The Ten Bhūmis

The Ten Bhūmis first existed as an independent sūtra. Dharmarakṣa from Dunhuang translated this and other sūtras that are chapters in A Multitude of Buddhas into Chinese in the third century ᴄᴇ. The first commentary on it in Chinese had already been composed by 394 ᴄᴇ. In India, Vasubandhu composed his commentary on the sūtra in its independent form, and the sūtra still exists as an independent sūtra in Sanskrit manuscripts.

In the early fifth century, The Ten Bhūmis was translated a second time into Chinese under the direction of the Indian Buddhabhadra (359–429 ᴄᴇ), but this time as a chapter in A Multitude of Buddhas, which in that version was composed of thirty-four sūtras. The translation was completed in 420 ᴄᴇ from a manuscript that had been brought in 392 by Chi Faling from the Buddhist kingdom of Yengchen in Xinjiang, where the sūtra was considered one of the kingdom’s treasures.

According to Chinese legend, A Multitude of Buddhas was preserved in three versions by a nāga king in his realm. The longest had verses as numerous as the atoms in thirteen universes. The middle length version had 1,200 chapters with 498,800 verses, and the shortest form had 48 chapters and 100,000 verses. Nāgārjuna then went to the nāga realm and brought back the shortest version to the human world. However, there is no version of the sūtra in 100,000 verses and 48 chapters.

Paramārtha (499–569) was an Indian monk who came to China in the sixth century and translated Buddhist texts into Chinese. In his writings he states that A Multitude of Buddhas was also called the Bodhisattva­piṭaka. Copies of this sūtra in the Dunhuang caves do indeed bear the title Bodhisattva­piṭaka Buddhāvataṃsaka.

Queen Wu (690–704) of the Tang dynasty, on hearing that there was a version of A Multitude of Buddhas in Khotan that was longer than that of the previous Chinese translations, sponsored its translation under the direction of the Khotanese Śikṣānanda (652–710). It was completed in 699, with the queen supplying a preface and titles. This version was composed of thirty-nine sūtras with The Ten Bhūmis as its twenty-sixth sūtra or chapter. It was this seventh-century version of A Multitude of Buddhas that became the basis for the Huayan School of Chinese Buddhism, huayan being the Chinese translation of avataṃsaka as “flower garland.” In the ninth century, Śīladharma made a new translation in China of The Ten Bhūmis.

A Multitude of Buddhas was translated into Tibetan in the early ninth century. The Tibetan version, even longer than the Chinese, is composed of forty-five sūtras with The Ten Bhūmis as its thirty-first sūtra, or chapter.

In the Chinese version of A Multitude of Buddhas, The Ten Bhūmis retains the traditional beginning of a sūtra: “Thus did I hear…” and so on. However, the version translated into Tibetan was further adapted into being a chapter in a longer work by omitting the traditional opening and by transferring a part of its introduction to its conclusion. Therefore, the Tibetan version of this sūtra begins abruptly.