The Ten Bhūmis

The Ten Bhūmis is chapter 31 in the 45-chapter Tibetan version of A Multitude of Buddhas (Buddhāvataṃsaka).¹ This is often referred to by its shortened Sanskrit title, Avataṃsaka, and has been translated from the Chinese by Thomas Cleary as The Flower Ornament Scripture. The Ten Bhūmis is one of the most important chapters in A Multitude of Buddhas because its presentation of the ten bhūmis has become the standard presentation in Mahāyāna Buddhism of a bodhisattva’s progress toward buddhahood.

During the course of A Multitude of Buddhas, we find that the Buddha Śākyamuni who lived in our world is just one of countless manifestations of the Buddha Vairocana. Śākyamuni is even referred to as the Buddha Vairocana. Moreover, Śākyamuni is simultaneously present in various locations in our universe‍—at the Bodhi tree, in the Trāya­striṃśa paradise of Śakra 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. Not only is he said to be simultaneously present in all those locations in our world, but he also has similar simultaneous presences in countless other worlds. All these appearances of Śākyamuni, and the gathering of the vast assemblies whom they teach, are the result of prayers he made while he was the Buddha Vairocana. In fact, according to A Multitude of Buddhas, Vairocana is even the source of all buddhas everywhere, and all the bodhisattvas listening to their teachings were pupils of Vairocana in the past.

This depiction of Śākyamuni as an emanation of Vairocana has its precedent in a sūtra that was never translated into Tibetan: the Brahma­jāla­sūtra, which introduces the Buddha Vairocana as the source of ten billion Śākyamunis simultaneously existing in various worlds.² The Buddha Vairocana would also later become the central buddha in such tantric traditions as Shingon Buddhism of Japan, which is based particularly on the Vairocanābhisambodhi Tantra.³

Almost all the sūtras that make up A Multitude of Buddhas are set in the time when the Buddha Śākyamuni was still remaining silent following his enlightenment and had not yet taught. He is therefore a silent presence in all these different locations. As he does not speak, the teachings are given in his presence by such bodhisattvas as Mañjuśrī and Samantabhadra. An exception to this is the final chapter, the well-known Gaṇḍavyūha Sūtra, which takes place later in the Buddha’s life at the Jetavana Monastery in Śrāvastī. However, even in that sūtra the Buddha enters a state of meditation, and the teachings are given by others, primarily in South India, far from the physical location of Śākyamuni.