This depiction of Śākyamuni as a Vairocana emanation has its precedent in a sūtra that was never translated into Tibetan but exists in Chinese translation: the Brahmajālasūtra. This sūtra introduces the Buddha Vairocana as the primordial buddha who is the source of ten billion Śākyamunis who exist simultaneously in ten billion different worlds. This sūtra should not be confused with the Brahmajālasūtra that exists both in the Pali canon and in the Tibetan Kangyur (Toh 352).
There is evidence for Mahāyāna sūtras originating in northern India. In his Genealogies of Mahāyāna Buddhism, Joseph Walser argues that the “core portion” of The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines (Toh 12, Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā) was most probably written in the second half of the first century in Mathura, which is located in present-day Uttar Pradesh. He also offers the tentative conclusion that it was written by “a Sarvāstivādin monk residing at Buddhadeva’s Guhavihāra outside of Maṭ.” See Walser (2018), 242.
Osto notes that Etienne Lamotte, Edward Conze, and Nalinaksha Dutt all regard the Mahāsāṃghika as the source of the Mahāyāna tradition. See Osto (2008), 157, n. 5. Paul Williams argues that at least some Mahāyāna sūtras emerged from the Mahāsāṃghika: “There can be no doubt that at least some early Mahāyāna sūtras originated in Mahāsāṃghika circles. In the lokottaravāda supramundane teachings we are getting very close to a teaching well-known in Mahāyāna that the Buddha’s death was also a mere appearance; in reality he remains out of his compassion, helping suffering humanity, and thence the suggestion that for those who are capable of it the highest religious goal should be not to become an Arhat but to take the Bodhisattva vows, embarking themselves on the long path to a supreme and totally superior Buddhahood.” See Williams (2009), 21. This view has been contested by a number of scholars, however, including Paul Harrison, who maintains in his “Searching for the Origins of the Mahāyāna: What Are We Looking For?” that it is impossible to draw a clear connection between the Mahāyāna and a single sect, maintaining instead that the Mahāyāna was a loose set of related movements that cut across Buddhist India. For a fine summary of scholarship concerning the origins of the Mahāyāna, see Osto (2008), 105–16.
Toh 127. See translation in Peter Alan Roberts, trans., The King of Samādhis Sūtra, 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, 2018.
Bodhisattvagocaraupāyaviṣayavikurvāṇanirdeśa, Toh 146. See English translation in Jamspal 2010.
Saddharmapuṇḍarīkanāmamahāyānasūtra, Toh 113. See translation in Peter Alan Roberts, trans., The White Lotus of the Good Dharma, 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, 2018.
This is found in chapter 4 of the Satyaka Sūtra, titled “The Teaching as a Single Yāna” (theg pa gcig tu bstan pa’i le’u). See Satyaka Sūtra, folios 94.b–98.b.
Termed the Navadharma (“Nine Dharmas”) or Navagrantha (“Nine Texts”), these works are (1) Prajñāpāramitā, (2) Gaṇḍavyūha, (3) Daśabhūmi, (4) Samādhirāja, (5) Laṅkāvatāra, (6) Saddharmapuṇḍarīka, (7) Lalitavistara, (8) Suvarṇaprabhāsa, and (9) Tathāgatagūhya. See Lewis (1993), 327, n. 15.
The Stok Palace (vol. 34, folio 310.a), Lhasa (vol. 46, folio 341.b), Choné (vol. 94, folio 284.a), and Narthang (vol. 40, folio 340.a) editions read shin tu rgyas pa chen po’i mdo sangs rgyas phal po che zhes bya ba/ byang chub sems dpa’i sde snod kyi nang nas sdong pos brgyan pa zhes bya ba chos kyi rnam grangs chen po las. This could be translated, “the great Dharma discourse called the Gaṇḍavyūha from within the Bodhisattvapiṭaka called the vast Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra,” which suggests that the Buddhāvataṃsaka is a type of text known as a Bodhisattvapiṭaka. Urga (vol. 38, folio 362.a) has sangs rgyas phal po che zhes bya ba/ shin tu rgyas pa chen po’i mdo las/ byang chub sems dpa’i sde snod cing / sdong pos rgyan pa zhes bya ba, which could be translated as “the Bodhisattvapiṭaka and Gaṇḍavyūha from the Mahāvaipulya sūtra called the Buddhāvatamska,” although cing grammatically should follow a verb, not a noun, and it could well be an error for kyi nang when that is pronounced “chi nang.” This, like the aforementioned colophon from Dunhuang, suggests that both Bodhisattvapiṭaka and Gaṇḍavyūha are titles for one and the same work. By contrast, the Degé (vol. 38, folio 362.a) and Kangxi (vol. 60, folio 263.a) read shin tu rgyas pa chen po’i mdo/ sangs rgyas phal po che zhes bya ba las/ byang chub sems dpa’i sde snod kyi nang / sdong pos brgyan pa zhes bya ba chos kyi rnam grangs chen po las. This could be rendered, “From the Mahāvaipulya sūtra called the Buddhāvataṃsaka, from within the Bodhisattvapiṭaka, the great Dharma discourse called the Gaṇḍavyūha,” meaning that the Gaṇḍavyūha is from the Bodhisattvapiṭaka, a collection of bodhisattva teachings, and has been included in the Buddhāvataṃsaka. In other words, the Gaṇḍavyūha is contained in the Bodhisattvapiṭaka that is contained in the Buddhāvataṃsaka—a statement that would not seem to make much sense.
rnam par snang mdzad chen po mngon par rdzogs par byang chub pa rnam par sprul pa byin gyis rlob pa shin tu rgyas pa mdo sde’i dbang po’i rgyal po.
According to the Sanskrit. There is no division into chapters in the Tibetan, see Introduction i.65. In Śikṣānanda’s eighty-fascicle Chinese translation (hereafter, “the Chinese”), this is presented as the thirty-ninth sūtra in twenty-one fascicles, from 60 to 80. Each fascicle bears the title 入法界品 (ru fa jie pin), number 39, and a serial number ranging from 1 to 21; for example, fascicle 60 is entitled 入法界品第三十九之一 (ru fa jie pin di san shi jiu zhi yi), the first segment of the thirty-ninth sūtra, Entry into the Realm of the Dharma.
According to the Sanskrit and such Kangyurs as the Degé, which have shes pa dam pa’i ye shes. Lithang and Choné Kangyurs have shes rab dam pa’i ye shes. Yongle and Kangxi have ye shes rab dam pa’i ye shes.
According to the Sanskrit and the Chinese. The Tibetan blo gros chen po’i gzi brjid appears to translate from mahāmatitejas.
This is followed in the Sanskrit by Samantaprabhatejas, which would have been translated into Tibetan as kun nas ’od gyi gzi brjid. The Chinese appears to have conflated these three similar names into one as 普吉祥威力 (pu ji xiang wei li).
According to the Sanskrit, the Chinese, and most Kangyurs, which have shin tu rnam par lta ba’i myig. Yongle, Lithang, Kangxi, and Choné have rnam par dag pa’i in error for rnam par lta ba’i. In the Sanskrit this is followed by Avalokitanetra, which is absent in both the Chinese and the Tibetan, most likely the result of a scribal omission due to the similarity of the names.
In the Sanskrit and the Chinese this is followed by “the bodhisattva Samantanetra,” which is not present in the Tibetan.
According to the Sanskrit and the Chinese. Not present in the Tibetan, probably as the result of an accidental omission in the process of copying, because of the names being similar.
According to the Sanskrit. The Tibetan ye shes ri bo’i blo appears to be translated from jñānaparvatabuddhi. The Chinese reads 須彌光覺 (xu mi guang jue).
The Chinese translation uses the term 成就 (cheng jiu), which means “accomplished.” Sanskrit: abhiniryāta.
The Sanskrit samantabhadrabodhisattvacaryāpraṇidhāna could also be interpreted, as is similarly found in Osto, as “the prayer for the bodhisattva conduct of Samantabhadra,” though this would more regularly be written as bodhisattvasamantabhadracaryāpraṇidhāna.
According to the Sanskrit. The translation of the word vijñaptiṣu, which would have been translated as rnam par rig byed, appears to have been inadvertently omitted in the Tibetan, either from the Sanskrit manuscript it was translated from or at an early stage in the copying of the text. The Chinese translation has 至處無限 (zhi chu wu xian, “who had been to countless places”).
According to the Sanskrit and the Chinese. The Tibetan appears to have inadvertently omitted “of the buddhas.”
According to the Sanskrit guṇa. The word yon tan (the translation of guṇa) is absent in the Tibetan, and absent in the Chinese as well.
According to the Sanskrit anigṛhīta. The Tibetan translates as the vague mi gnas pa, which could be interpreted as “not dwelling” or “unlocated.” Similarly, the Chinese describes their manifestations as 無所依止 (wu suo yi zhi, “nondwelling”) because they are in accordance with the aspirations of beings.
According to the Sanskrit. The Tibetan appears to have translated tshogs from a manuscript in which gagaṇa (“space”) was corrupted to gaṇa (“crowd,” “class,” “group”) so that it meant “the range of activity of the crowd of tathāgatas.” The Chinese omits the description “that is as extensive as space.”
According to the Tibetan sgo (“gateway”). The Chinese translation has 門 (men, “door”) as well. The available Sanskrit appears to have sukha (“bliss”) in error for mukha (“door”).
According to las in the Stok Palace, Kangxi, Lithang, Yongle, and Choné Kangyurs. The others have la.
According to the Sanskrit vihāra and the Chinese. The Tibetan appears to have inadvertently omitted it.
According to the Sanskrit kāya and the Chinese. The Tibetan appears to have inadvertently omitted it.
According to the Sanskrit. The Tibetan appears to have kyi in error for kyis in all versions. The Chinese has 隨順 (sui shun, “according to”).
According to the Sanskrit and the Chinese. The Tibetan has rgyan (“adornment”). The Chinese translates this as “how he had practiced.”
The Tibetan has interpreted the compound as bsgrub pa dang / rnam par ’phrul pa, meaning “attainments and miraculous manifestations.”
According to the Sanskrit dakṣina, and yon in Stok Palace, Yongle, Narthang, and Lhasa. Other Kangyurs have yon tan (“qualities”). The Chinese translates as 布施功德 (bu shi gong de, “the merit of generosity”).
According to the instrumental particle in most Kangyurs, including Stok Palace, but absent in Lithang and Choné.
These three qualities (i.e., extensive as space, beyond example, and having adornments) appear only in the Tibetan. The Sanskrit and the Chinese have mahākaruṇāśarīra and 大悲為身 (da bei wei shen), both of which mean “the body of great compassion,” which is absent in Tibetan.
According to the Sanskrit. The Tibetan has a genitive particle that connects this description with the following one.
The Tibetan here and elsewhere translates jagat as ’gro ba (“beings”) instead of its meaning as “world.” The Chinese translates as “the world” to describe the precious jewels as “the best of the world.”
According to the Sanskrit. The Tibetan has a genitive particle that connects this description with the following one.
According to the Sanskrit rāja and rgyal po in Stok Palace, Narthang, and Lhasa. Other Kangyurs have rgyal ba.
According to the Sanskrit divyātmabhāva interpreted in Tibetan as “bodies of divine materials.” The Chinese interprets it as 天身雲 (tian shen yun, “clouds of divine bodies”).
According to the Tibetan. In Sanskrit this is divided into two descriptions: “Adorned by a rain from clouds of every flower, adorned by a profusion of a treasure of excellent flowers.” The Chinese has 華樹 (hua shu, “flowering trees” or “flowers and trees”).
According to the Tibetan. “Trees” is absent in the available Sanskrit. The Chinese has 衣樹雲 (yi shu yun, “clouds of clothes and trees”).
According to the Sanskrit. The Tibetan translates paṭala, here meaning “a mass or assemblage,” as na bun (“mist”). The Sanskrit śarīra here has the meaning of “world” or “universe” but was translated into Tibetan by its more general meaning of “body,” creating a meaningless sentence. The Chinese reads 一切大地 (yi qie da di), literally “all great lands,” which can mean the “world” or “universe,” either singular or plural. It describes the following clouds of incense as 一切如眾生形 (yī qiè rú zhòng shēng xíng, “in forms of all sentient beings”). Cleary has “form of all beings” while Osto has “body of the entire world.”
According to the Sanskrit jala and the Chinese 網 (wang). The Tibetan appears to have translated from rāja (“king”). The word “powder” is absent in the Chinese.
According to the Sanskrit bimba. The Tibetan translates as ’bru, which could be taken to mean “grain.” Not present in the Chinese.
According to the Sanskrit adhitiṣṭha. The Tibetan translates it as byin gyis brlab pa (“blessed”). The Chinese presents all these items as part of the manifestation without adding verbs to each.
In the Sanskrit this is followed by “manifested the circles of followers in all buddha realms,” which is absent in the Tibetan and the Chinese.
According to the Sanskrit and Tibetan later in the sūtra. At this point the Sanskrit omits tejo, while the Tibetan omits rgyal po (rāja).
According to the Sanskrit. Tibetan has bdug spos (“incense”) instead of rgyal mtshan (“banners”). The sentence then repeats, so this is apparently an error.
According to the Sanskrit and the Chinese. The Tibetan omits “flowers” and has a second repetition of the same sentences, so this omission is apparently an error.
According to the Sanskrit. The Tibetan here is particularly corrupt and descends into gibberish: mdangs ’byung bas thams cad kyi rdul gyi kha dog dang ’dra ba’i (“through shining with light they are like the color of dust/atoms”). The Chinese does not mention “pores” and describes such jewels as “brilliant.”
According to the Sanskrit and the Chinese. The Tibetan appears to have an inadvertent omission of the last two syllables of its name (rgyal mtshan).
According to the Sanskrit and the Chinese. The Tibetan appears to have an inadvertent omission of “clothing.”
According to the Sanskrit and the Chinese. The Tibetan appears to have an inadvertent omission of “clothing.”
A buddha in the distant past.
The ninth buddha in a kalpa in the distant past.
The highest of the three paradises that correspond to the second dhyāna in the form realm. In other contexts, the Tibetan ’od gsal ba usually refers to Ābhāsvara, and the Tibetan gya nom snang ba would refer to Sudṛśa.
A world realm in the distant past.
A bodhisattva present in Śrāvastī.
A dancer’s daughter in the distant past.
The sixty-seventh buddha in a kalpa in the distant past.
An eminent daughter in Dhanyākara.
The realm of the Buddha Akṣobhya, beyond countless buddha realms in the eastern direction.
One of the future buddhas of this kalpa.
One of the future buddhas of this kalpa.
The fifteenth buddha in a kalpa in the distant past, and also the seventy-fourth buddha in the same kalpa.
One of the future buddhas of this kalpa.
The fifty-third buddha in a kalpa in the distant past. BHS verse: Abhyudgataprabhaśirī.
A young upāsikā, the kalyāṇamitra of chapter 22.
One of the future buddhas of this kalpa.
One of the future buddhas of this kalpa.
A bodhisattva present in Śrāvastī.
A spiritual teacher, “one who knows the conduct or practice (ācāra) to be performed”; this can also be a title for a scholar, although that is not the context in this sūtra.
“The Voice That Reveals the Range of Countless Buddhas.” The name of a ray of light.
One of the future buddhas of this kalpa.
One of the future buddhas of this kalpa.
The five actions that lead to going instantly to hell on death are killing one’s father, killing one’s mother, killing an arhat, splitting the saṅgha, and wounding a buddha so that he bleeds.
The realm of the Buddha Candrabuddhi.
A buddha in the distant past. The name as given in verse. In prose he is called Vipuladharmādhimuktisaṃbhavatejas.
One of countless buddhas in a past kalpa.
One of the future buddhas of this kalpa.
“The King of Clouds of the Light of the Essence of the Sun.” The name of the precious jewel of a cakravartin in the distant past.
A buddha in the distant past.
These palaces served as both vehicles and residences for deities.
The resinous heartwood of the Aquilaria and Gyirnops evergreen trees in India and southeast Asia, also known as aloeswood (agallochum).
The Indian god of fire.
One of the future buddhas of this kalpa.
One of the future buddhas of this kalpa.
One of the future buddhas of this kalpa.
A nāga king.
A householder, the kalyāṇamitra of chapter 51.
One of the future buddhas of this kalpa. See n.1906.
One of the future buddhas of this kalpa.
The highest paradise among the Śuddhāvāsa paradises, which are the five highest in the form realm; therefore, this is the highest point within a world realm.
A buddha in the distant past.
A buddha realm in the upward direction.
A buddha realm in the upward direction.
The buddha in the eastern realm of Abhiratī. The translation of his name in this sūtra differs from the usual translations, which are either mi ’khrugs pa, mi skyod pa, or mi bskyod pa. In the higher tantras he is the head of one the five buddha families, the vajra family, in the east, and he was also well known early in the Mahāyāna sūtra tradition.
The sixty-fourth buddha in a kalpa in the distant past.
One of the future buddhas of this kalpa.
The buddha of the western realm of Sukhāvatī, he is also known as Amitāyus. The Tibetan translation of Amitābha in this sūtra differs from the usual translations, either ’od dpag med or snang ba mtha’ yas. It is also the name in chapter 44 of a future buddha in this kalpa. In that instance the Tibetan is mi dpogs ’od.
A region in South India.
