvarā in a park. Because she was the nurse, the baby was placed on her lap by deities, and at that moment she attained her bodhisattva liberation. The king and queen of that time were previous lives of the Buddha Śākyamuni’s parents. Since that time she has witnessed the birth of every buddha everywhere. She repeats this in verse and then states that she is limited to this bodhisattva liberation, and therefore Sudhana should go see Gopā, who was the Buddha’s wife, in Kapilavastu.

i.108Sudhana arrives in Kapilavastu and is greeted and praised by Aśokaśrī, the goddess of the Kapilavastu assembly hall. Sudhana describes his bodhisattva path to her. She and other goddesses make offerings to him and praise him in verse. Sudhana enters the assembly hall and sees Gopā and her entourage of royal women, all of whom practice the bodhisattva path. In prose and then in verse, Gopā teaches Sudhana the ten qualities of bodhisattva conduct and the ten ways to please kalyāṇamitras. She states that she has attained the bodhisattva liberation called the range of the view of all the ways of the ocean of the samādhis of the bodhisattvas. Through this she perceives all buddhas, pratyeka­buddhas, bodhisattvas, and their activities and qualities in the past, present, and future. In particular she knows all the past lives of the Buddha Vairocana, that is, the Buddha Śākyamuni. She then describes how in a distant past she was a courtesan’s daughter who fell in love with a prince named Tejodhipati, who was dedicated to the bodhisattva path, and became his wife. Together, throughout many lifetimes, they venerated a succession of sixty hundred thousand trillion buddhas, after which she attained her bodhisattva liberation. During all that time she was able to gaze upon her husband’s wonderful qualities, up until this lifetime when he became the Buddha Śākyamuni. She states that Tejodhipati’s mother was a previous life of Māyādevī, Śākyamuni’s mother, and that Tejodhipati’s father, King Dhanapati, is now a buddha in an eastern realm. She tells Sudhana that her attainment is limited to this liberation and that he should go to Māyādevī, the Buddha’s mother, who is presently at the Buddha’s feet. Before Sudhana leaves, she describes in verse an even earlier lifetime in which she was a merchant’s daughter named Bhānuprabhā, who developed devotion to a mendicant by the name of Suraśmiketu, who had been a prince. She made offerings to him, and as a result had good rebirths for two hundred and fifty kalpas, culminating in her rebirth as the courtesan’s daughter, which is when she first made the aspiration to attain buddhahood.

i.109Ratnanetrā, the goddess of the city, appears in the sky to Sudhana and instructs him on how to care for the city of his mind. Then two body goddesses, Dharma­padma­śrī­kuśalā and Hrī­śrī­mañjari­prabhāvā, appear to him, praising Māyādevī and shining on Sudhana light that brings him realizations. He then meets a rākṣasa guardian of the meeting hall of bodhisattvas, who teaches him two sets of ten qualities related to kalyāṇamitras. Sudhana sees before him a gigantic lotus, in the center of which is a kūṭāgāra, within which is Māyādevī, who can appear anywhere to any being in various forms. He bows down with multiple bodies to her multiple forms and enters samādhi. Then he asks her for instruction. She describes the miraculous coming of the Buddha to her womb, and how bodhisattvas and deities also entered it to make offerings to the Buddha. Māyādevī explains that she has attained the liberation called the illusory conjurations of the wisdom of great prayer and is therefore a mother to all buddhas everywhere in the past, present, and future. She lists a great number of the names of the buddhas of this kalpa. Sudhana asks when she attained this liberation, and she describes being a bodhimaṇḍa goddess who prayed to the buddha of that time to always have the cakravartin of that time as her son. For countless lifetimes in various existences this was so, and now he has attained enlightenment as the Buddha Vairocana. But she states that she is limited to knowledge of this liberation and tells him to go to the Trāyastriṃśa paradise to ask for instruction from the goddess Surendrābhā.

i.110In this short chapter, Sudhana comes to the Trāyastriṃśa paradise, and Surendrābhā tells him she has attained the bodhisattva liberation called the display of pure, unimpeded memory. This enables her to remember serving countless buddhas throughout countless kalpas, from their first development of the aspiration to enlightenment until the time their Dharma ceases. Saying that her knowledge is limited to this liberation, she tells Sudhana to go to Kapilavastu to the teacher of children named Viśvāmitra.

i.111In the sūtra’s shortest chapter, Sudhana descends from the Trāyastriṃśa paradise to Kapilavastu, where Viśvāmitra, a teacher of children, simply instructs him to go to see Śilpābhijña in the same town.

i.112Śilpābhijña tells Sudhana that he has attained the bodhisattva liberation called higher knowledge of the arts and describes the various realizations of the perfection of wisdom he has attained through reciting the letters of the Arapacana alphabet. Stating that his realization is limited, he tells Sudhana to go to see Bhadrottamā in the town of Vartanaka in Magadha.

