The Stem Array · Gaṇḍavyūha

The Gaṇḍa­vyūha Sūtra was first translated into Chinese as an independent text by a monk named Shengjian sometime between 388 and 408 ᴄᴇ.¹⁸ In that translation there are only twenty-five kalyāṇamitras. Compared to the extant Sanskrit version, the first nine kalyāṇamitras after Mañjuśrī and those after the thirty-fourth are not present.¹⁹ Therefore, it may represent an unfinished translation or an earlier form of the sūtra, or both.

Not long afterward, in 420, Buddhabhadra (359–429 ᴄᴇ), an Indian monk who had migrated to China, translated with his team the entire Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra, which at that time was composed of thirty-four chapters with the Gaṇḍa­vyūha Sūtra as the final chapter.²⁰ Buddhabhadra’s translation contains not only additional chapters when compared to Shengjian’s translation, but also additional verses and passages within the chapters.

Interestingly, the Indian monk Paramārtha (499–569 ᴄᴇ), who flourished not long after Buddhabhadra’s time, refers to the Buddhāvataṃsaka as a Bodhisattva­piṭaka (“basket” or “collected teachings for bodhisattvas”). This is echoed by a copy of this sūtra found in the Mogao Caves at Dunhuang, which bears the title Bodhisattva­piṭaka Buddhāvataṃsaka.²¹ While the presently available Sanskrit does not give the title Bodhisattva­piṭaka, the Tibetan colophons feature this designation, though the sense of it shifts depending on the given colophon’s grammar,²² which may suggest that there was some confusion among Tibetan scholars about the term’s significance.

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 ᴄᴇ). This was made between 695 and 699 ᴄᴇ²³ and had an additional five chapters, with the Gaṇḍa­vyūha Sūtra still in final place as the thirty-ninth chapter. The translation of the Gaṇḍa­vyūha in this version varies little from that of Buddhabhadra, with a few exceptions: the final two verses of the Veṣṭhila section have been added, Avalokiteśvara’s mountain is now named Potalaka rather than Prabha, and a short verse greeting appears in the final section.²⁴

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.²⁵ 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.”²⁶ 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 795.²⁷ 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 ᴄᴇ) was particularly influential in the spread of this tradition, and he wrote a commentary (華嚴論, Huayan lun) on the Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra, in which he identifies a deeper structure and meaning in the Gaṇḍa­vyūha’s narrative, and that part of Li Tongxuan’s commentary has been translated into French by Patrick Carré. Li also composed a summary of that commentary and a chapter-by-chapter synopsis of the Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra itself.²⁸ This tradition spread to Korea and Japan, where it became, respectively, the Hwaeom and Kegon schools of Buddhism.