The divine nectar that prevents death, often used metaphorically for the Dharma.
sdong po bkod pa (Gaṇḍavyūha). Toh 44, ch. 45, Degé Kangyur vol. 37 (phal chen, ga), folios 274.b–396.a; vol. 38 (phal chen, a), folios 1.b–363.a.
sdong po bkod pa. bka’ ’gyur (dpe bsdur ma) [Comparative Edition of the Kangyur], krung go’i bod rig pa zhib ’jug ste gnas kyi bka’ bstan dpe sdur khang (The Tibetan Tripitaka Collation Bureau of the China Tibetology Research Center). 108 volumes. Beijing: krung go’i bod rig pa dpe skrun khang (China Tibetology Publishing House), 2006–9, vol. 37, pp. 590–853; vol. 38, pp. 3–800.
sdong po bkod pa. Stok Palace Kangyur vol. 39 (phal chen, ca), folios 22.b–352.a; vol. 40 (phal chen, cha), folios 1.a–310.a.
sangs rgyas phal po che zhe bya ba shin tu rgyas pa chen po’i mdo (Buddhāvataṃsakanāmamahāvaipulyasūtra) [The Mahāvaipulya Sūtra “A Multitude of Buddhas”]. Toh 44, Degé Kangyur vols. 35–38 (phal chen, ka–a). Stok Palace Kangyur vols. 35–40 (phal chen, ka–cha).
dga’ bo la mngal na gnas pa bstan pa (Nandagarbhāvakrantinirdeśa) [The Sūtra on Being in the Womb That Was Taught to Nanda]. Toh 57, Degé Kangyur vol. 41 (dkon brtsegs, ga), folios 205.b–236.b. English translation The Teaching to the Venerable Nanda on Dwelling in the Womb 2025.
rgya cher rol pa (Lalitavistara). Toh 95, Degé Kangyur vol. 46 (mdo sde, kha), folios 1.b–216.b. English translation in Dharmachakra Translation Committee (2013).
snying rje chen po’i pad ma dkar po (Mahākaruṇāpuṇḍarīka) [White Lotus of Compassion Sūtra]. Toh 111, Degé Kangyur vol. 50 (mde sde, cha), folios 56.a–128.b.
ting nge ’dzin gyi rgyal po’i mdo (Samādhirājasūtra). Toh 127, Degé Kangyur vol. 55 (mdo sde, da), folios 1.b–170.b. English translation in Roberts (2018a).
dam pa’i chos pad ma dkar po (Saddharmapuṇḍarīka) [Lotus Sūtra/Lotus of the Good Dharma]. Toh 113, Degé Kangyur vol. 51 (mdo sde, ja), folios 1.b–180.b. English translation in Roberts (2018b).
bde ba can gyi bkod pa (Sukhāvatīvyūha). Toh 115, Degé Kangyur vol. 51 (mdo sde, ja), folios 195.b–200.b. English translation in Sakya Pandita Translation Group (2011).
rnam par snang mdzad chen po mngon par rdzogs par byang chub pa rnam par sprul pa byin gyis rlob pa shin tu rgyas pa mdo sde’i dbang po’i rgyal po (Mahāvairocanābhisambodhivikurvatīadhiṣṭhānavaipulyasūtraindrarājānāmadharmaparyāya). Toh 494, Degé Kangyur vol. 86 (rgyud, tha), folios 151.b–260.a.
phung po gsum pa’i mdo (Triskandhakasūtra) [The Confession of the Three Heaps]. A reference to a passage (1.43 et seq.) in the Vinaya-viniścayopāli-paripṛcchā, Toh 68, Degé Kangyur vol. 43 (dkon brtsegs, ca) folios 120.a–121.a. English translation in UCSB Buddhist Studies Translation Group (2021).
byang chub sems dpa’i spyod yul gyi thabs kyi yul la rnam par ’phrul pa bstan pa (Bodhisattvagocaraupāyaviṣayavikurvāṇanirdeśa/Satyaka Sūtra) [The Teaching of the Miraculous Manifestation of the Range of Methods in the Field of Activity of the Bodhisattvas]. Toh 146, Degé Kangyur vol. 57 (mdo sde, pa), folios 82.a–141.b. English translation in Jamspal (2010).
tshangs pa’i dra ba’i mdo (Brahmajālasūtra). Toh 352, Degé Kangyur vol. 76 (mdo sde, aH), folios 70.b–86.a.
tshe dang ldan pa dga’ bo la mngal du ’jug pa bstan pa (Āyuṣmannandagarbhāvakrantinirdeśa) [The Sūtra on Entering the Womb That Was Taught to Āyuṣmat Nanda]. Toh 58, Degé Kangyur vol. 41 (dkon brtsegs, ga), folios 237.a–248.a. English translation in Kritzer 2021.
bzang po smon lam (Bhadracaryāpraṇidhāna). Toh 1095, Degé Kangyur vol. 101 (gzungs, waM), folios 262.b–266.a. English translation The Prayer of Good Conduct 2025.
shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa stong phrag nyi shu lnga pa (Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā) [The Perfection of Wisdom in Twenty-Five Thousand Lines]. Toh 9, Degé Kangyur vols. 26–28 (nyi khri, ka–ga). English Translation in Padmakara Translation Group (2023).
sa bcu’i le’u (Daśabhūmika) [Ten Bhūmi Sūtra]. Toh 44, ch. 31, Degé Kangyur vol. 36 (phal chen, ga), folios 46.a–283.a. English translation in Roberts (2021).
sems kyi rgyal pos dris nas grangs la ’jug pa bstan pa. Toh 44, ch. 36, Degé Kangyur vol. 36 (phal chen, kha), folios 348.b–393.b. Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma) Kangyur vol. 36 (phal chen, kha), pp. 807–25.
Vaidya, P. L., ed. Gaṇḍavyūhasūtra. Darbhanga: Mithila Institute, 1960.
Gaṇḍavyūhasūtra. GRETIL edition input by members of the Digital Sanskrit Buddhist Canon Input Project, based on the edition by P. L. Vaidya. Gaṇḍavyūhasūtra. Darbhanga: The Mithila Institute, 1960. Last updated July 31, 2020.
Suzuki, D. T., and Hokei Idzumi, eds. The Gaṇḍavyūha Sūtra. rev. ed. Tokyo: Society for the Publication of Sacred Books of the World, 1949.
Da fangguang fohuayan jing 大方廣佛華嚴經 (Avataṃsaka Sūtra), translated by Buddhabhadra. Taishō 278.
Da fangguang fohuayan jing 大方廣佛華嚴經 (Avataṃsaka Sūtra), translated by Śikṣānanda. Taishō 279.
Da fangguang fohuayan jing 大方廣佛華嚴經 (Avataṃsaka Sūtra), translated by Prajñā. Taishō 293.
Da fangguang fohuayan jing ru fajie pin 大方廣佛華嚴經入法界品 (Avataṃsaka Sūtra, Gaṇḍavyūha Chapter), translated by Divākara. Taishō 295.
Da fangguang fohuayan jing busiyi fo jingjie fen 大方廣佛華嚴經不思議佛境界分 (Avataṃsaka Sūtra, Chapter on The Teaching on the Inconceivability of the Buddhadharma), translated by Devaprajñā. Taishō 300.
Da fangguang fohuayan jing busiyi fo jingjie fen 大方廣佛華嚴經入法界品四十二字觀門 (Avataṃsaka Sūtra, Contemplation on the 42 Syllables of the Gaṇḍavyūha), translated by Amoghavajra. Taishō 1019.
Cheng Guan 澄觀. Da fangguang fohuayan jingshu 大方廣佛華嚴經疏 (Commentary on the Avataṃsaka Sūtra). Taishō 1735.
Carré, Patrick. Soûtra de l’Entrée dans la dimension absolue. 2 vols.: I. Introduction et Traité de Li Tongxuan XXII–XL; II. Soûtra et glossaire. Plazac, France: Éditions Padmakara, 2019.
Cleary, Thomas. “Entry into the Realm of Reality” (chapter 39), in The Flower Ornament Scripture: A Translation of the Avatamsaka Sutra, pp. 1135–1532. Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1993.
Osto, Douglas (2010). “A New Translation of the Sanskrit Bhadracarī with Introduction and Notes.” New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies 12, no. 2 (2010): 1–21.
Osto, Douglas (2020). “The Supreme Array Scripture.” D. E. Osto. Accessed July 6, 2021.
Madhyavyutpatti (sgra sbyor bam po gnyis pa). Toh 4347, Degé Tengyur, vol. 204 (sna tshogs, co) folios 131.b–160.a.
Mahāvyutpatti (bye brag tu rtogs par byed pa chen po). Toh 4346, Degé Tengyur vol. 204 (sna tshogs, co), folios 1.b–131.a.
Minling Terchen Gyurme Dorje (smin gling gter chen ’gyur med rdo rje). zab pa dang rgya che ba’i dam pa'i chos kyi thob yig rin chen ’byung gnas dum bu gnyis pa [“The Jewel Mine: A Record of Transmissions Received of the Profound and Vast Sublime Dharma, Part 2”]. In gsung ’bum / ’gyur med rdo rje, vol. 2 (kha), folios 1a–320a. Computer input edition. Dehra Dun: D. G. Khochhen Tulku, 1998. BDRC W22096.
Ngorchen Könchok Lhündrup (ngor chen dkon mchog lhun grub) and Ngorchen Sangyé Phuntsok (ngor chen sangs rgyas phun tshogs). Ngor chos ’byung: A History of Buddhism, being the text of dam pa’i chos kyi byung tshul legs par bshad pa bstan pa rgya mtshor ’jug pa’i gru chen zhes bya ba rtsom ’phro kha skon bcas. New Delhi: Ngawang Topgay, 1973.
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In this lengthy final chapter of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, while the Buddha Śākyamuni is in meditation in Śrāvastī, Mañjuśrī leaves for South India, where he meets the young layman Sudhana and instructs him to go to a certain kalyāṇamitra or “good friend,” who then directs Sudhana to another such friend. In this way, Sudhana successively meets and receives teachings from fifty male and female, child and adult, human and divine, and monastic and lay kalyāṇamitras, including night goddesses surrounding the Buddha and the Buddha’s wife and mother. The final three in the succession of kalyāṇamitras are the three bodhisattvas Maitreya, Mañjuśrī, and Samantabhadra. Samantabhadra’s recitation of the Samantabhadracaryāpraṇidhāna (“The Prayer for Completely Good Conduct”) concludes the sūtra.
Translated by Peter Alan Roberts and edited by Emily Bower, who was also the project manager. Ling Lung Chen was consultant for the Chinese, and Tracy Davis copyedited the final draft. The translator would like to thank Patrick Carré and Douglas Osto, who have both spent decades studying and translating this sūtra, for their advice and help.
The translation was completed under the patronage and supervision of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha.
The generous sponsorship of Richard and Carol Weingarten; of Jamyang Sun, Manju Chandra Sun and Siqi Sun; and of an anonymous donor, which helped make the work on this translation possible, is most gratefully acknowledged.
The 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.
The 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.
In 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.
The 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.
The 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.
The 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.
Mahāyāna 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.
In 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.
Concerning 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.
The 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.
The 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.
There 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).
Earlier 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.
There are no surviving Sanskrit manuscripts of the Gaṇḍavyūha from the first millennium, but there is a complete Sanskrit text that dates to 1166
The Gaṇḍavyūha Sūtra was first translated into Chinese as an independent text by a monk named Shengjian sometime between 388 and 408
Not long afterward, in 420, Buddhabhadra (359–429
Interestingly, the Indian monk Paramārtha (499–569
The 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
Śikṣānanda’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.
There 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).
As mentioned, the Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra became the basis for the Chinese Huayan school of Buddhism. Li Tongxuan (635–730
The 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.
Although 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 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.
By 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.
According 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.
Whereas 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.
The 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].
The 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.
It 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).
According 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.
The 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.
The 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.
The 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.
The 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.”
The 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.
There have been partial unpublished translations from the Sanskrit by Mark Allen Ehman in 1977 and Yuko Ijiri in 2005.
Douglas 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.
As 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.
There 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.
Gaṇḍa 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).
Douglas 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.
However, 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 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.
Whatever 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.
During 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.
This 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.
The 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.
The 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.
Throughout 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.”
In 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”).
In 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.
In 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.
In 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.
In 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.
Chapters 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.
The 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.
Although 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”).
The 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.
The 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.
Tibetan 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.
Also, 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.
The 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.
The 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.
Neither 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.
The 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.
The 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.
Through 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.
Sudhana 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.
Sudhana 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.
Sudhana 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.
Sudhana 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.
After 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.
Sudhana 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.
[V37] [B24] The Bhagavat was in Śrāvastī, in a greatly adorned kūṭāgāra in Jetavana, Anāthapiṇḍada’s park, together with the bodhisattvas Samantabhadra, Mañjuśrī, and others, including the bodhisattva mahāsattvas Jñānottarajñānin, Sattvottarajñānin, Asaṅgottarajñānin, Kusumottarajñānin, Sūryottarajñānin, Candrottarajñānin, Vimalottarajñānin, Vajrottarajñānin, Virajottarajñānin, and the bodhisattva Vairocanottarajñānin; the bodhisattvas Jyotirdhvaja, Merudhvaja, Ratnadhvaja, Asaṅgadhvaja, Kusumadhvaja, Vimaladhvaja, Sūryadhvaja, Ruciradhvaja, Virajadhvaja, and the bodhisattva Vairocanadhvaja; the bodhisattvas Ratnatejas, Mahātejas, Jñānavajratejas, Vimalatejas, Dharmasūryatejas, Puṇyaparvatatejas, Jñānāvabhāsatejas, Samantaśrītejas, Samantaprabhaśrītejas, and the bodhisattva Daśadikprabhaparisphuṭa; the bodhisattvas Dhāraṇīgarbha, Gaganagarbha, Padmagarbha, Ratnagarbha, Sūryagarbha, Guṇaviśuddhigarbha, Dharmasamudragarbha, Vairocanagarbha, Nābhigarbha, and the bodhisattva Padmaśrīgarbha; the bodhisattvas Sunetra, Viśuddhanetra, Vimalanetra, Asaṅganetra, Samantadarśananetra, Suvilokitanetra, Avalokitanetra, Utpalanetra, Vajranetra, Ratnanetra, and the bodhisattva Gagananetra; the bodhisattvas Devamukuṭa, Dharmadhātupratibhāsamaṇimukuṭa, Bodhimaṇḍamukuṭa, Digvairocanamukuṭa, Sarvabuddhasaṃbhūtagarbhamaṇimukuṭa, Sarvalokadhātūdgatamukuṭa, Samantavairocanamukuṭa, Anabhibhūtamukuṭa, Sarvatathāgatasiṃhāsanasaṃpratiṣṭhitamaṇimukuṭa, and the bodhisattva Samantadharmadhātugaganapratibhāsamukuṭa; the bodhisattvas Brahmendracuḍa, Nāgendracūḍa, Sarvabuddhanirmāṇapratibhāsacūḍa, Bodhimaṇḍacūḍa, Sarvapraṇidhānasāgaranirghoṣamaṇirājacūḍa, Sarvatathāgataprabhāmaṇḍalapramuñcanamaṇiratnanigarjitacūḍa, Sarvākāśatalāsaṃbhedavijñaptimaṇiratnavibhūṣitacūḍa, Sarvatathāgatavikurvitapratibhāsadhvajamaṇirājajālasaṃchāditacūḍa, Sarvatathāgatadharmacakranirghoṣacūḍa, and the bodhisattva Sarvatryadhvanāmacakranirghoṣacūḍa; the bodhisattvas Mahāprabha, Vimalaprabha, Vimalatejaḥprabha, Ratnaprabha, Virajaprabha, Jyotiṣprabha, Dharmaprabha, Śāntiprabha, Sūryaprabha, Vikurvitaprabha, and the bodhisattva Devaprabha; the bodhisattvas Puṇyaketu, Jñānaketu, Dharmaketu, Abhijñāketu, Prabhāketu, Kusumaketu, Maṇiketu, Bodhiketu, Brahmaketu, and the bodhisattva Samantāvabhāsaketu; the bodhisattvas Brahmaghoṣa, Sāgaraghoṣa, Dharaṇīnirnādaghoṣa, Lokendraghoṣa, Śailendrarājasaṃghaṭṭanaghoṣa, Sarvadharmadhātuspharaṇaghoṣa, Sarvadharmadhātusāgaranigarjitaghoṣa, Sarvamāramaṇḍalapramardaṇaghoṣa, Mahākaruṇānayameghanigarjitaghoṣa, and the bodhisattva Sarvajagadduḥkhapraśāntyāśvāsanaghoṣa; the bodhisattvas Dharmodgata, Viśeṣodgata, Jñānodgata, Puṇyasumerūdgata, Guṇaprabhāvodgata, Yaśodgata, Samantāvabhāsodgata, Mahāmaitryudgata, Jñānasaṃbhārodgata, and Tathāgatakulagotrodgata; the bodhisattvas Prabhāśrī, Pravaraśrī, Samudgataśrī, Vairocanaśrī, Dharmaśrī, Candraśrī, Gaganaśrī, Ratnaśrī, Ketuśrī, and the bodhisattva Jñānaśrī; the bodhisattvas Śailendrarāja, Dharmendrarāja, Jagadindrarāja, Brahmendrarāja, Gaṇendrarāja, Devendrarāja, Śāntendrarāja, Acalendrarāja, Ṛṣabhendrarāja, and the bodhisattva Pravarendrarāja; the bodhisattvas Praśāntasvara, Asaṅgasvara, Dharaṇīnirghoṣasvara, Sāgaranigarjitasvara, Meghanirghoṣasvara, Dharmāvabhāsasvara, Gagananirghoṣasvara, Sarvasattvakuśalamūlanigarjitasvara, Pūrvapraṇidhānasaṃcodanasvara, and the bodhisattva Māramaṇḍalanirghoṣasvara; and the bodhisattvas Ratnabuddhi, Jñānabuddhi, Gaganabuddhi, Vimalabuddhi, Asaṅgabuddhi, Viśuddhabuddhi, Tryadhvāvabhāsabuddhi, Viśālabuddhi, Samantāvalokabuddhi, and the bodhisattva Dharmadhātunayāvabhāsabuddhi, and so on. There were five thousand bodhisattvas in all who had all arisen from completely good bodhisattva conduct and prayers, who had unimpeded fields of activity because they pervaded all buddha realms, who had the blessing of infinite bodies because they came into the presence of all tathāgatas, who had the pure orbs of unobscured eyes because they saw the manifestations of all the buddhas, who had gone to receive measureless proclamations because they unceasingly came into the presence of all tathāgatas when they attained buddhahood, who possessed infinite radiance through having attained the radiance of wisdom in all the ways of the ocean of the Dharma of the buddhas, who taught good qualities unceasingly throughout infinite kalpas because of their pure analytic knowledge, who had unrestricted conduct of wisdom as far as the ends of space because they manifested physical bodies in accordance with the aspirations of beings, whose sight was free from defect because they knew that the realm of beings has no souls and no beings, and who had wisdom as vast as space because they pervaded the realm of phenomena with a network of light rays.