i.113Sudhana meets Bhadrottamā, described simply as a kalyāṇamitra. She states that she has attained the samādhi called unimpeded, through which she has unimpeded senses and other attributes of omniscience. Stating that she is limited to this samādhi, she instructs Sudhana to go to South India to meet the goldsmith Muktāsāra.

i.114In this brief chapter, Sudhana meets the goldsmith Muktāsāra in the southern town of Bharukaccha. Muktāsāra says he has attained the bodhisattva liberation called the display of pure unimpeded memory and continuously seeks the Dharma at the feet of the tathāgatas in the ten directions. As his attainment is limited to this, he instructs Sudhana to go see the householder Sucandra in the forest outside the town.

i.115In this brief chapter, Sudhana meets Sucandra , who tells him his attainment is limited to the bodhisattva liberation called the stainless light of wisdom and so he should go to Ajitasena in the town of Roruka.

i.116In this brief chapter, Sudhana meets Ajitasena, who has attained a bodhisattva liberation called unceasing characteristics. He tells Sudhana to go to the brahmin Śivarāgra in the village of Dharma .

i.117In this brief chapter, Sudhana meets the brahmin Śivarāgra, who has attained the power of the speech of truth that fulfills wishes. Stating that he is limited to this attainment, he tells Sudhana to go to the boy and girl Śrīsaṃbhava and Śrīmati.

i.118Sudhana meets the boy and girl Śrīsaṃbhava and Śrīmati. Together, in one voice, they say they have attained the bodhisattva liberation called the appearance of illusion, through which they see all phenomena as illusions. As they are limited to this attainment, they tell Sudhana to go to a kūṭāgāra in South India in which dwells the bodhisattva Maitreya. They describe the qualities of Maitreya and give Sudhana advice on his practice of bodhisattva conduct, describing at length the qualities that a bodhisattva needs to attain. They also admonish him to be devoted to kalyāṇamitras, describing at length their central importance for the bodhisattva path as the source of all its qualities. They describe the nature of the kalyāṇamitras and use analogies in doing so. They also use analogies to describe how a bodhisattva should perceive a kalyāṇamitra, including the now well-known analogy of the bodhisattva being a patient, the kalyāṇamitra being a doctor, their instructions being medicine, and their practice being the treatment that cures illness. They describe through analogies the benefits that come from following this path and conclude by emphasizing that all of them are dependent on relying upon the kalyāṇamitras. Sudhana then takes his leave.

i.119Sudhana, in a state of great spiritual attainment, prostrates at the door of the kūṭāgāra called Vairocana­vyūhālaṃkāra­garbha and then circumambulates it many hundreds of thousands of times. He lists first in prose and then in verse the many inconceivable qualities of the bodhisattvas who have this kūṭāgāra as their residence. Then he sees Maitreya arriving with a vast retinue. Maitreya welcomes him in verse, praising him, describing his motivation for coming there, and giving him instruction. In response to Sudhana’s request and praise, he teaches him at length in prose, describing and praising the aspiration to enlightenment using a series of analogies. He then instructs Sudhana to enter the kūṭāgāra and miraculously opens the door by snapping his fingers. There follows a detailed description of the inconceivable, vast sights that Sudhana sees within a state of samādhi, including other kūṭāgāras, billions of worlds, and bodhisattvas. Then Maitreya enters and states that this was a bodhisattva liberation called the essence of the display of the unfailing memory that engages with the knowledge of all objects of perception in the three times. He then describes the profound nature of bodhisattvas and their qualities, and he states that after he dies, he will be reborn in the Tuṣita paradise and then come to this world to be a buddha. He then instructs Sudhana to go to see Mañjuśrī once more, as he has set Sudhana upon this path and Sudhana has been connected to Mañjuśrī in all his previous lifetimes of following the path.

i.120Sudhana passes through a hundred and ten towns until he reaches a district called Sumanāmukha. Mañjuśrī is far away‍—a hundred and ten yojanas‍—but reaches out his hand and places it on Sudhana’s head and praises him, teaches him, and blesses him, so that Sudhana gains many attainments.

i.121Sudhana has great realization and roots of merit, and therefore ten events and ten lights that are omens of the appearance of Samanta­bhadra occur. Sudhana sees Samanta­bhadra seated before the Buddha, and he sees a variety of miraculous events manifesting from Samanta­bhadra’s pores and Samanta­bhadra’s activities in countless realms and throughout time. As a result, he attains ten practices of the perfection of knowledge. Then Samanta­bhadra and all those Samanta­bhadras before every buddha place their hands on Sudhana’s head, and he gains great attainments. Samanta­bhadra describes his own past practices, such as generosity. He instructs Sudhana to look at his body, and Sudhana sees vast visions within each of Samanta­bhadra’s pores. Then Samanta­bhadra recites “The Prayer for Completely Good Conduct,” and the sūtra ends.