This vast Mahāyāna sūtra (also called the Buddhāvataṃsaka) deals with the miraculous side of the Mahāyāna. It is important in relation to the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa, since the latter’s fifth chapter, “The Inconceivable Liberation,” is a highly abbreviated version of the essential teaching of the former.

This very long work in 45 chapters fills no less than four volumes of the Degé Kangyur. In its current form, it is presented as a single extensive sūtra (vaipulyasūtra), but it probably evolved as an encyclopedic coalescence of shorter works, many of which circulated independently and are still seen as texts in their own right. The whole work is classified by Tibetan editors as belonging to the Buddha’s third turning of the wheel of Dharma.

See the 84000 Knowledge Base article, “Ornaments of the Buddhas.”

A collection of forty-five sūtras presented as a single, long sūtra, although many of its chapters are independent works.