There were five hundred śrāvakas endowed with miraculous powers, all of whom had realized the nature of the way of the truths; directly perceived the true finality; comprehended the nature of phenomena; transcended the ocean of existence; had the range of activity of the tathāgatas that is as extensive as space; had ended fetters, predispositions, and bondage; remained in an unobstructed state; dwelled in a peace that was like space; had eliminated doubts, uncertainty, and equivocation concerning the buddhas; and followed the path of aspiration for the ocean of the wisdom of the buddhas. There were lords of the world who had served previous jinas, who were dedicated to bringing benefit and happiness to all beings, who became good guides without being asked, who were dedicated to protecting other beings, who had attained the gateway to wisdom that transcends the world, who had the motivation of never abandoning all beings, who had originated from the field of activity of the teaching of all buddhas, who were dedicated to protecting the teachings of the tathāgatas, who were born through prayers to be within the family of the buddhas, who had attained being within the family lineage of the tathāgatas, and who aspired to omniscience.
Then those bodhisattvas and their followers, and the śrāvakas who had miraculous powers and the lords of the world and their followers thought, “Without the Tathāgata’s blessing, without the Tathāgata’s manifestations, without the Tathāgata’s power, without the Tathāgata’s past prayers, without a past excellent practice of the roots of merit, without the guidance of a kalyāṇamitra, without the pure eyes of faith, without the attainment of the radiance of a vast aspiration, without the pure superior motivation of a bodhisattva, and without the determined aspiration for omniscience, it is not possible for worldly beings and devas to comprehend, or understand, or believe in, or know, or conceive of, or grasp, or analyze, or meditate on, or classify, or reveal, or describe, or establish within other beings the Tathāgata’s domain, the scope of the Tathāgata’s wisdom, the Tathāgata’s blessing, the Tathāgata’s strengths, the Tathāgata’s fearlessness, the Tathāgata’s samādhi, the Tathāgata’s conduct, the Tathāgata’s state, the Tathāgata’s supremacy, the Tathāgata’s body, or the Tathāgata’s wisdom.
“May the Bhagavat teach us—we who have the aspirations of bodhisattvas—as well as all beings, who—because of their various aspirations, different kinds of motivations, and different kinds of knowledge—use different kinds of words and terms, are on different levels of power, and have different purity of faculties, different kinds of motivation and conduct, different ranges of thought, different kinds of reliance on the qualities of the tathāgatas, and different kinds of interest in the teaching of the Dharma.
“May he teach us how in the past he set out to attain omniscience. May he teach us how in the past he accomplished the aspiration of a bodhisattva. May he teach us how in the past he had a pure field of the perfections of a bodhisattva. May he teach us how in the past he had the miraculous manifestations of having reached the level of a bodhisattva. May he teach us how in the past he had completely accomplished the field of conduct of a bodhisattva. May he teach us how in the past he had displayed accomplishing the way of a bodhisattva. May he teach us how in the past he had a pure display of the bodhisattva’s path. May he teach us how in the past he displayed the accomplishment of an ocean of a bodhisattva’s ways of going forth. May he teach us how in the past he perfectly displayed an ocean of the miraculous manifestations that are a bodhisattva’s attainments. May he teach us how in the past he had an ocean of a bodhisattva’s practices. May he teach us how he has an ocean of miraculous manifestations through attaining enlightenment. May he also teach us how he has manifested the most powerful miraculous manifestation of turning a tathāgata’s wheel of the Dharma. May he also teach us how he has an ocean of the miraculous manifestations of purifying a tathāgata’s buddha realm. May he also teach us how he has the gateway of methods for guiding the realm of beings. May he also teach us how he has sovereignty over the city of the Dharma of an omniscient tathāgata. May he also teach us how he has a tathāgata’s illumination of the path for all beings. May he also teach us how he has a tathāgata’s miraculous manifestation of entering into the existences of beings. May he also teach us how he receives the offerings of beings for a tathāgata. May he also teach us how he has a tathāgata’s miracle of teaching merit and offerings to all beings. May he also teach us how the Tathāgata has created the perceived image of a buddha within the mental processes of all beings. May he also teach us how the Tathāgata has created magical manifestations for all beings. May he also teach us how the Tathāgata has created the magical appearances of teachings and instructions for all beings. May he also teach us the Tathāgata’s manifestations of the inconceivable range of the samādhis of buddhahood for all beings.”
Then the Bhagavat, knowing the thoughts in the minds of those bodhisattvas, rested in the samādhi called the gaping lion, which is as extensive as space and therefore is beyond example and has adornments that appear to all beings, has the nature of being the gateway to great compassion, possesses the gateway to great compassion, precedes great compassion, and has the quality of great compassion.
As soon as the Bhagavat rested in that meditation, there appeared a kūṭāgāra that was greatly adorned and so vast that it had no end or center, with invincible vajra banners arranged on the ground, arrayed in networks of all kings of precious jewels, filled with petals of flowers made of many jewels, beautified by pillars of beryl, with kings of jewels as an arranged display of ornaments that illuminated the world, having a multitude of excellent jewels, having heaps of precious jewels from the Jambu River, with porches, toraṇas, pinnacles, and windows made of all jewels, adorned by countless pure balconies, with an array of precious jewels that resembled all the lords of worlds, with arrangements of the precious jewels from the world’s oceans, covered with nets of all precious jewels, with upraised parasols and banners, and beautified by gateways and toraṇas emitting light rays that completely filled the realm of phenomena; the external ground was beautified by indescribable daises for the surrounding assembly, and in all directions there were stairways of heaps of jewels and beautifully arranged adornments.
Through the power of the Buddha, there were present buddha realms, to the number of the atoms in countless buddha realms, that were immense and vast in length and breadth, possessed various adornments made of all jewels, had grounds made of an indescribable variety of precious jewels, were encircled by walls of countless precious jewels, and were adorned by lines of palm trees made of various jewels.
Those buddha realms were adorned by immeasurable rivers of scented water that were filled with an unceasing volume of scented water that was mixed with many flowers made of a variety of jewels, flowing and turning to the right, and resounding with descriptions of all the qualities of buddhahood.
There were rows of precious white lotus flowers, precious trees beautifully adorned by the blossoms of superior lotuses made from all jewels, rows of countless kūṭāgāras made of various jewels covered in shining networks of every kind of precious jewel, countless aerial palaces made of precious jewels adorned with all precious jewels, the aroma of countless incenses spread everywhere, and the adornment of clouds of incense, countless banners of jewels, banners of cloth, banners that were flags, banners with streamers of jewels, banners with flowers, banners with adornments, banners with garlands, banners with bells of various jewels, banners that were parasols of kings of jewels, banners of precious jewels with pervading radiance, banners of kings of precious jewels that resounded with the wheel of the names of all the tathāgatas, banners of delightful lions made of the kings of precious jewels, banners of the kings of precious jewels that proclaimed the past practices of all the tathāgatas, and banners of the kings of precious jewels that illuminated the entire realm of phenomena, and all directions were adorned with every kind of adorning banner.
Clouds of countless aerial palaces of devas adorned the entire expanse of the sky above Jetavana. Jetavana was adorned and covered by a cloud of countless trees of various kinds of incense. It was adorned and encircled by Sumeru Mountains that possessed indescribable adornments. It was adorned by the beautiful voices and sounds of the praises of all tathāgatas that came from indescribable clouds of musical instruments being played and beaten. It was adorned by a covering of clouds of indescribable precious lotuses. There were indescribable precious lion thrones on which were precious cushions made of divine materials, on which the bodhisattvas were seated, and which were adorned by clouds that emitted beautiful voices that praised the tathāgatas. It was adorned by clouds of grains that were precious jewels that formed indescribable images of lords of the worlds. It was adorned by indescribable clouds of networks of white pearls. It was adorned by a covering of indescribable clouds of kūṭāgāras made of red pearls. It was adorned by an indescribable rainfall from clouds of pearls that were as hard as vajras.
Why was this? It was because of the inconceivable roots of merit of a tathāgata. It was because of the inconceivable good qualities of a tathāgata. It was because of the inconceivable sovereign power and blessing of a tathāgata. It was because of a tathāgata’s inconceivable miraculous manifestations whereby his one body could pervade all world realms. It was because of the inconceivable display of the spiritual power through which all the tathāgatas could enter one body that appears throughout the entire array of buddha realms. It was because of the inconceivable manifestations of the tathāgatas through which they can show the perceivable image of the entire realm of phenomena within a single atom. It was because of the inconceivable manifestations of the tathāgatas through which they can show the entire succession of tathāgatas of the past within a single pore. It was because of the tathāgatas’ inconceivable ability to illuminate infinite world realms with a single ray of light. It was because of the tathāgatas’ inconceivable ability to pervade all buddha realms, which are as numerous as the atoms that comprise all world realms, with a cloud of emanations from a single body hair. It was because of the tathāgatas’ inconceivable ability to reveal the kalpas of the creation and destruction of world realms from a single body hair.
Just as Jetavana was in this way a buddha realm and was completely purified by being a pure realm, in that same way the world realms in the ten directions to the limits of the realm of phenomena, to the limits of space, were also completely purified, adorned, beautified, and with emanated bodies of tathāgatas, and had become similar to Jetavana. They were filled with bodhisattvas; had ocean-like assemblies of followers of tathāgatas; had rainfalls from clouds made of every kind of adornment; were completely illuminated by the lights of all jewels; were adorned by rainfall from clouds made of the entire variety of jewels; were adorned by a covering of clouds made of the adorning features of all realms; were adorned by rainfalls of every kind of divine material; were adorned by a profusion of clouds of every kind of flower; were adorned by a beautiful rainfall of clothes of every color falling from a treasure of clouds of trees of every kind of clothing; were adorned by a continuous rainfall from clouds made of every kind of garland, tassel, and string of beads; were adorned by a rain from masses of clouds as extensive as the universe that were made of various kinds of incense and perfume that pervaded all the directions; were adorned by a continuous rain of a fine powder of networks of jewels from clouds of networks of flowers made from every kind of jewel; were adorned by clouds of banners and flags made of every kind of jewel and held in the hands of divine maidens who moved to and fro throughout the extent of space; were adorned with a variety of lotuses made from all jewels and with circles of precious petals, tall stems, and pericarps that resounded with the beautiful sounds of music; and were adorned with nets of disks of every kind of jewel, nets of lions made of jewels, and various kinds of garlands and strings of beads.
In that way, as soon as the Bhagavat rested in the samādhi called the gaping lion, at that time, in the eastern direction, beyond an ocean of world realms as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, there was the world realm Kanakameghapradīpadhvajā, the Tathāgata Vairocanaśrītejorāja’s buddha realm, where the bodhisattva Vairocanapraṇidhānanābhiraśmiprabha, together with bodhisattvas to the number of atoms in countless buddha realms, with the permission of the Bhagavat, rose up from that ocean of the assembly of followers, came to the Sahā world realm, and adorned the sky with clouds of various kinds of adornments: clouds of divine flowers from which a rain of flowers fell, clouds of divine perfume from which a rain of perfume was released, clouds of divine jewel lotuses from which a rain of lotuses was scattered, clouds of divine garlands from which a rain of garlands was produced, clouds of divine jewels from which a rain of jewels fell, clouds of divine jewelry from which a rain of jewelry fell, clouds of divine precious parasols from which a rain of parasols was produced, clouds of divine flowers from which a rain of flowers fell, clouds of various kinds of fine divine clothing in different colors from which a rain of clothing fell, clouds of divine precious banners and flags that stood in the sky, and an array of clouds of every kind of jewel that filled the sky. Together with his entourage, he approached the Bhagavat, bowed to the Bhagavat, and in the eastern direction emanated perfectly adorned kūṭāgāras that were covered with a net of precious jewels, each containing a lion throne and a lotus made of precious jewels that shined light in all directions, and he and his entourage seated themselves cross-legged upon the lotuses, their bodhisattva bodies adorned with a network of the kings of precious wish-fulfilling jewels.
In the southern direction, beyond an ocean of world realms as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, there was the world realm Vajrasāgaragarbhā, the Tathāgata Samantāvabhāsaśrīgarbharāja’s buddha realm, where the bodhisattva Duryodhanavīryavegarāja, together with bodhisattvas to the number of atoms in countless buddha realms, with the permission of the Bhagavat, rose up from that ocean of the assembly of followers and came to the Sahā world realm. They manifested a network of tassels of every perfume that covered all the oceans of world realms. They manifested a network of tassels of strings of every kind of jewel extending throughout all infinite buddha realms. They manifested a network of tassels and garlands made of every kind of flower that existed throughout all successive buddha realms. They manifested a network of garlands, tassels, and strings of beads that connected all buddha realms. They manifested a network of chains of vajras that holds the ground beneath all the disks of buddha realms. They manifested the way that all buddha realms possess networks of various kinds of precious jewels. They manifested all world realms having acquired and possessing tassels of various kinds of cloth. They manifested all buddha realms being possessed of networks of many tassels and garlands of a variety of jewels, and all realms possessing a network of tassels and garlands made of the light rays of glorious precious jewels. And they manifested the ground of all world realms having a network of tassels and garlands of precious jewels and beautiful lion images.
Together with his entourage, he approached the Bhagavat, bowed to the Bhagavat, and in the southern direction emanated kūṭāgāras made of precious jewels that illuminated the world, each containing a lion throne and a lotus made of precious jewels, which shined light into all directions, and he and his entourage seated themselves cross-legged upon the lotuses, their bodhisattva bodies adorned with a network of flowers made from every kind of jewel.
In the western direction, beyond an ocean of world realms as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, there was the world realm Maṇisumerūvirocanadhvajapradīpā, the Tathāgata Dharmadhātujñānapradīpa’s buddha realm, where the bodhisattva Samantaśrīsamudgatatejorāja, together with bodhisattvas to the number of atoms in countless buddha realms, with the permission of the Bhagavat, rose up from that ocean of the assembly of followers, came to the Sahā world realm, and manifested the entire realm of phenomena being filled with clouds of Sumerus of banners, with various kinds of colors and with various kinds of perfume, that were as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms; the entire realm of phenomena being filled with clouds of Sumerus of flowers, with various kinds of colors and with various kinds of scents, as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms; the entire realm of phenomena being filled with clouds of Sumerus of incenses, with various kinds of colors and with various kinds of scents, as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms; the entire realm of phenomena being filled with clouds of Sumerus of kings of jewels, as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, in forms resembling every kind of requisite, that have arisen from the brilliance of his pores; the entire realm of phenomena being filled with clouds of Sumerus of precious jewels, as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, in the forms of various kinds of banners of stars in a display of circles of lights; the entire realm of phenomena being filled with clouds of Sumerus of kings of jewels, as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, in the forms of various exceptional displays of the essence of vajras in various colors; the entire realm of phenomena being filled with clouds of Sumerus of precious jewels from the Jambu River that brilliantly illuminate all world realms, as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms; the entire realm of phenomena being filled with clouds of Sumerus of precious jewels, as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, that filled the sky and illuminated the entire realm of phenomena; the entire realm of phenomena being filled with clouds of Sumerus of kings of jewels, as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, that were in the form of the features of all tathāgatas; the entire realm of phenomena being filled with clouds of Sumerus of kings of jewels, as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, that resounded with the bodhisattva conduct that revealed the images of the past practices of all tathāgatas; and the ten directions being filled with clouds of Sumerus of kings of jewels, as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, that formed the images of the bodhimaṇḍas of all tathāgatas.
Together with his entourage, he approached the Bhagavat, bowed to the Bhagavat, and in the western direction emanated kūṭāgāras covered by the kings of perfumes and by networks of strings of pearls, each having in its center a lotus made of precious jewels like the banner of Devendra upon a lion throne, and he and his entourage seated themselves cross-legged upon the lotuses, with their bodhisattva bodies adorned with a precious network of gold and a crown of kings of wish-fulfilling jewels bound onto their heads.
