The Numbers
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.37 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.