The Meaning of the Title as Translated into Tibetan
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.”