In the northern direction, beyond an ocean of world realms as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, there was the world realm Ratnavastrāvabhāsadhvajā, the Tathāgata Dharmadhātugaganaśrīvairocana’s buddha realm, where the bodhisattva Asaṅgaśrīrāja, together with bodhisattvas to the number of atoms in countless buddha realms, with the permission of the Bhagavat, rose up from that ocean of the assembly of followers, came to the Sahā world realm, and manifested the sky being adorned by clouds of precious cloth; manifested the sky being adorned by clouds of precious clothing of yellow color, yellow in appearance; manifested the sky being adorned by clouds of precious clothing perfumed by various scents; manifested the sky being adorned by clouds of clothing made of the kings of jewels that were like the banner of the sun; manifested the sky being adorned by clouds of clothing made of the kings of jewels that shone with the splendor of gold; manifested the sky being adorned by clouds of clothing made of the kings of jewels that shone with jewels; manifested the sky being adorned by clouds of precious clothing in the manifold forms of all the stars; manifested the ten directions of the sky being filled with clouds of clothing made of precious jewels that were like cloth of shining crystal; manifested the ten directions of the sky being filled with clouds of clothing made of kings of jewels that shone with glorious brightness; and manifested the sky being covered by clouds of clothing made of kings of jewels as an ocean of adornments.
Together with his entourage, he approached the Bhagavat, bowed to the Bhagavat, and in the northern direction emanated kūṭāgāras of precious jewels that had emerged from oceans, each having in its center a lotus made of precious jewels like the banner of Devendra upon a lion throne, and he and his entourage seated themselves cross-legged upon the lotuses, with their bodhisattva bodies adorned with a network of beautiful lion images made of the kings of precious jewels and with precious star banners above their heads.
In the northeastern direction, beyond an ocean of world realms as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, there was the world realm Sarvamahāpṛthivīrājamaṇiraśmijālapramuktā, the Tathāgata Anilambhacakṣuṣa’s buddha realm, where the bodhisattva Dharmadhātusunirmitapraṇidhicandra, together with bodhisattvas to the number of atoms in countless buddha realms, with the permission of the Bhagavat, rose up from that ocean of the assembly of followers, came to the Sahā world realm, and manifested all infinite world realms being covered by clouds of kūṭāgāras of precious materials; manifested all infinite world realms being covered by clouds of kūṭāgāras of perfumes; manifested all infinite world realms being covered by clouds of kūṭāgāras of incense; manifested all infinite world realms being covered by clouds of kūṭāgāras of sandalwood; manifested all infinite world realms being covered by clouds of kūṭāgāras of flowers; manifested all infinite world realms being covered by clouds of kūṭāgāras of jewels; manifested all infinite world realms being covered by clouds of kūṭāgāras of vajras; manifested all infinite world realms being covered by clouds of kūṭāgāras of gold; manifested all infinite world realms being covered by clouds of kūṭāgāras of clothing; and manifested all infinite world realms being covered by clouds of kūṭāgāras of lotuses.
Together with his entourage, he approached the Bhagavat, bowed to the Bhagavat, and in the northeastern direction emanated kūṭāgāras of precious jewels that had gateways that looked out upon the entire realm of phenomena, each having in its center, upon a lion throne, a lotus of precious jewels and unequaled perfume, and he and his entourage seated themselves cross-legged upon the lotuses, with their bodhisattva bodies adorned with a network of flowers made of the kings of precious jewels and turbans that were like a network of various treasures of kings of jewels bound upon their heads.
In the southeastern direction, beyond an ocean of world realms as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, there was the world realm Gandhameghavyūhadhvajā, the Tathāgata Nāgeśvararāja’s buddha realm, where the bodhisattva Dharmārciṣmattejorāja, together with bodhisattvas to the number of atoms in countless buddha realms, with the permission of the Bhagavat, rose up from that ocean of the assembly of followers, came to the Sahā world realm, and covered the entire sky with clouds of disks of light the color of gold, covered the entire sky with clouds of disks of light the infinite colors of jewels, covered the entire sky with clouds of disks of light the color of the ūrṇā hair of the tathāgatas, covered the entire sky with clouds of disks of light the color of various jewels, covered the entire sky with clouds of disks of light the color of the center of lotuses, covered the entire sky with clouds of disks of light the color of disks made of the branches of trees made of the precious kings of jewels, covered the entire sky with clouds of disks of light the color of the uṣṇīṣas of the tathāgatas, covered the entire sky with clouds of disks of light the color of Jambu River gold, covered the entire sky with clouds of disks of light the color of the sun, and covered the entire sky with clouds of disks of light the color of the moon and the stars.
Together with his entourage, he approached the Bhagavat, bowed to the Bhagavat, and in the southeastern direction emanated kūṭāgāras of perfect shining flowers of pristine jewels, each having in its center a lotus of lion-vajra jewels upon a lion throne, and he and his entourage seated themselves cross-legged upon the lotuses, their bodhisattva bodies adorned with a network of precious kings of brightly shining jewels.
In the southwestern direction, beyond an ocean of world realms as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, there was the world realm Maṇisūryapratibhāsagarbhā, the Tathāgata Dharmacandrasamantajñānāvabhāsarāja’s buddha realm, where the bodhisattva Sarvamāramaṇḍalavikiraṇajñānadhvaja, together with bodhisattvas to the number of atoms in countless buddha realms, with the permission of the Bhagavat, rose up from that ocean of the assembly of followers, came to the Sahā world realm, and emanated from all his pores clouds of light rays from flowers, which were as vast as the element of space; emanated from all his pores clouds of light rays from musical instruments, which were as vast as the element of space; emanated from all his pores clouds of light rays from precious jewels, which were as vast as the element of space; emanated from all his pores clouds of light rays from precious clothing perfumed by incenses and perfumes of all kinds, which were as vast as the element of space; emanated from all his pores clouds of light rays from lightning emanated by nāgas, which were as vast as the element of space; emanated from all his pores clouds of light rays from bright, precious jewels, which were as vast as the element of space; emanated from all his pores clouds of light rays from shining gold and precious jewels, which were as vast as the element of space; emanated from all his pores clouds of light rays from shining kings of jewels that were the essence of splendor, which were as vast as the element of space; and emanated from all his pores clouds of light rays from precious jewels that had the nature of illuminating the extent of the three times, like the ocean of the awareness of the tathāgatas, spreading throughout the element of space.
Together with his entourage, he approached the Bhagavat, bowed to the Bhagavat, and in the southwestern direction emanated kūṭāgāras with networks of great precious jewels that illuminated the entire realm of phenomena, each having in its center a lotus that radiated light rays of perfumed lamps upon a lion throne, and he and his entourage seated themselves cross-legged upon the lotuses, with their bodhisattva bodies adorned with networks of the stainless essences of kings of jewels and with turbans of kings of jewels that emitted words that guided all beings bound upon their heads.
In the northwestern direction, beyond an ocean of world realms as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, there was the world realm Vairocanaśrīpraṇidhigarbhā, the Tathāgata Samantavairocanaśrīmerurāja’s buddha realm, where the bodhisattva Vairocanapraṇidhijñānaketu, together with bodhisattvas to the number of atoms in countless buddha realms, with the permission of the Bhagavat, rose up from that ocean of the assembly of followers, came to the Sahā world realm, and emanated, from all his signs and features of a great being, all his pores, and his entire body, clouds of images of the bodies of all the tathāgatas who appear in the three times; emanated, from all his signs and features of a great being, all his pores, and his entire body, clouds of images of the bodies of all the bodhisattvas who appear in the three times; emanated, from all his signs and features of a great being, all his pores, and his entire body, clouds of images of the bodies of all the assemblies of followers of all the tathāgatas who appear in the three times; emanated, from all his signs and features of a great being, all his pores, and his entire body, clouds of images of the bodies of all the hosts of emanations of all the tathāgatas who appear in the three times; emanated, from all his signs and features of a great being, all his pores, and his entire body, clouds of images of all the past practices of all the tathāgatas who appear in the three times; emanated, from all his signs and features of a great being, all his pores, and his entire body, clouds of images of the bodies of all śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas who appear in the three times; emanated, from all his signs and features of a great being, all his pores, and his entire body, clouds of images of the forms of all the bodhimaṇḍas and Bodhi trees of all the tathāgatas who appear in the three times; emanated, from all his signs and features of a great being, all his pores, and his entire body, clouds of the many images of the miracles of all the tathāgatas who appear in the three times; emanated, from all his signs and features of a great being, all his pores, and his entire body, clouds of images of the bodies of all world-lords who appear in the three times; and emanated, from all his signs and features of a great being, all his pores, and his entire body, clouds of images of the pure realms of the buddhas who have appeared in the three times.
Instantly these filled the entire element of space, and together with his entourage, he approached the Bhagavat, bowed to the Bhagavat, and in the northwestern direction emanated kūṭāgāras with the essence of the kings of jewels that illuminated every direction, each having in its center, upon a lion throne, a precious lotus that illuminated the directions, and he and his entourage seated themselves cross-legged upon the lotuses, with their bodhisattva bodies adorned with networks of the invincible light of pearls and with turbans that had the illuminating light of all jewels bound upon their heads.
In the downward direction, beyond an ocean of world realms as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, there was the world realm Sarvatathāgataprabhāmaṇḍalavairocanā, the Tathāgata Asaṅgajñānaketudhvajarāja’s buddha realm, where the bodhisattva Sarvāvaraṇavikiraṇajñānavikrāmin, together with bodhisattvas to the number of atoms in countless buddha realms, with the permission of the Bhagavat, rose up from that ocean of the assembly of followers, came to the Sahā world realm, and there resounded, from all his pores, an ocean of the languages, sounds, speech, and word definitions of all beings; there resounded the thunder of an ocean of clouds of the descriptions of how all the bodhisattvas in the three times originated; there resounded an ocean of clouds of the descriptions of how all the bodhisattvas in the three times fulfilled their aspirations; there sounded an ocean of clouds of the descriptions of how all bodhisattvas correctly accomplished the perfections; there resounded clouds of oceans of descriptions of how the field of conduct of all bodhisattvas pervaded all realms; there sounded an ocean of clouds of the descriptions of the accomplishments and miracles of all bodhisattvas; there resounded an ocean of descriptions of how all tathāgatas went to the bodhimaṇḍa, dissipated the disturbances of Māra, attained buddhahood at the bodhimaṇḍa, and manifested miracles; there resounded the thunder of an ocean of clouds of the descriptions of the ways and names of the sūtras and how all tathāgatas turned the wheel of the Dharma; there resounded descriptions of the ways and methods of the guiding Dharma that guides all beings through its timely wheel; and there resounded an ocean of descriptions of the aspirations that were made, the particular roots of merit, the time, the methods, and the Dharma, in order to gain the realization of all wisdom.
He approached the Bhagavat, bowed to the Bhagavat, and in the downward direction emanated kūṭāgāras that were treasures of all the various kinds of shining jewels in the image of the aerial palaces of all the tathāgatas, each having in its center a lotus of every kind of jewel upon a lion throne. He and his entourage seated themselves cross-legged upon the lotuses, with turbans that were banners shining with the images of all precious bodhimaṇḍas bound upon their heads.
In the upward direction, beyond an ocean of world realms as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, there was the world realm Akṣayabuddhavaṃśanirdeśā, the Tathāgata Samantajñānamaṇḍalapratibhāsanirghoṣa’s buddha realm, where the bodhisattva Dharmadhātupraṇidhitalanirbheda, together with bodhisattvas to the number of atoms in countless buddha realms, with the permission of the Bhagavat, rose up from that ocean of the assembly of followers, came to the Sahā world realm, and from all his signs and features of a great being, all his pores, his entire body, all his limbs, his fingers and toes, the words he spoke, and his robe and his skirt he revealed, within all his signs and features of a great being, all his pores, his entire body, all his limbs, his fingers and toes, the words he spoke, and his robe and his skirt, the images of an ocean of the past practice of engaging in the perfection of generosity, and all the recipients and the gifts of all of the assemblies of bodhisattvas, of himself, of the Bhagavat Vairocana, of all the tathāgatas throughout the past, of all prophesied and unprophesied tathāgatas throughout the future who have yet to come, and of all who in the present reside in infinite buddha realms in the ten directions. He made visible the images of an ocean of the entire past practice of engaging in the perfection of correct conduct. He made visible the images of an ocean of the past practice of engaging in the perfection of patience through his limbs, his fingers, and his toes being cut off. He made visible the images of an ocean of the past practice of the diligence, vehemence, and prowess of all bodhisattvas. He made visible the images of an ocean of the past practice of seeking the dhyāna of all the tathāgatas. He revealed the images of an ocean of the past practices of engaging in perfecting the way of the Dharma wheel of all the tathāgatas, and he revealed the bodies and faces of those seeking the Dharma with great resolve giving away all possessions. He revealed the appearances of an ocean of the past practices of rejoicing in seeing all the tathāgatas, the path of all bodhisattvas, and bringing illumination to all beings. He revealed the appearances of an ocean of the past practices of the fulfillment of an ocean of prayers by all bodhisattvas through which there is a display of perfect purification. He revealed the appearances of an ocean of the past practice of engaging in the accomplishment, prowess, and purification of the perfection of strength of all bodhisattvas. Filling the vast expanse of the realm of phenomena with clouds of all miraculous manifestation, he revealed the appearances of an ocean of the past practice endowed with the domain of the wisdom of all bodhisattvas.
He approached the Bhagavat, bowed to the Bhagavat, and in the upward direction emanated kūṭāgāras that were adorned by all kinds of lords of vajras, each having in its center a lotus of sapphires upon a lion throne. He and his entourage, their blessed bodies adorned by a network of all shining precious kings of jewels and hung with necklaces of the kings of jewels from which sounded the names of the tathāgatas of the three times, and their heads bound by precious turbans, seated themselves cross-legged upon the lotuses. [B25]
All those bodhisattvas and their entourages had become so through the completely good conduct and prayer of bodhisattvas. They had been at the feet of all tathāgatas and gazed upon their faces. They possessed the completely pure eyes of wisdom. The ocean of the teaching of the way of the sūtras and the wheel of the Dharma of all the tathāgatas had entered their ears. They had perfectly perfected the perfections that bring the attainment of the power of all bodhisattvas. In each instant they manifested the miracle of going into the presence of all tathāgatas. They had the range of pervading all worlds with a single body. They manifested the appearance of their bodies being present in the assemblies of the pupils of all tathāgatas. They had the range of activity of manifesting all worlds being included within one world that is within a single atom. They ripened all beings, being present at the exact time for guiding them. They had the range of activity of emitting from all their pores the thunder of the clouds of the Dharma wheel of all the tathāgatas. They had attained the knowledge that all the realms of beings were like magical tricks. They had realized that all the tathāgatas are like illusions. They were purified by the knowledge that all rebirths within the continuation of existence were like dreams. They knew that all accomplishments of wisdom are like mirages. They had realized that all infinite worlds are like illusory manifestations. They had attained the ten strengths of the tathāgatas and the light of wisdom. They were supreme beings of fearlessness and had the forcefulness of the lion’s roar. They had entered the inexhaustible ocean of unique knowledge. They had obtained the ocean of the languages of beings and the wisdom of the meaning of the words of the Dharma. They possessed an unimpeded scope of wisdom that was as vast as the realm of phenomena and space. They possessed the pure domain of the wisdom of the clairvoyances of all bodhisattvas. They possessed the diligence that disrupts the domain of all the māras. They were established in the power of knowing the three times. They had attained the unobscured wisdom of all phenomena. They had the field of activity of space without any base. They had everlasting omniscience. They had diligence as vast as space. They had the range of wisdom that did not focus on all existences as its object. They had the pervading wisdom of the ocean of processes of the entire realm of phenomena. They had entered through the gateway of the nondifferentiating wisdom of all world realms. They demonstrated the miracle of all the worlds being connected, one with the other. They demonstrated bodies that were born in all kinds of world realms. They had the knowledge of the small and vast, wide and narrow shapes of all world realms. They had realized the wisdom of the small being the vast. They had the knowledge of the vast being the small. They had attained being in the presence of all buddhas in a single instant of mind. They possessed bodies that had been blessed by all the tathāgatas. They had attained the ignorance-free wisdom in all the oceans of the directions. They pervaded all the oceans of the directions with emanations in an instant of mind.
These bodhisattvas who all had such limitless qualities through the blessings of the tathāgatas filled the entirety of Jetavana.
The great śrāvakas, such as Śāriputra, Maudgalyāyana, Mahākāśyapa, Revata, Subhūti, Aniruddha, Nandika, Kapphiṇa, Kātyāyana, and Pūrṇa Maitrāyaṇīputra, were present in Jetavana but did not see those miraculous manifestations of the Tathāgata. Neither did they see the miraculous displays of the Buddha, the majesty of the Buddha, the manifestations of the Buddha, the miracles of the Buddha, the supremacy of the Buddha, the miraculous conduct of the Buddha, the power of the Buddha, the blessing of the Buddha, or the pure realm of the Buddha.
Nor did they see the inconceivable range of activity of the bodhisattvas, the coming of the bodhisattvas, the arrival of the bodhisattvas, the gathering of the bodhisattvas, the approach of the displays of paranormal powers of the bodhisattvas, the circle of the assembly of bodhisattvas, the bodhisattvas arranging themselves in the directions, the display of the lion thrones of the bodhisattvas, the dwellings of the bodhisattvas, the activities of the bodhisattvas, the display of the power of the samādhis of the bodhisattvas, the gaze of the bodhisattvas, the awesomeness of the bodhisattvas, the forcefulness of the bodhisattvas, the offerings made to the Tathāgata by the bodhisattvas, the prophecies given to the bodhisattvas, the ripening of the bodhisattvas, the renunciation of the bodhisattvas, the purified Dharma bodies of the bodhisattvas, the fulfilled wisdom bodies of the bodhisattvas, the proclaimed aspiration bodies of the bodhisattvas, the created form bodies of the bodhisattvas, the pure, perfect features of the bodhisattvas, the display of the auras of infinite colors of the bodhisattvas, the network of light rays emanated by the bodhisattvas, the spreading clouds emanated by the bodhisattvas, or the network of the directions being pervaded by the bodhisattvas, nor did they see the miraculous realm of the conduct of the bodhisattvas.
Why was that? Because they did not have the same roots of merit. They had not accumulated in the past the roots of merit that are the cause for seeing the miracles of a buddha; they had not in the past taught the qualities and pure display of the buddha realms included within the world realms in the ten directions; they had not described the buddha miracles of the buddha bhagavats; and they had not in the past encouraged beings continuing in saṃsāra to attain the highest, complete enlightenment. They had not established in the minds of others the aspiration to enlightenment; they had not engaged in preventing the discontinuation of the family lineage of the tathāgatas; they did not have the diligence to gather all beings as pupils; they did not encourage bodhisattvas to practice the perfections; and when they were continuing in saṃsāra, they did not have as their goal the level of wisdom that transcends that of all beings.
They had not accumulated the roots of merit to become omniscient. They had not accomplished the roots of merit of a tathāgata who transcends the world. They had not realized the clairvoyance that perceives the miracles in all the pure realms of the buddhas. They did not know the roots of merit from focusing upon the exceptional enlightenment that transcends the world, which is perceived by the vision of the bodhisattvas and originates from the great aspirations of the bodhisattvas.
Nor did all the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas know the exceptional perception of the vision of the wisdom eyes of the completely good bodhisattvas. Nor did they know the attainments of the bodhisattvas through the illusory nature of phenomena, which arise from the blessing of the tathāgatas; or the blessing of possessing the various dream-like perceptions of bodhisattvas; or the increasing great power of the joy of bodhisattvas.
Therefore, the great śrāvakas, such as the supreme pair, the excellent pair, and so on, did not see the miracles of the Tathāgata; they did not hear of them, did not know them, did not comprehend them, did not understand them, were not aware of them, did not believe in them, did not think of them, did not regard them, did not consider them, did not dwell upon them, and did not reflect upon them.
Why was that? Because the scope of a buddha’s wisdom is not the same as that of the śrāvaka. Therefore, even though the great śrāvakas were present in Jetavana, they did not see the Buddha’s miracles. They did not have the roots of merit that would accord with that. They did not have the pure vision for seeing the Buddha’s miracles. They did not have the samādhi that realizes the power for causing something vast to be within a small object of perception. They did not have the liberation, the miraculous powers, the supremacy, the power, the mastery, the state, the perception, the vision, or the wisdom through which they could know, see, comprehend, understand, fathom, realize, view, experience, grasp, surmount, hear from others, teach, describe, reveal, praise, bestow, inspire beings toward, connect beings with, bring beings to, or establish beings in the nature of the Buddha’s miracles.
Why was that? Because they had become what they were through the Śrāvakayāna, had accomplished the path of the śrāvakas, had fulfilled the range of the conduct of the śrāvakas, had gained the result of the śrāvakas, had gained the knowledge of the illumination of the truths, were established in the summit of existence, had attained absolute peace, had minds that were devoid of great compassion, had no regard for all the world realms, and had accomplished their own benefit.
They had gathered and were present in Jetavana before, to the left, to the right, and to the rear of the Bhagavat, but they did not see those miracles of the Buddha.
Why was that? They had not attained omniscient wisdom; they had not accomplished omniscient wisdom; they were not established in omniscient wisdom; they had not prayed for omniscient wisdom; they had not realized omniscient wisdom; they had not become imbued with omniscient wisdom; and they had not become purified in omniscient wisdom and therefore were not able to observe, to know, to see, or to realize the miracles from the Buddha’s samādhi.
Why was that? Because they could be seen through the vision of those who were in the family of bodhisattvas and not through the vision of śrāvakas. Therefore, those great śrāvakas were present in Jetavana but did not see the Tathāgata’s miracles, the Tathāgata’s power, the Tathāgata’s pure realm, or the gathering of the bodhisattvas.
By analogy, many hundreds of thousands of pretas, suffering from thirst and hunger, naked, without clothing, their skin the color of being burned, shriveled by the wind and sun, attacked by flocks of crows, and terrified by wolves and jackals, do not see the great Ganges River even though they are gathered on its opposite banks, because they are obscured by obscuring karma. Some of them see a dry riverbed without water, and some of them see it filled with ashes. In that same way, although the sthaviras, the great śrāvakas, were present in Jetavana, their vision was obscured by the cataracts of the ignorance that is contrary to omniscience. And this is because they did not possess the power of the root of merit of the level of omniscience.
By analogy, a man who is in the middle of a great gathering of many people becomes drowsy. He falls asleep, and in a dream he sees in that place the divine city that is Śakra’s beautiful residence, which is upon the summit of Sumeru and has trees; is encircled by a wall of fruit trees; is filled with a quintillion female devas and filled with a quintillion male devas; has wish-fulfilling trees that emit divine clothing, strings of pearls, precious ornaments, and various kinds of necklaces; has many trees of musical instruments that emit beautiful music when the divine instruments of various kinds are moved by the breezes; and has an array of all kinds of joyful amusements. He hears the melodious, beautiful sounds made by the female devas who are singing and playing the divine musical instruments, and he thinks that he is there. Even though he sees that everywhere this place is adorned by an array of divine things, the many people who are gathered in that same place do not see it, do not know it, and do not perceive it. Why is that? Because it is perceived in a dream by the man who is asleep. Although those many people are in the same place, they do not see it.
In the same way, those bodhisattvas, those lords of the world who aspire to enlightenment, who had received the vast blessing of the Buddha, who had obtained the unmistaken power of their roots of merit, who had made prayers of aspiration for omniscience, who understood well all the qualities of the tathāgatas, who were well established in the vast array of the bodhisattva path, and who were highly accomplished in the Dharma of the aspects of omniscient wisdom—they had completely excellent bodhisattva conduct, had the pure fulfillment of their prayers of aspiration, had reached the domain of wisdom of all the bodhisattva levels, enjoyed all practices through bodhisattva samādhi, and practiced without impediment the entire range of bodhisattva wisdom, so that they could see, perceive, and experience the inconceivable supremacy of the Buddha and the displays of the Buddha. However, the great śrāvakas, the supreme pair, the good pair, and so on did not see them or know of them, because they did not have the vision of the bodhisattvas.
By analogy, the Himalaya, the king of mountains, is filled with places that are the sources of herbs. Those individuals who have acquired the knowledge of mantras, medicine, and herbs and are accomplished in that science, and who are learned in the usage of all herbs, carry out there the task of collecting those herbs. Others who dwell on that king of mountains and who are herders of animals, cattle, goats, and sheep; those who are hunters; and other people who do not know the science of herbs do not know the taste, power, effects, locations, usages, and application of herbs. In the same way, the bodhisattvas who perceive the range of activity of the Tathāgata, who have perfected the range of bodhisattva miracles, can see the range of miracles of the Tathāgata’s samādhi. The great śrāvakas, the supreme pair, the good pair, and others who were content concerning what had to be done for themselves, who were indifferent concerning what had to be done for others, who were uncaring—although they were present in Jetavana, they did not perceive the range of miracles of the Tathāgata’s samādhi.
For example, this great earth is the perfect source of all jewels. It is filled with many hundreds of thousands of treasures. It is completely filled with different kinds of various jewels. A man who is skilled in the knowledge of the sources of jewels and treasure, is educated in the science of examining jewels, has knowledge of the science of treasures, is well trained in the craft of jewelry, and is supported by the power of vast merit will obtain whatever jewels he desires, and he will completely satisfy himself, support his father and mother, care for his sons and daughters, and also distribute his wealth among other beings who are old, sick, poor, suffering misfortune, or in need of food and clothes, bringing others various kinds of happiness from wealth. However, those beings who have no knowledge of treasures or the source of jewels and who have not created merit do not have the pure vision of the knowledge of jewels. Even though they are at the very location, they do not perceive that there is precious treasure and a source of jewels, and without that knowledge they do not obtain jewels, nor do they make use of the jewels.
In the same way, the bodhisattvas had the pure vision of wisdom concerning the inconceivable range of the Tathāgata, and they perceived the inconceivable range of the wisdom of the Tathāgata. They were present in Jetavana and saw the miracles of the Buddha, perceived an ocean of the ways of the Dharma, had applied the seal of samādhi, were engaged in making offerings to the Tathāgata, were dedicated to possessing the Dharma, and gathered beings through the four methods of gathering pupils. The great śrāvakas did not see those miracles of the Tathāgata or that gathering of the great assembly of bodhisattvas.
By analogy, a man who is blindfolded arrives at an island of jewels. He walks around that island of jewels, stands on it, sits on it, and lies down on it, but he does not see that source of jewels. He does not see the trees of jewels, the clothing of jewels, the incense of jewels, or all the jewels. He does not know the scope, the value, or the use of those jewels. He does not acquire the jewels. He does not understand what could be done with the jewels. Those who are not blindfolded see and know all those jewels.
In the same way, the bodhisattvas had reached the island of the jewels of the Dharma and saw before them the supreme jewel of the Tathāgata, the adornment of the entire world, present in Jetavana and demonstrating the inconceivable miracles of a buddha. The great śrāvakas were present, staying at the feet of the Tathāgata, but did not see manifested miracles from the range of the Tathāgata’s samādhi. They did not see the great assembly of the bodhisattvas who were like a source of jewels. Why was that? Because their eyes of wisdom were blindfolded by the ignorance that is contrary to omniscience. They did not have the purified eyes of wisdom of the bodhisattvas, and they had not realized the comprehension of the lineage of the Dharma’s domain, through which one could see the inconceivable manifestation of miracles from the supremacy of the Tathāgata’s samādhi.
By analogy, there is the completely purified sight called stainless brilliance, which does not experience any darkness. If a man who has obtained that purified sight named stainless brilliance were to go in the completely black darkness of a dark night among a gathering of a quintillion people who have various practices and conduct and whose sight is overwhelmed by darkness, he would move, stand, sit down, and act among them in various ways, but those people will not see or know of that man’s various kinds of activity. However, when that man looks in the different directions at the various practices and conduct that the great gathering of beings is performing, he sees their various shapes, their various colors, with none of those various sights unseen. In the same way, the Tathāgata, who has an entourage of an assembly of bodhisattvas, possesses the sight that is pure and unimpeded so that he sees and knows the entire world. He demonstrates the manifestation of the great miracles of a buddha’s samādhi, but the great śrāvakas do not see those great miracles manifested by the samādhi and wisdom of the Tathāgata. Nor do they see that great assembly of the great bodhisattvas.
By analogy, it is like when a bhikṣu in the center of an assembly of many beings rests in the samādhi of the pervasion of earth or rests in the samādhi pervaded by water or the samādhi pervaded by fire, pervaded by air, pervaded by blue, pervaded by yellow, pervaded by red, pervaded by white, pervaded by devas, pervaded by the bodies of various beings, pervaded by all sounds and voices, or pervaded by all perceptions. That assembly of many beings does not see a mass of water, does not see the light of fire, does not see the pervasion by the bodies of various beings, and so on up to not seeing the pervasion by all perceptions. It only sees him practicing and resting in the samādhis. In the same way, when the Tathāgata manifests inconceivable miracles that are the range of a buddha’s samādhi, the great śrāvakas do not see or know them. The bodhisattvas who are following the path of the tathāgatas see and comprehend that range of activity of the tathāgatas.
For example, as soon as a man who creates ointments smears it on his two eyes, an entire multitude of beings cannot see his body, but he can see the bodies of the entire multitude of beings. Whether he is walking, sitting, or standing, he sees the entire multitude of beings. In that same way, the Tathāgata has transcended the world, has passed beyond the range of perception of all beings, and has attained the range of omniscient wisdom but can be perceived by the vision of the wisdom of the bodhisattvas. He can see all beings, but the great śrāvakas do not see the miracle of the Tathāgata.
For example, a deity who accompanies a human for his entire life is always following him. The deity sees the human, but the human does not see the deity. In the same way, the Tathāgata has attained the range of perception of the wisdom of omniscience, and he manifests miracles in the middle of the great gathering of the assembly of bodhisattvas, but the great śrāvakas do not see and do not know of the Tathāgata’s great manifestation of miracles or the miracle of the assembled circle of bodhisattvas.
Consider, for example, a bhikṣu who has reached the perfection of power over his entire mind and rests in a meditation in which all perception and sensation has ceased. Through his being without perception or sensation, his six senses do not experience anything. He has not attained nirvāṇa, and worldly events are continuing and present, but through the power and might of being in that meditation, he does not perceive them and does not see them. In the same way, the great śrāvakas were present in Jetavana, and they had all the six sensory faculties, but they did not see, did not perceive, and did not know of the manifestation of miracles and supremacy from the samādhi of the Tathāgata. Why is that? The range of activity of the Buddha is profound, vast, immeasurable, difficult to see, and difficult to understand. The Buddha’s range of activity is inconceivable and is inaccessible to the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas. Therefore, the great śrāvakas were assembled in Jetavana and were present at the feet of the Bhagavat, but they did not see the Buddha’s miracles or the great gathering of bodhisattvas. They also did not see or perceive the accumulation in Jetavana of the qualities and adornments of countless, innumerable pure world realms, because they were not worthy of it.
At that time, the bodhisattva Vairocanapraṇidhānanābhiraśmiprabha recited these verses:
Then the bodhisattva Duryodhanavīryavegarāja, through the blessing of the Buddha, looked into the ten directions and recited these verses:
Then the bodhisattva Samantaśrīsamudgatatejorāja, through the blessing of the Buddha, looked into the ten directions and recited these verses:
Then the bodhisattva Asaṅgaśrīgarbharāja, through the blessing of the Buddha, looked into the ten directions and recited these verses:
In this lengthy final chapter of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, while the Buddha Śākyamuni is in meditation in Śrāvastī, Mañjuśrī leaves for South India, where he meets the young layman Sudhana and instructs him to go to a certain kalyāṇamitra or “good friend,” who then directs Sudhana to another such friend. In this way, Sudhana successively meets and receives teachings from fifty male and female, child and adult, human and divine, and monastic and lay kalyāṇamitras, including night goddesses surrounding the Buddha and the Buddha’s wife and mother. The final three in the succession of kalyāṇamitras are the three bodhisattvas Maitreya, Mañjuśrī, and Samantabhadra. Samantabhadra’s recitation of the Samantabhadracaryāpraṇidhāna (“The Prayer for Completely Good Conduct”) concludes the sūtra.
Translated by Peter Alan Roberts and edited by Emily Bower, who was also the project manager. Ling Lung Chen was consultant for the Chinese, and Tracy Davis copyedited the final draft. The translator would like to thank Patrick Carré and Douglas Osto, who have both spent decades studying and translating this sūtra, for their advice and help.
The translation was completed under the patronage and supervision of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha.
The generous sponsorship of Richard and Carol Weingarten; of Jamyang Sun, Manju Chandra Sun and Siqi Sun; and of an anonymous donor, which helped make the work on this translation possible, is most gratefully acknowledged.
The 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.
The 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.
In 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.
The 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.
The 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.
The 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.
Mahāyāna 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.
In 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.
Concerning 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.
The 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.
The 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.
There 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).
Earlier 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.
There are no surviving Sanskrit manuscripts of the Gaṇḍavyūha from the first millennium, but there is a complete Sanskrit text that dates to 1166
The Gaṇḍavyūha Sūtra was first translated into Chinese as an independent text by a monk named Shengjian sometime between 388 and 408
Not long afterward, in 420, Buddhabhadra (359–429
Interestingly, the Indian monk Paramārtha (499–569
The 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
Śikṣānanda’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.
There 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).
As mentioned, the Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra became the basis for the Chinese Huayan school of Buddhism. Li Tongxuan (635–730
The 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.
Although 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 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.
By 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.
According 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.
Whereas 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.
The 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].
The 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.
It 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).
According 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.
The 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.
The 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.
The 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.
The 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.”
The 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.
There have been partial unpublished translations from the Sanskrit by Mark Allen Ehman in 1977 and Yuko Ijiri in 2005.
Douglas 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.
As 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.
There 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.
Gaṇḍa 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).
Douglas 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.
However, 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 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.
Whatever 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.
During 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.
This 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.
The 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.
The 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.
Throughout 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.”
In 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”).
In 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.
In 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.
In 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.
In 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.
Chapters 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.
The 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.
Although 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”).
The 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.
The 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.
Tibetan 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.
Also, 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.
The 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.
The 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.
Neither 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.
The 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.
The 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.
Through 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.
Sudhana 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.
Sudhana 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.
Sudhana 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.
Sudhana 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.
After 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.
Sudhana 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.
[V37] [B24] The Bhagavat was in Śrāvastī, in a greatly adorned kūṭāgāra in Jetavana, Anāthapiṇḍada’s park, together with the bodhisattvas Samantabhadra, Mañjuśrī, and others, including the bodhisattva mahāsattvas Jñānottarajñānin, Sattvottarajñānin, Asaṅgottarajñānin, Kusumottarajñānin, Sūryottarajñānin, Candrottarajñānin, Vimalottarajñānin, Vajrottarajñānin, Virajottarajñānin, and the bodhisattva Vairocanottarajñānin; the bodhisattvas Jyotirdhvaja, Merudhvaja, Ratnadhvaja, Asaṅgadhvaja, Kusumadhvaja, Vimaladhvaja, Sūryadhvaja, Ruciradhvaja, Virajadhvaja, and the bodhisattva Vairocanadhvaja; the bodhisattvas Ratnatejas, Mahātejas, Jñānavajratejas, Vimalatejas, Dharmasūryatejas, Puṇyaparvatatejas, Jñānāvabhāsatejas, Samantaśrītejas, Samantaprabhaśrītejas, and the bodhisattva Daśadikprabhaparisphuṭa; the bodhisattvas Dhāraṇīgarbha, Gaganagarbha, Padmagarbha, Ratnagarbha, Sūryagarbha, Guṇaviśuddhigarbha, Dharmasamudragarbha, Vairocanagarbha, Nābhigarbha, and the bodhisattva Padmaśrīgarbha; the bodhisattvas Sunetra, Viśuddhanetra, Vimalanetra, Asaṅganetra, Samantadarśananetra, Suvilokitanetra, Avalokitanetra, Utpalanetra, Vajranetra, Ratnanetra, and the bodhisattva Gagananetra; the bodhisattvas Devamukuṭa, Dharmadhātupratibhāsamaṇimukuṭa, Bodhimaṇḍamukuṭa, Digvairocanamukuṭa, Sarvabuddhasaṃbhūtagarbhamaṇimukuṭa, Sarvalokadhātūdgatamukuṭa, Samantavairocanamukuṭa, Anabhibhūtamukuṭa, Sarvatathāgatasiṃhāsanasaṃpratiṣṭhitamaṇimukuṭa, and the bodhisattva Samantadharmadhātugaganapratibhāsamukuṭa; the bodhisattvas Brahmendracuḍa, Nāgendracūḍa, Sarvabuddhanirmāṇapratibhāsacūḍa, Bodhimaṇḍacūḍa, Sarvapraṇidhānasāgaranirghoṣamaṇirājacūḍa, Sarvatathāgataprabhāmaṇḍalapramuñcanamaṇiratnanigarjitacūḍa, Sarvākāśatalāsaṃbhedavijñaptimaṇiratnavibhūṣitacūḍa, Sarvatathāgatavikurvitapratibhāsadhvajamaṇirājajālasaṃchāditacūḍa, Sarvatathāgatadharmacakranirghoṣacūḍa, and the bodhisattva Sarvatryadhvanāmacakranirghoṣacūḍa; the bodhisattvas Mahāprabha, Vimalaprabha, Vimalatejaḥprabha, Ratnaprabha, Virajaprabha, Jyotiṣprabha, Dharmaprabha, Śāntiprabha, Sūryaprabha, Vikurvitaprabha, and the bodhisattva Devaprabha; the bodhisattvas Puṇyaketu, Jñānaketu, Dharmaketu, Abhijñāketu, Prabhāketu, Kusumaketu, Maṇiketu, Bodhiketu, Brahmaketu, and the bodhisattva Samantāvabhāsaketu; the bodhisattvas Brahmaghoṣa, Sāgaraghoṣa, Dharaṇīnirnādaghoṣa, Lokendraghoṣa, Śailendrarājasaṃghaṭṭanaghoṣa, Sarvadharmadhātuspharaṇaghoṣa, Sarvadharmadhātusāgaranigarjitaghoṣa, Sarvamāramaṇḍalapramardaṇaghoṣa, Mahākaruṇānayameghanigarjitaghoṣa, and the bodhisattva Sarvajagadduḥkhapraśāntyāśvāsanaghoṣa; the bodhisattvas Dharmodgata, Viśeṣodgata, Jñānodgata, Puṇyasumerūdgata, Guṇaprabhāvodgata, Yaśodgata, Samantāvabhāsodgata, Mahāmaitryudgata, Jñānasaṃbhārodgata, and Tathāgatakulagotrodgata; the bodhisattvas Prabhāśrī, Pravaraśrī, Samudgataśrī, Vairocanaśrī, Dharmaśrī, Candraśrī, Gaganaśrī, Ratnaśrī, Ketuśrī, and the bodhisattva Jñānaśrī; the bodhisattvas Śailendrarāja, Dharmendrarāja, Jagadindrarāja, Brahmendrarāja, Gaṇendrarāja, Devendrarāja, Śāntendrarāja, Acalendrarāja, Ṛṣabhendrarāja, and the bodhisattva Pravarendrarāja; the bodhisattvas Praśāntasvara, Asaṅgasvara, Dharaṇīnirghoṣasvara, Sāgaranigarjitasvara, Meghanirghoṣasvara, Dharmāvabhāsasvara, Gagananirghoṣasvara, Sarvasattvakuśalamūlanigarjitasvara, Pūrvapraṇidhānasaṃcodanasvara, and the bodhisattva Māramaṇḍalanirghoṣasvara; and the bodhisattvas Ratnabuddhi, Jñānabuddhi, Gaganabuddhi, Vimalabuddhi, Asaṅgabuddhi, Viśuddhabuddhi, Tryadhvāvabhāsabuddhi, Viśālabuddhi, Samantāvalokabuddhi, and the bodhisattva Dharmadhātunayāvabhāsabuddhi, and so on. There were five thousand bodhisattvas in all who had all arisen from completely good bodhisattva conduct and prayers, who had unimpeded fields of activity because they pervaded all buddha realms, who had the blessing of infinite bodies because they came into the presence of all tathāgatas, who had the pure orbs of unobscured eyes because they saw the manifestations of all the buddhas, who had gone to receive measureless proclamations because they unceasingly came into the presence of all tathāgatas when they attained buddhahood, who possessed infinite radiance through having attained the radiance of wisdom in all the ways of the ocean of the Dharma of the buddhas, who taught good qualities unceasingly throughout infinite kalpas because of their pure analytic knowledge, who had unrestricted conduct of wisdom as far as the ends of space because they manifested physical bodies in accordance with the aspirations of beings, whose sight was free from defect because they knew that the realm of beings has no souls and no beings, and who had wisdom as vast as space because they pervaded the realm of phenomena with a network of light rays.
There were five hundred śrāvakas endowed with miraculous powers, all of whom had realized the nature of the way of the truths; directly perceived the true finality; comprehended the nature of phenomena; transcended the ocean of existence; had the range of activity of the tathāgatas that is as extensive as space; had ended fetters, predispositions, and bondage; remained in an unobstructed state; dwelled in a peace that was like space; had eliminated doubts, uncertainty, and equivocation concerning the buddhas; and followed the path of aspiration for the ocean of the wisdom of the buddhas. There were lords of the world who had served previous jinas, who were dedicated to bringing benefit and happiness to all beings, who became good guides without being asked, who were dedicated to protecting other beings, who had attained the gateway to wisdom that transcends the world, who had the motivation of never abandoning all beings, who had originated from the field of activity of the teaching of all buddhas, who were dedicated to protecting the teachings of the tathāgatas, who were born through prayers to be within the family of the buddhas, who had attained being within the family lineage of the tathāgatas, and who aspired to omniscience.
Then those bodhisattvas and their followers, and the śrāvakas who had miraculous powers and the lords of the world and their followers thought, “Without the Tathāgata’s blessing, without the Tathāgata’s manifestations, without the Tathāgata’s power, without the Tathāgata’s past prayers, without a past excellent practice of the roots of merit, without the guidance of a kalyāṇamitra, without the pure eyes of faith, without the attainment of the radiance of a vast aspiration, without the pure superior motivation of a bodhisattva, and without the determined aspiration for omniscience, it is not possible for worldly beings and devas to comprehend, or understand, or believe in, or know, or conceive of, or grasp, or analyze, or meditate on, or classify, or reveal, or describe, or establish within other beings the Tathāgata’s domain, the scope of the Tathāgata’s wisdom, the Tathāgata’s blessing, the Tathāgata’s strengths, the Tathāgata’s fearlessness, the Tathāgata’s samādhi, the Tathāgata’s conduct, the Tathāgata’s state, the Tathāgata’s supremacy, the Tathāgata’s body, or the Tathāgata’s wisdom.
“May the Bhagavat teach us—we who have the aspirations of bodhisattvas—as well as all beings, who—because of their various aspirations, different kinds of motivations, and different kinds of knowledge—use different kinds of words and terms, are on different levels of power, and have different purity of faculties, different kinds of motivation and conduct, different ranges of thought, different kinds of reliance on the qualities of the tathāgatas, and different kinds of interest in the teaching of the Dharma.
“May he teach us how in the past he set out to attain omniscience. May he teach us how in the past he accomplished the aspiration of a bodhisattva. May he teach us how in the past he had a pure field of the perfections of a bodhisattva. May he teach us how in the past he had the miraculous manifestations of having reached the level of a bodhisattva. May he teach us how in the past he had completely accomplished the field of conduct of a bodhisattva. May he teach us how in the past he had displayed accomplishing the way of a bodhisattva. May he teach us how in the past he had a pure display of the bodhisattva’s path. May he teach us how in the past he displayed the accomplishment of an ocean of a bodhisattva’s ways of going forth. May he teach us how in the past he perfectly displayed an ocean of the miraculous manifestations that are a bodhisattva’s attainments. May he teach us how in the past he had an ocean of a bodhisattva’s practices. May he teach us how he has an ocean of miraculous manifestations through attaining enlightenment. May he also teach us how he has manifested the most powerful miraculous manifestation of turning a tathāgata’s wheel of the Dharma. May he also teach us how he has an ocean of the miraculous manifestations of purifying a tathāgata’s buddha realm. May he also teach us how he has the gateway of methods for guiding the realm of beings. May he also teach us how he has sovereignty over the city of the Dharma of an omniscient tathāgata. May he also teach us how he has a tathāgata’s illumination of the path for all beings. May he also teach us how he has a tathāgata’s miraculous manifestation of entering into the existences of beings. May he also teach us how he receives the offerings of beings for a tathāgata. May he also teach us how he has a tathāgata’s miracle of teaching merit and offerings to all beings. May he also teach us how the Tathāgata has created the perceived image of a buddha within the mental processes of all beings. May he also teach us how the Tathāgata has created magical manifestations for all beings. May he also teach us how the Tathāgata has created the magical appearances of teachings and instructions for all beings. May he also teach us the Tathāgata’s manifestations of the inconceivable range of the samādhis of buddhahood for all beings.”
Then the Bhagavat, knowing the thoughts in the minds of those bodhisattvas, rested in the samādhi called the gaping lion, which is as extensive as space and therefore is beyond example and has adornments that appear to all beings, has the nature of being the gateway to great compassion, possesses the gateway to great compassion, precedes great compassion, and has the quality of great compassion.
As soon as the Bhagavat rested in that meditation, there appeared a kūṭāgāra that was greatly adorned and so vast that it had no end or center, with invincible vajra banners arranged on the ground, arrayed in networks of all kings of precious jewels, filled with petals of flowers made of many jewels, beautified by pillars of beryl, with kings of jewels as an arranged display of ornaments that illuminated the world, having a multitude of excellent jewels, having heaps of precious jewels from the Jambu River, with porches, toraṇas, pinnacles, and windows made of all jewels, adorned by countless pure balconies, with an array of precious jewels that resembled all the lords of worlds, with arrangements of the precious jewels from the world’s oceans, covered with nets of all precious jewels, with upraised parasols and banners, and beautified by gateways and toraṇas emitting light rays that completely filled the realm of phenomena; the external ground was beautified by indescribable daises for the surrounding assembly, and in all directions there were stairways of heaps of jewels and beautifully arranged adornments.
Through the power of the Buddha, there were present buddha realms, to the number of the atoms in countless buddha realms, that were immense and vast in length and breadth, possessed various adornments made of all jewels, had grounds made of an indescribable variety of precious jewels, were encircled by walls of countless precious jewels, and were adorned by lines of palm trees made of various jewels.
Those buddha realms were adorned by immeasurable rivers of scented water that were filled with an unceasing volume of scented water that was mixed with many flowers made of a variety of jewels, flowing and turning to the right, and resounding with descriptions of all the qualities of buddhahood.
There were rows of precious white lotus flowers, precious trees beautifully adorned by the blossoms of superior lotuses made from all jewels, rows of countless kūṭāgāras made of various jewels covered in shining networks of every kind of precious jewel, countless aerial palaces made of precious jewels adorned with all precious jewels, the aroma of countless incenses spread everywhere, and the adornment of clouds of incense, countless banners of jewels, banners of cloth, banners that were flags, banners with streamers of jewels, banners with flowers, banners with adornments, banners with garlands, banners with bells of various jewels, banners that were parasols of kings of jewels, banners of precious jewels with pervading radiance, banners of kings of precious jewels that resounded with the wheel of the names of all the tathāgatas, banners of delightful lions made of the kings of precious jewels, banners of the kings of precious jewels that proclaimed the past practices of all the tathāgatas, and banners of the kings of precious jewels that illuminated the entire realm of phenomena, and all directions were adorned with every kind of adorning banner.
Clouds of countless aerial palaces of devas adorned the entire expanse of the sky above Jetavana. Jetavana was adorned and covered by a cloud of countless trees of various kinds of incense. It was adorned and encircled by Sumeru Mountains that possessed indescribable adornments. It was adorned by the beautiful voices and sounds of the praises of all tathāgatas that came from indescribable clouds of musical instruments being played and beaten. It was adorned by a covering of clouds of indescribable precious lotuses. There were indescribable precious lion thrones on which were precious cushions made of divine materials, on which the bodhisattvas were seated, and which were adorned by clouds that emitted beautiful voices that praised the tathāgatas. It was adorned by clouds of grains that were precious jewels that formed indescribable images of lords of the worlds. It was adorned by indescribable clouds of networks of white pearls. It was adorned by a covering of indescribable clouds of kūṭāgāras made of red pearls. It was adorned by an indescribable rainfall from clouds of pearls that were as hard as vajras.
Why was this? It was because of the inconceivable roots of merit of a tathāgata. It was because of the inconceivable good qualities of a tathāgata. It was because of the inconceivable sovereign power and blessing of a tathāgata. It was because of a tathāgata’s inconceivable miraculous manifestations whereby his one body could pervade all world realms. It was because of the inconceivable display of the spiritual power through which all the tathāgatas could enter one body that appears throughout the entire array of buddha realms. It was because of the inconceivable manifestations of the tathāgatas through which they can show the perceivable image of the entire realm of phenomena within a single atom. It was because of the inconceivable manifestations of the tathāgatas through which they can show the entire succession of tathāgatas of the past within a single pore. It was because of the tathāgatas’ inconceivable ability to illuminate infinite world realms with a single ray of light. It was because of the tathāgatas’ inconceivable ability to pervade all buddha realms, which are as numerous as the atoms that comprise all world realms, with a cloud of emanations from a single body hair. It was because of the tathāgatas’ inconceivable ability to reveal the kalpas of the creation and destruction of world realms from a single body hair.
Just as Jetavana was in this way a buddha realm and was completely purified by being a pure realm, in that same way the world realms in the ten directions to the limits of the realm of phenomena, to the limits of space, were also completely purified, adorned, beautified, and with emanated bodies of tathāgatas, and had become similar to Jetavana. They were filled with bodhisattvas; had ocean-like assemblies of followers of tathāgatas; had rainfalls from clouds made of every kind of adornment; were completely illuminated by the lights of all jewels; were adorned by rainfall from clouds made of the entire variety of jewels; were adorned by a covering of clouds made of the adorning features of all realms; were adorned by rainfalls of every kind of divine material; were adorned by a profusion of clouds of every kind of flower; were adorned by a beautiful rainfall of clothes of every color falling from a treasure of clouds of trees of every kind of clothing; were adorned by a continuous rainfall from clouds made of every kind of garland, tassel, and string of beads; were adorned by a rain from masses of clouds as extensive as the universe that were made of various kinds of incense and perfume that pervaded all the directions; were adorned by a continuous rain of a fine powder of networks of jewels from clouds of networks of flowers made from every kind of jewel; were adorned by clouds of banners and flags made of every kind of jewel and held in the hands of divine maidens who moved to and fro throughout the extent of space; were adorned with a variety of lotuses made from all jewels and with circles of precious petals, tall stems, and pericarps that resounded with the beautiful sounds of music; and were adorned with nets of disks of every kind of jewel, nets of lions made of jewels, and various kinds of garlands and strings of beads.
In that way, as soon as the Bhagavat rested in the samādhi called the gaping lion, at that time, in the eastern direction, beyond an ocean of world realms as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, there was the world realm Kanakameghapradīpadhvajā, the Tathāgata Vairocanaśrītejorāja’s buddha realm, where the bodhisattva Vairocanapraṇidhānanābhiraśmiprabha, together with bodhisattvas to the number of atoms in countless buddha realms, with the permission of the Bhagavat, rose up from that ocean of the assembly of followers, came to the Sahā world realm, and adorned the sky with clouds of various kinds of adornments: clouds of divine flowers from which a rain of flowers fell, clouds of divine perfume from which a rain of perfume was released, clouds of divine jewel lotuses from which a rain of lotuses was scattered, clouds of divine garlands from which a rain of garlands was produced, clouds of divine jewels from which a rain of jewels fell, clouds of divine jewelry from which a rain of jewelry fell, clouds of divine precious parasols from which a rain of parasols was produced, clouds of divine flowers from which a rain of flowers fell, clouds of various kinds of fine divine clothing in different colors from which a rain of clothing fell, clouds of divine precious banners and flags that stood in the sky, and an array of clouds of every kind of jewel that filled the sky. Together with his entourage, he approached the Bhagavat, bowed to the Bhagavat, and in the eastern direction emanated perfectly adorned kūṭāgāras that were covered with a net of precious jewels, each containing a lion throne and a lotus made of precious jewels that shined light in all directions, and he and his entourage seated themselves cross-legged upon the lotuses, their bodhisattva bodies adorned with a network of the kings of precious wish-fulfilling jewels.
In the southern direction, beyond an ocean of world realms as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, there was the world realm Vajrasāgaragarbhā, the Tathāgata Samantāvabhāsaśrīgarbharāja’s buddha realm, where the bodhisattva Duryodhanavīryavegarāja, together with bodhisattvas to the number of atoms in countless buddha realms, with the permission of the Bhagavat, rose up from that ocean of the assembly of followers and came to the Sahā world realm. They manifested a network of tassels of every perfume that covered all the oceans of world realms. They manifested a network of tassels of strings of every kind of jewel extending throughout all infinite buddha realms. They manifested a network of tassels and garlands made of every kind of flower that existed throughout all successive buddha realms. They manifested a network of garlands, tassels, and strings of beads that connected all buddha realms. They manifested a network of chains of vajras that holds the ground beneath all the disks of buddha realms. They manifested the way that all buddha realms possess networks of various kinds of precious jewels. They manifested all world realms having acquired and possessing tassels of various kinds of cloth. They manifested all buddha realms being possessed of networks of many tassels and garlands of a variety of jewels, and all realms possessing a network of tassels and garlands made of the light rays of glorious precious jewels. And they manifested the ground of all world realms having a network of tassels and garlands of precious jewels and beautiful lion images.
Together with his entourage, he approached the Bhagavat, bowed to the Bhagavat, and in the southern direction emanated kūṭāgāras made of precious jewels that illuminated the world, each containing a lion throne and a lotus made of precious jewels, which shined light into all directions, and he and his entourage seated themselves cross-legged upon the lotuses, their bodhisattva bodies adorned with a network of flowers made from every kind of jewel.
In the western direction, beyond an ocean of world realms as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, there was the world realm Maṇisumerūvirocanadhvajapradīpā, the Tathāgata Dharmadhātujñānapradīpa’s buddha realm, where the bodhisattva Samantaśrīsamudgatatejorāja, together with bodhisattvas to the number of atoms in countless buddha realms, with the permission of the Bhagavat, rose up from that ocean of the assembly of followers, came to the Sahā world realm, and manifested the entire realm of phenomena being filled with clouds of Sumerus of banners, with various kinds of colors and with various kinds of perfume, that were as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms; the entire realm of phenomena being filled with clouds of Sumerus of flowers, with various kinds of colors and with various kinds of scents, as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms; the entire realm of phenomena being filled with clouds of Sumerus of incenses, with various kinds of colors and with various kinds of scents, as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms; the entire realm of phenomena being filled with clouds of Sumerus of kings of jewels, as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, in forms resembling every kind of requisite, that have arisen from the brilliance of his pores; the entire realm of phenomena being filled with clouds of Sumerus of precious jewels, as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, in the forms of various kinds of banners of stars in a display of circles of lights; the entire realm of phenomena being filled with clouds of Sumerus of kings of jewels, as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, in the forms of various exceptional displays of the essence of vajras in various colors; the entire realm of phenomena being filled with clouds of Sumerus of precious jewels from the Jambu River that brilliantly illuminate all world realms, as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms; the entire realm of phenomena being filled with clouds of Sumerus of precious jewels, as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, that filled the sky and illuminated the entire realm of phenomena; the entire realm of phenomena being filled with clouds of Sumerus of kings of jewels, as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, that were in the form of the features of all tathāgatas; the entire realm of phenomena being filled with clouds of Sumerus of kings of jewels, as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, that resounded with the bodhisattva conduct that revealed the images of the past practices of all tathāgatas; and the ten directions being filled with clouds of Sumerus of kings of jewels, as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, that formed the images of the bodhimaṇḍas of all tathāgatas.
Together with his entourage, he approached the Bhagavat, bowed to the Bhagavat, and in the western direction emanated kūṭāgāras covered by the kings of perfumes and by networks of strings of pearls, each having in its center a lotus made of precious jewels like the banner of Devendra upon a lion throne, and he and his entourage seated themselves cross-legged upon the lotuses, with their bodhisattva bodies adorned with a precious network of gold and a crown of kings of wish-fulfilling jewels bound onto their heads.
In the northern direction, beyond an ocean of world realms as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, there was the world realm Ratnavastrāvabhāsadhvajā, the Tathāgata Dharmadhātugaganaśrīvairocana’s buddha realm, where the bodhisattva Asaṅgaśrīrāja, together with bodhisattvas to the number of atoms in countless buddha realms, with the permission of the Bhagavat, rose up from that ocean of the assembly of followers, came to the Sahā world realm, and manifested the sky being adorned by clouds of precious cloth; manifested the sky being adorned by clouds of precious clothing of yellow color, yellow in appearance; manifested the sky being adorned by clouds of precious clothing perfumed by various scents; manifested the sky being adorned by clouds of clothing made of the kings of jewels that were like the banner of the sun; manifested the sky being adorned by clouds of clothing made of the kings of jewels that shone with the splendor of gold; manifested the sky being adorned by clouds of clothing made of the kings of jewels that shone with jewels; manifested the sky being adorned by clouds of precious clothing in the manifold forms of all the stars; manifested the ten directions of the sky being filled with clouds of clothing made of precious jewels that were like cloth of shining crystal; manifested the ten directions of the sky being filled with clouds of clothing made of kings of jewels that shone with glorious brightness; and manifested the sky being covered by clouds of clothing made of kings of jewels as an ocean of adornments.
Together with his entourage, he approached the Bhagavat, bowed to the Bhagavat, and in the northern direction emanated kūṭāgāras of precious jewels that had emerged from oceans, each having in its center a lotus made of precious jewels like the banner of Devendra upon a lion throne, and he and his entourage seated themselves cross-legged upon the lotuses, with their bodhisattva bodies adorned with a network of beautiful lion images made of the kings of precious jewels and with precious star banners above their heads.
In the northeastern direction, beyond an ocean of world realms as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, there was the world realm Sarvamahāpṛthivīrājamaṇiraśmijālapramuktā, the Tathāgata Anilambhacakṣuṣa’s buddha realm, where the bodhisattva Dharmadhātusunirmitapraṇidhicandra, together with bodhisattvas to the number of atoms in countless buddha realms, with the permission of the Bhagavat, rose up from that ocean of the assembly of followers, came to the Sahā world realm, and manifested all infinite world realms being covered by clouds of kūṭāgāras of precious materials; manifested all infinite world realms being covered by clouds of kūṭāgāras of perfumes; manifested all infinite world realms being covered by clouds of kūṭāgāras of incense; manifested all infinite world realms being covered by clouds of kūṭāgāras of sandalwood; manifested all infinite world realms being covered by clouds of kūṭāgāras of flowers; manifested all infinite world realms being covered by clouds of kūṭāgāras of jewels; manifested all infinite world realms being covered by clouds of kūṭāgāras of vajras; manifested all infinite world realms being covered by clouds of kūṭāgāras of gold; manifested all infinite world realms being covered by clouds of kūṭāgāras of clothing; and manifested all infinite world realms being covered by clouds of kūṭāgāras of lotuses.
Together with his entourage, he approached the Bhagavat, bowed to the Bhagavat, and in the northeastern direction emanated kūṭāgāras of precious jewels that had gateways that looked out upon the entire realm of phenomena, each having in its center, upon a lion throne, a lotus of precious jewels and unequaled perfume, and he and his entourage seated themselves cross-legged upon the lotuses, with their bodhisattva bodies adorned with a network of flowers made of the kings of precious jewels and turbans that were like a network of various treasures of kings of jewels bound upon their heads.
In the southeastern direction, beyond an ocean of world realms as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, there was the world realm Gandhameghavyūhadhvajā, the Tathāgata Nāgeśvararāja’s buddha realm, where the bodhisattva Dharmārciṣmattejorāja, together with bodhisattvas to the number of atoms in countless buddha realms, with the permission of the Bhagavat, rose up from that ocean of the assembly of followers, came to the Sahā world realm, and covered the entire sky with clouds of disks of light the color of gold, covered the entire sky with clouds of disks of light the infinite colors of jewels, covered the entire sky with clouds of disks of light the color of the ūrṇā hair of the tathāgatas, covered the entire sky with clouds of disks of light the color of various jewels, covered the entire sky with clouds of disks of light the color of the center of lotuses, covered the entire sky with clouds of disks of light the color of disks made of the branches of trees made of the precious kings of jewels, covered the entire sky with clouds of disks of light the color of the uṣṇīṣas of the tathāgatas, covered the entire sky with clouds of disks of light the color of Jambu River gold, covered the entire sky with clouds of disks of light the color of the sun, and covered the entire sky with clouds of disks of light the color of the moon and the stars.
Together with his entourage, he approached the Bhagavat, bowed to the Bhagavat, and in the southeastern direction emanated kūṭāgāras of perfect shining flowers of pristine jewels, each having in its center a lotus of lion-vajra jewels upon a lion throne, and he and his entourage seated themselves cross-legged upon the lotuses, their bodhisattva bodies adorned with a network of precious kings of brightly shining jewels.
In the southwestern direction, beyond an ocean of world realms as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, there was the world realm Maṇisūryapratibhāsagarbhā, the Tathāgata Dharmacandrasamantajñānāvabhāsarāja’s buddha realm, where the bodhisattva Sarvamāramaṇḍalavikiraṇajñānadhvaja, together with bodhisattvas to the number of atoms in countless buddha realms, with the permission of the Bhagavat, rose up from that ocean of the assembly of followers, came to the Sahā world realm, and emanated from all his pores clouds of light rays from flowers, which were as vast as the element of space; emanated from all his pores clouds of light rays from musical instruments, which were as vast as the element of space; emanated from all his pores clouds of light rays from precious jewels, which were as vast as the element of space; emanated from all his pores clouds of light rays from precious clothing perfumed by incenses and perfumes of all kinds, which were as vast as the element of space; emanated from all his pores clouds of light rays from lightning emanated by nāgas, which were as vast as the element of space; emanated from all his pores clouds of light rays from bright, precious jewels, which were as vast as the element of space; emanated from all his pores clouds of light rays from shining gold and precious jewels, which were as vast as the element of space; emanated from all his pores clouds of light rays from shining kings of jewels that were the essence of splendor, which were as vast as the element of space; and emanated from all his pores clouds of light rays from precious jewels that had the nature of illuminating the extent of the three times, like the ocean of the awareness of the tathāgatas, spreading throughout the element of space.
Together with his entourage, he approached the Bhagavat, bowed to the Bhagavat, and in the southwestern direction emanated kūṭāgāras with networks of great precious jewels that illuminated the entire realm of phenomena, each having in its center a lotus that radiated light rays of perfumed lamps upon a lion throne, and he and his entourage seated themselves cross-legged upon the lotuses, with their bodhisattva bodies adorned with networks of the stainless essences of kings of jewels and with turbans of kings of jewels that emitted words that guided all beings bound upon their heads.
In the northwestern direction, beyond an ocean of world realms as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, there was the world realm Vairocanaśrīpraṇidhigarbhā, the Tathāgata Samantavairocanaśrīmerurāja’s buddha realm, where the bodhisattva Vairocanapraṇidhijñānaketu, together with bodhisattvas to the number of atoms in countless buddha realms, with the permission of the Bhagavat, rose up from that ocean of the assembly of followers, came to the Sahā world realm, and emanated, from all his signs and features of a great being, all his pores, and his entire body, clouds of images of the bodies of all the tathāgatas who appear in the three times; emanated, from all his signs and features of a great being, all his pores, and his entire body, clouds of images of the bodies of all the bodhisattvas who appear in the three times; emanated, from all his signs and features of a great being, all his pores, and his entire body, clouds of images of the bodies of all the assemblies of followers of all the tathāgatas who appear in the three times; emanated, from all his signs and features of a great being, all his pores, and his entire body, clouds of images of the bodies of all the hosts of emanations of all the tathāgatas who appear in the three times; emanated, from all his signs and features of a great being, all his pores, and his entire body, clouds of images of all the past practices of all the tathāgatas who appear in the three times; emanated, from all his signs and features of a great being, all his pores, and his entire body, clouds of images of the bodies of all śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas who appear in the three times; emanated, from all his signs and features of a great being, all his pores, and his entire body, clouds of images of the forms of all the bodhimaṇḍas and Bodhi trees of all the tathāgatas who appear in the three times; emanated, from all his signs and features of a great being, all his pores, and his entire body, clouds of the many images of the miracles of all the tathāgatas who appear in the three times; emanated, from all his signs and features of a great being, all his pores, and his entire body, clouds of images of the bodies of all world-lords who appear in the three times; and emanated, from all his signs and features of a great being, all his pores, and his entire body, clouds of images of the pure realms of the buddhas who have appeared in the three times.
Instantly these filled the entire element of space, and together with his entourage, he approached the Bhagavat, bowed to the Bhagavat, and in the northwestern direction emanated kūṭāgāras with the essence of the kings of jewels that illuminated every direction, each having in its center, upon a lion throne, a precious lotus that illuminated the directions, and he and his entourage seated themselves cross-legged upon the lotuses, with their bodhisattva bodies adorned with networks of the invincible light of pearls and with turbans that had the illuminating light of all jewels bound upon their heads.
In the downward direction, beyond an ocean of world realms as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, there was the world realm Sarvatathāgataprabhāmaṇḍalavairocanā, the Tathāgata Asaṅgajñānaketudhvajarāja’s buddha realm, where the bodhisattva Sarvāvaraṇavikiraṇajñānavikrāmin, together with bodhisattvas to the number of atoms in countless buddha realms, with the permission of the Bhagavat, rose up from that ocean of the assembly of followers, came to the Sahā world realm, and there resounded, from all his pores, an ocean of the languages, sounds, speech, and word definitions of all beings; there resounded the thunder of an ocean of clouds of the descriptions of how all the bodhisattvas in the three times originated; there resounded an ocean of clouds of the descriptions of how all the bodhisattvas in the three times fulfilled their aspirations; there sounded an ocean of clouds of the descriptions of how all bodhisattvas correctly accomplished the perfections; there resounded clouds of oceans of descriptions of how the field of conduct of all bodhisattvas pervaded all realms; there sounded an ocean of clouds of the descriptions of the accomplishments and miracles of all bodhisattvas; there resounded an ocean of descriptions of how all tathāgatas went to the bodhimaṇḍa, dissipated the disturbances of Māra, attained buddhahood at the bodhimaṇḍa, and manifested miracles; there resounded the thunder of an ocean of clouds of the descriptions of the ways and names of the sūtras and how all tathāgatas turned the wheel of the Dharma; there resounded descriptions of the ways and methods of the guiding Dharma that guides all beings through its timely wheel; and there resounded an ocean of descriptions of the aspirations that were made, the particular roots of merit, the time, the methods, and the Dharma, in order to gain the realization of all wisdom.
He approached the Bhagavat, bowed to the Bhagavat, and in the downward direction emanated kūṭāgāras that were treasures of all the various kinds of shining jewels in the image of the aerial palaces of all the tathāgatas, each having in its center a lotus of every kind of jewel upon a lion throne. He and his entourage seated themselves cross-legged upon the lotuses, with turbans that were banners shining with the images of all precious bodhimaṇḍas bound upon their heads.
In the upward direction, beyond an ocean of world realms as numerous as the atoms in countless buddha realms, there was the world realm Akṣayabuddhavaṃśanirdeśā, the Tathāgata Samantajñānamaṇḍalapratibhāsanirghoṣa’s buddha realm, where the bodhisattva Dharmadhātupraṇidhitalanirbheda, together with bodhisattvas to the number of atoms in countless buddha realms, with the permission of the Bhagavat, rose up from that ocean of the assembly of followers, came to the Sahā world realm, and from all his signs and features of a great being, all his pores, his entire body, all his limbs, his fingers and toes, the words he spoke, and his robe and his skirt he revealed, within all his signs and features of a great being, all his pores, his entire body, all his limbs, his fingers and toes, the words he spoke, and his robe and his skirt, the images of an ocean of the past practice of engaging in the perfection of generosity, and all the recipients and the gifts of all of the assemblies of bodhisattvas, of himself, of the Bhagavat Vairocana, of all the tathāgatas throughout the past, of all prophesied and unprophesied tathāgatas throughout the future who have yet to come, and of all who in the present reside in infinite buddha realms in the ten directions. He made visible the images of an ocean of the entire past practice of engaging in the perfection of correct conduct. He made visible the images of an ocean of the past practice of engaging in the perfection of patience through his limbs, his fingers, and his toes being cut off. He made visible the images of an ocean of the past practice of the diligence, vehemence, and prowess of all bodhisattvas. He made visible the images of an ocean of the past practice of seeking the dhyāna of all the tathāgatas. He revealed the images of an ocean of the past practices of engaging in perfecting the way of the Dharma wheel of all the tathāgatas, and he revealed the bodies and faces of those seeking the Dharma with great resolve giving away all possessions. He revealed the appearances of an ocean of the past practices of rejoicing in seeing all the tathāgatas, the path of all bodhisattvas, and bringing illumination to all beings. He revealed the appearances of an ocean of the past practices of the fulfillment of an ocean of prayers by all bodhisattvas through which there is a display of perfect purification. He revealed the appearances of an ocean of the past practice of engaging in the accomplishment, prowess, and purification of the perfection of strength of all bodhisattvas. Filling the vast expanse of the realm of phenomena with clouds of all miraculous manifestation, he revealed the appearances of an ocean of the past practice endowed with the domain of the wisdom of all bodhisattvas.
He approached the Bhagavat, bowed to the Bhagavat, and in the upward direction emanated kūṭāgāras that were adorned by all kinds of lords of vajras, each having in its center a lotus of sapphires upon a lion throne. He and his entourage, their blessed bodies adorned by a network of all shining precious kings of jewels and hung with necklaces of the kings of jewels from which sounded the names of the tathāgatas of the three times, and their heads bound by precious turbans, seated themselves cross-legged upon the lotuses. [B25]
All those bodhisattvas and their entourages had become so through the completely good conduct and prayer of bodhisattvas. They had been at the feet of all tathāgatas and gazed upon their faces. They possessed the completely pure eyes of wisdom. The ocean of the teaching of the way of the sūtras and the wheel of the Dharma of all the tathāgatas had entered their ears. They had perfectly perfected the perfections that bring the attainment of the power of all bodhisattvas. In each instant they manifested the miracle of going into the presence of all tathāgatas. They had the range of pervading all worlds with a single body. They manifested the appearance of their bodies being present in the assemblies of the pupils of all tathāgatas. They had the range of activity of manifesting all worlds being included within one world that is within a single atom. They ripened all beings, being present at the exact time for guiding them. They had the range of activity of emitting from all their pores the thunder of the clouds of the Dharma wheel of all the tathāgatas. They had attained the knowledge that all the realms of beings were like magical tricks. They had realized that all the tathāgatas are like illusions. They were purified by the knowledge that all rebirths within the continuation of existence were like dreams. They knew that all accomplishments of wisdom are like mirages. They had realized that all infinite worlds are like illusory manifestations. They had attained the ten strengths of the tathāgatas and the light of wisdom. They were supreme beings of fearlessness and had the forcefulness of the lion’s roar. They had entered the inexhaustible ocean of unique knowledge. They had obtained the ocean of the languages of beings and the wisdom of the meaning of the words of the Dharma. They possessed an unimpeded scope of wisdom that was as vast as the realm of phenomena and space. They possessed the pure domain of the wisdom of the clairvoyances of all bodhisattvas. They possessed the diligence that disrupts the domain of all the māras. They were established in the power of knowing the three times. They had attained the unobscured wisdom of all phenomena. They had the field of activity of space without any base. They had everlasting omniscience. They had diligence as vast as space. They had the range of wisdom that did not focus on all existences as its object. They had the pervading wisdom of the ocean of processes of the entire realm of phenomena. They had entered through the gateway of the nondifferentiating wisdom of all world realms. They demonstrated the miracle of all the worlds being connected, one with the other. They demonstrated bodies that were born in all kinds of world realms. They had the knowledge of the small and vast, wide and narrow shapes of all world realms. They had realized the wisdom of the small being the vast. They had the knowledge of the vast being the small. They had attained being in the presence of all buddhas in a single instant of mind. They possessed bodies that had been blessed by all the tathāgatas. They had attained the ignorance-free wisdom in all the oceans of the directions. They pervaded all the oceans of the directions with emanations in an instant of mind.
These bodhisattvas who all had such limitless qualities through the blessings of the tathāgatas filled the entirety of Jetavana.
The great śrāvakas, such as Śāriputra, Maudgalyāyana, Mahākāśyapa, Revata, Subhūti, Aniruddha, Nandika, Kapphiṇa, Kātyāyana, and Pūrṇa Maitrāyaṇīputra, were present in Jetavana but did not see those miraculous manifestations of the Tathāgata. Neither did they see the miraculous displays of the Buddha, the majesty of the Buddha, the manifestations of the Buddha, the miracles of the Buddha, the supremacy of the Buddha, the miraculous conduct of the Buddha, the power of the Buddha, the blessing of the Buddha, or the pure realm of the Buddha.
Nor did they see the inconceivable range of activity of the bodhisattvas, the coming of the bodhisattvas, the arrival of the bodhisattvas, the gathering of the bodhisattvas, the approach of the displays of paranormal powers of the bodhisattvas, the circle of the assembly of bodhisattvas, the bodhisattvas arranging themselves in the directions, the display of the lion thrones of the bodhisattvas, the dwellings of the bodhisattvas, the activities of the bodhisattvas, the display of the power of the samādhis of the bodhisattvas, the gaze of the bodhisattvas, the awesomeness of the bodhisattvas, the forcefulness of the bodhisattvas, the offerings made to the Tathāgata by the bodhisattvas, the prophecies given to the bodhisattvas, the ripening of the bodhisattvas, the renunciation of the bodhisattvas, the purified Dharma bodies of the bodhisattvas, the fulfilled wisdom bodies of the bodhisattvas, the proclaimed aspiration bodies of the bodhisattvas, the created form bodies of the bodhisattvas, the pure, perfect features of the bodhisattvas, the display of the auras of infinite colors of the bodhisattvas, the network of light rays emanated by the bodhisattvas, the spreading clouds emanated by the bodhisattvas, or the network of the directions being pervaded by the bodhisattvas, nor did they see the miraculous realm of the conduct of the bodhisattvas.
Why was that? Because they did not have the same roots of merit. They had not accumulated in the past the roots of merit that are the cause for seeing the miracles of a buddha; they had not in the past taught the qualities and pure display of the buddha realms included within the world realms in the ten directions; they had not described the buddha miracles of the buddha bhagavats; and they had not in the past encouraged beings continuing in saṃsāra to attain the highest, complete enlightenment. They had not established in the minds of others the aspiration to enlightenment; they had not engaged in preventing the discontinuation of the family lineage of the tathāgatas; they did not have the diligence to gather all beings as pupils; they did not encourage bodhisattvas to practice the perfections; and when they were continuing in saṃsāra, they did not have as their goal the level of wisdom that transcends that of all beings.
They had not accumulated the roots of merit to become omniscient. They had not accomplished the roots of merit of a tathāgata who transcends the world. They had not realized the clairvoyance that perceives the miracles in all the pure realms of the buddhas. They did not know the roots of merit from focusing upon the exceptional enlightenment that transcends the world, which is perceived by the vision of the bodhisattvas and originates from the great aspirations of the bodhisattvas.
Nor did all the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas know the exceptional perception of the vision of the wisdom eyes of the completely good bodhisattvas. Nor did they know the attainments of the bodhisattvas through the illusory nature of phenomena, which arise from the blessing of the tathāgatas; or the blessing of possessing the various dream-like perceptions of bodhisattvas; or the increasing great power of the joy of bodhisattvas.
Therefore, the great śrāvakas, such as the supreme pair, the excellent pair, and so on, did not see the miracles of the Tathāgata; they did not hear of them, did not know them, did not comprehend them, did not understand them, were not aware of them, did not believe in them, did not think of them, did not regard them, did not consider them, did not dwell upon them, and did not reflect upon them.
Why was that? Because the scope of a buddha’s wisdom is not the same as that of the śrāvaka. Therefore, even though the great śrāvakas were present in Jetavana, they did not see the Buddha’s miracles. They did not have the roots of merit that would accord with that. They did not have the pure vision for seeing the Buddha’s miracles. They did not have the samādhi that realizes the power for causing something vast to be within a small object of perception. They did not have the liberation, the miraculous powers, the supremacy, the power, the mastery, the state, the perception, the vision, or the wisdom through which they could know, see, comprehend, understand, fathom, realize, view, experience, grasp, surmount, hear from others, teach, describe, reveal, praise, bestow, inspire beings toward, connect beings with, bring beings to, or establish beings in the nature of the Buddha’s miracles.
Why was that? Because they had become what they were through the Śrāvakayāna, had accomplished the path of the śrāvakas, had fulfilled the range of the conduct of the śrāvakas, had gained the result of the śrāvakas, had gained the knowledge of the illumination of the truths, were established in the summit of existence, had attained absolute peace, had minds that were devoid of great compassion, had no regard for all the world realms, and had accomplished their own benefit.
They had gathered and were present in Jetavana before, to the left, to the right, and to the rear of the Bhagavat, but they did not see those miracles of the Buddha.
Why was that? They had not attained omniscient wisdom; they had not accomplished omniscient wisdom; they were not established in omniscient wisdom; they had not prayed for omniscient wisdom; they had not realized omniscient wisdom; they had not become imbued with omniscient wisdom; and they had not become purified in omniscient wisdom and therefore were not able to observe, to know, to see, or to realize the miracles from the Buddha’s samādhi.
Why was that? Because they could be seen through the vision of those who were in the family of bodhisattvas and not through the vision of śrāvakas. Therefore, those great śrāvakas were present in Jetavana but did not see the Tathāgata’s miracles, the Tathāgata’s power, the Tathāgata’s pure realm, or the gathering of the bodhisattvas.
By analogy, many hundreds of thousands of pretas, suffering from thirst and hunger, naked, without clothing, their skin the color of being burned, shriveled by the wind and sun, attacked by flocks of crows, and terrified by wolves and jackals, do not see the great Ganges River even though they are gathered on its opposite banks, because they are obscured by obscuring karma. Some of them see a dry riverbed without water, and some of them see it filled with ashes. In that same way, although the sthaviras, the great śrāvakas, were present in Jetavana, their vision was obscured by the cataracts of the ignorance that is contrary to omniscience. And this is because they did not possess the power of the root of merit of the level of omniscience.
By analogy, a man who is in the middle of a great gathering of many people becomes drowsy. He falls asleep, and in a dream he sees in that place the divine city that is Śakra’s beautiful residence, which is upon the summit of Sumeru and has trees; is encircled by a wall of fruit trees; is filled with a quintillion female devas and filled with a quintillion male devas; has wish-fulfilling trees that emit divine clothing, strings of pearls, precious ornaments, and various kinds of necklaces; has many trees of musical instruments that emit beautiful music when the divine instruments of various kinds are moved by the breezes; and has an array of all kinds of joyful amusements. He hears the melodious, beautiful sounds made by the female devas who are singing and playing the divine musical instruments, and he thinks that he is there. Even though he sees that everywhere this place is adorned by an array of divine things, the many people who are gathered in that same place do not see it, do not know it, and do not perceive it. Why is that? Because it is perceived in a dream by the man who is asleep. Although those many people are in the same place, they do not see it.
In the same way, those bodhisattvas, those lords of the world who aspire to enlightenment, who had received the vast blessing of the Buddha, who had obtained the unmistaken power of their roots of merit, who had made prayers of aspiration for omniscience, who understood well all the qualities of the tathāgatas, who were well established in the vast array of the bodhisattva path, and who were highly accomplished in the Dharma of the aspects of omniscient wisdom—they had completely excellent bodhisattva conduct, had the pure fulfillment of their prayers of aspiration, had reached the domain of wisdom of all the bodhisattva levels, enjoyed all practices through bodhisattva samādhi, and practiced without impediment the entire range of bodhisattva wisdom, so that they could see, perceive, and experience the inconceivable supremacy of the Buddha and the displays of the Buddha. However, the great śrāvakas, the supreme pair, the good pair, and so on did not see them or know of them, because they did not have the vision of the bodhisattvas.
By analogy, the Himalaya, the king of mountains, is filled with places that are the sources of herbs. Those individuals who have acquired the knowledge of mantras, medicine, and herbs and are accomplished in that science, and who are learned in the usage of all herbs, carry out there the task of collecting those herbs. Others who dwell on that king of mountains and who are herders of animals, cattle, goats, and sheep; those who are hunters; and other people who do not know the science of herbs do not know the taste, power, effects, locations, usages, and application of herbs. In the same way, the bodhisattvas who perceive the range of activity of the Tathāgata, who have perfected the range of bodhisattva miracles, can see the range of miracles of the Tathāgata’s samādhi. The great śrāvakas, the supreme pair, the good pair, and others who were content concerning what had to be done for themselves, who were indifferent concerning what had to be done for others, who were uncaring—although they were present in Jetavana, they did not perceive the range of miracles of the Tathāgata’s samādhi.
For example, this great earth is the perfect source of all jewels. It is filled with many hundreds of thousands of treasures. It is completely filled with different kinds of various jewels. A man who is skilled in the knowledge of the sources of jewels and treasure, is educated in the science of examining jewels, has knowledge of the science of treasures, is well trained in the craft of jewelry, and is supported by the power of vast merit will obtain whatever jewels he desires, and he will completely satisfy himself, support his father and mother, care for his sons and daughters, and also distribute his wealth among other beings who are old, sick, poor, suffering misfortune, or in need of food and clothes, bringing others various kinds of happiness from wealth. However, those beings who have no knowledge of treasures or the source of jewels and who have not created merit do not have the pure vision of the knowledge of jewels. Even though they are at the very location, they do not perceive that there is precious treasure and a source of jewels, and without that knowledge they do not obtain jewels, nor do they make use of the jewels.
In the same way, the bodhisattvas had the pure vision of wisdom concerning the inconceivable range of the Tathāgata, and they perceived the inconceivable range of the wisdom of the Tathāgata. They were present in Jetavana and saw the miracles of the Buddha, perceived an ocean of the ways of the Dharma, had applied the seal of samādhi, were engaged in making offerings to the Tathāgata, were dedicated to possessing the Dharma, and gathered beings through the four methods of gathering pupils. The great śrāvakas did not see those miracles of the Tathāgata or that gathering of the great assembly of bodhisattvas.
By analogy, a man who is blindfolded arrives at an island of jewels. He walks around that island of jewels, stands on it, sits on it, and lies down on it, but he does not see that source of jewels. He does not see the trees of jewels, the clothing of jewels, the incense of jewels, or all the jewels. He does not know the scope, the value, or the use of those jewels. He does not acquire the jewels. He does not understand what could be done with the jewels. Those who are not blindfolded see and know all those jewels.
In the same way, the bodhisattvas had reached the island of the jewels of the Dharma and saw before them the supreme jewel of the Tathāgata, the adornment of the entire world, present in Jetavana and demonstrating the inconceivable miracles of a buddha. The great śrāvakas were present, staying at the feet of the Tathāgata, but did not see manifested miracles from the range of the Tathāgata’s samādhi. They did not see the great assembly of the bodhisattvas who were like a source of jewels. Why was that? Because their eyes of wisdom were blindfolded by the ignorance that is contrary to omniscience. They did not have the purified eyes of wisdom of the bodhisattvas, and they had not realized the comprehension of the lineage of the Dharma’s domain, through which one could see the inconceivable manifestation of miracles from the supremacy of the Tathāgata’s samādhi.
By analogy, there is the completely purified sight called stainless brilliance, which does not experience any darkness. If a man who has obtained that purified sight named stainless brilliance were to go in the completely black darkness of a dark night among a gathering of a quintillion people who have various practices and conduct and whose sight is overwhelmed by darkness, he would move, stand, sit down, and act among them in various ways, but those people will not see or know of that man’s various kinds of activity. However, when that man looks in the different directions at the various practices and conduct that the great gathering of beings is performing, he sees their various shapes, their various colors, with none of those various sights unseen. In the same way, the Tathāgata, who has an entourage of an assembly of bodhisattvas, possesses the sight that is pure and unimpeded so that he sees and knows the entire world. He demonstrates the manifestation of the great miracles of a buddha’s samādhi, but the great śrāvakas do not see those great miracles manifested by the samādhi and wisdom of the Tathāgata. Nor do they see that great assembly of the great bodhisattvas.
By analogy, it is like when a bhikṣu in the center of an assembly of many beings rests in the samādhi of the pervasion of earth or rests in the samādhi pervaded by water or the samādhi pervaded by fire, pervaded by air, pervaded by blue, pervaded by yellow, pervaded by red, pervaded by white, pervaded by devas, pervaded by the bodies of various beings, pervaded by all sounds and voices, or pervaded by all perceptions. That assembly of many beings does not see a mass of water, does not see the light of fire, does not see the pervasion by the bodies of various beings, and so on up to not seeing the pervasion by all perceptions. It only sees him practicing and resting in the samādhis. In the same way, when the Tathāgata manifests inconceivable miracles that are the range of a buddha’s samādhi, the great śrāvakas do not see or know them. The bodhisattvas who are following the path of the tathāgatas see and comprehend that range of activity of the tathāgatas.
For example, as soon as a man who creates ointments smears it on his two eyes, an entire multitude of beings cannot see his body, but he can see the bodies of the entire multitude of beings. Whether he is walking, sitting, or standing, he sees the entire multitude of beings. In that same way, the Tathāgata has transcended the world, has passed beyond the range of perception of all beings, and has attained the range of omniscient wisdom but can be perceived by the vision of the wisdom of the bodhisattvas. He can see all beings, but the great śrāvakas do not see the miracle of the Tathāgata.
For example, a deity who accompanies a human for his entire life is always following him. The deity sees the human, but the human does not see the deity. In the same way, the Tathāgata has attained the range of perception of the wisdom of omniscience, and he manifests miracles in the middle of the great gathering of the assembly of bodhisattvas, but the great śrāvakas do not see and do not know of the Tathāgata’s great manifestation of miracles or the miracle of the assembled circle of bodhisattvas.
Consider, for example, a bhikṣu who has reached the perfection of power over his entire mind and rests in a meditation in which all perception and sensation has ceased. Through his being without perception or sensation, his six senses do not experience anything. He has not attained nirvāṇa, and worldly events are continuing and present, but through the power and might of being in that meditation, he does not perceive them and does not see them. In the same way, the great śrāvakas were present in Jetavana, and they had all the six sensory faculties, but they did not see, did not perceive, and did not know of the manifestation of miracles and supremacy from the samādhi of the Tathāgata. Why is that? The range of activity of the Buddha is profound, vast, immeasurable, difficult to see, and difficult to understand. The Buddha’s range of activity is inconceivable and is inaccessible to the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas. Therefore, the great śrāvakas were assembled in Jetavana and were present at the feet of the Bhagavat, but they did not see the Buddha’s miracles or the great gathering of bodhisattvas. They also did not see or perceive the accumulation in Jetavana of the qualities and adornments of countless, innumerable pure world realms, because they were not worthy of it.
At that time, the bodhisattva Vairocanapraṇidhānanābhiraśmiprabha recited these verses:
Then the bodhisattva Duryodhanavīryavegarāja, through the blessing of the Buddha, looked into the ten directions and recited these verses:
Then the bodhisattva Samantaśrīsamudgatatejorāja, through the blessing of the Buddha, looked into the ten directions and recited these verses:
Then the bodhisattva Asaṅgaśrīgarbharāja, through the blessing of the Buddha, looked into the ten directions and recited these verses: