The Dwellings of Bodhisattvas
Toh 44-38
Degé Kangyur, vol. 36 (phal chen, kha), folios 394.b–396.a
Imprint
Translated by Thupten Tashi
under the patronage and supervision of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha
First published 2023
Current version v 1.0.6 (2023)
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Table of Contents
Summary
The Dwellings of Bodhisattvas is the thirty-eighth of the forty-five chapters in The Ornaments of the Buddhas. As the title indicates, the focus of this chapter is the locations of bodhisattvas. It enumerates twenty-three dwelling places, giving the names of the bodhisattvas who reside in the first nine while omitting the names of those who reside in the remaining fourteen.
Acknowledgements
This sūtra was translated by Thupten Tashi and edited by the 84000 editorial team.
The translation was completed under the patronage and supervision of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha.
The translation of this text has been made possible through the generous sponsorship of Thirty and Twenty.
Introduction
The Dwellings of Bodhisattvas is the thirty-eighth of the forty-five chapters in The Ornaments of the Buddhas. This chapter continues The Ornaments of the Buddhas’ series of dialogues that take place in Magadha not long after the Buddha’s awakening. It enumerates twenty-three dwelling places of bodhisattvas, giving the names of the bodhisattvas who reside in the first nine while omitting the names of those who reside in the remaining fourteen. Throughout The Ornaments of the Buddhas, the Buddha Śākyamuni remains silent, and it is through his blessings that other prominent bodhisattvas offer these teachings. The Dwellings of Bodhisattvas and the two preceding chapters are taught by a bodhisattva named King of Mind.
In The Ornaments of the 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. 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 these locations in our own world system, he is also said to be simultaneously present in countless other worlds.
This proliferation of locations connected with the Buddha and his teachings allowed for Buddhist holy sites beyond India to assume greater significance. Notably, along with sites in northern India listed in this chapter we also find sites located in China, Kashmir, Gandhara, and Khaśa, here used as another name for the Central Asian city-state of Khotan that flourished during the first millennium ᴄᴇ. As with other canonical works that feature Khotan, including The Prophecy on Mount Gośṛṅga (Toh 357)1 and The Quintessence of the Sun (Toh 257),2 this reflects the importance of Khotan in the spread of Buddhism. It is notable that there are significant parallels between the sacred sites listed here in The Dwellings of Bodhisattvas and those found in the final chapter of The Quintessence of the Sun.3
The Dwellings of Bodhisattvas is found in the second of the four volumes of The Ornaments of the Buddhas in the Degé Kangyur. There is no colophon specific to this chapter, but the colophon to the entire Ornaments of the Buddhas in the Degé Kangyur states that it was translated by the Tibetan master-translator Yeshé Dé, together with Jinamitra and Surendrabodhi, indicating a translation made under Tibetan imperial sponsorship in the late eighth or early ninth century. This dating is confirmed by the fact that it is listed in both the Denkarma (Tib. ldan dkar ma) and Phangthangma (Tib. ’phang thang ma) imperial catalogs. The colophons of the Narthang, Lhasa, Stok Palace, Ulaanbaatar, and Phukdrak Kangyurs, however, ascribe the translation to Vairotsana, while the catalog (Tib. dkar chag) of the Degé Kangyur mentions the three translators as above, but adds that Lochen Vairotsana acted as the editor.4
The Dwellings of Bodhisattvas is unavailable in Sanskrit, but is preserved in Chinese and Tibetan translation. A complete English translation of The Ornaments of the Buddhas has been published by Thomas Cleary based on Śikṣānanda’s Chinese version, with the English title The Flower Ornament Scripture.
This, to our knowledge, is the first English translation from Tibetan. It was made from the Tibetan text in the Degé Kangyur, in consultation with the versions found in the Stok Palace Kangyur, the Lhasa Kangyur, and the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma).
Text Body
The Translation
Then the bodhisattva King of Mind spoke again to those bodhisattvas, “O children of the Victorious One! In the east, there is a mountain called Appearance of a Sage, where bodhisattvas in the past have resided. In this dwelling place a bodhisattva called Vajraśrī teaches Dharma surrounded by a retinue of three hundred bodhisattvas.
“O children of the Victorious One! In the south, there is a mountain called Heap of Glory, where bodhisattvas in the past have resided. [F.395.a] In this dwelling place a bodhisattva called Dharmamati teaches Dharma surrounded by a retinue of five hundred bodhisattvas.
“O children of the Victorious One! In the west, there is a mountain called Possessed of Vajra Radiance, where bodhisattvas in the past have resided. In this dwelling place a bodhisattva called Walks with the Gait of a Lion teaches Dharma surrounded by a retinue of three hundred bodhisattvas.
“O children of the Victorious One! In the north, there is a mountain called Heap of Incense, where bodhisattvas in the past have resided. In this dwelling place a bodhisattva called Gandhahastin teaches Dharma surrounded by a retinue of three thousand bodhisattvas.
“O children of the Victorious One! In the east, there is a mountain called Mountain of Meadows,5 where bodhisattvas in the past have resided. In this dwelling place a bodhisattva called Mañjuśrī teaches Dharma surrounded by a retinue of ten thousand bodhisattvas.
“O children of the Victorious One! In the northeastern direction, there is a mountain called Vajra Mountain, Site of Four Great Oceans, where bodhisattvas in the past have resided. In this dwelling place a bodhisattva called Dharmodgata teaches Dharma surrounded by a retinue of twelve hundred bodhisattvas.
“O children of the Victorious One! In the southeastern direction, there is a mountain called Stūpa, where bodhisattvas in the past have resided. In this dwelling place a bodhisattva called Divine Aggregates teaches Dharma surrounded by a retinue of one thousand bodhisattvas. [F.395.b]
“O children of the Victorious One! In the southwestern direction, there is a mountain called Jyotiṣprabha, where bodhisattvas in the past have resided. In this dwelling place a bodhisattva called Bhadraśrī teaches Dharma surrounded by a retinue of three thousand bodhisattvas.
“O children of the Victorious One! In the northwestern direction, there is a mountain called Gandhamādana, where bodhisattvas in the past have resided. In this dwelling place a bodhisattva called Radiating Luminous Incense teaches Dharma surrounded by a retinue of five thousand bodhisattvas.
“O children of the Victorious One! In the great ocean, there is a place called Good Cave, where bodhisattvas in the past have resided.
“O children of the Victorious One! To the south of Vaiśālī, there is a place called Stable Roots, where bodhisattvas in the past have resided.
“In a land called Pāṭaliputra, there is a place called Golden Park of the Saṅgha, where bodhisattvas in the past have resided.
“In a land called Mathurā,6 there is a place called Satisfying Cave, where bodhisattvas in the past have resided.
“In a land called Relinquishing the Vase, there is a place called Dharma Seat, where bodhisattvas in the past have resided.
“In a land called Perfect Virtue, there is a place called Mucilinda Cave, where bodhisattvas in the past have resided.
“In a land called Vatsa, there is a place, established by nāgas, called Añcala, where bodhisattvas in the past have resided. [F.396.a]
“In a land called Kamboja, there is a place called Exalted by Love, where bodhisattvas in the past have resided.
“In a land called China, there is a place called Nārāyaṇa Cave, where bodhisattvas in the past have resided.
“In a land called Khaśa, there is a mountain called Gośṛṇga, where bodhisattvas in the past have resided.
“In a land called Kashmir, there is a place called Sudarśaka, where bodhisattvas in the past have resided.
“In a land called Increasing Joy, there is a place called Sthavira Cave, where bodhisattvas in the past have resided.
“In a land called Jalandhar, there is a place called Teaching with Hands Folded, where bodhisattvas in the past have resided.
“In the vicinity of the land called Gandhara, there is a place called Cave of Provisions, where bodhisattvas in the past have resided.”
This concludes “The Dwellings of Bodhisattvas,” the thirty-eighth chapter of the extensive sūtra, “The Ornaments of the Buddhas.”
Notes
Bibliography
Tibetan
byang chub sems pa’i gnas. Toh 44-38, Degé Kangyur vol. 36 (phal chen, kha), folios 394.b–396.a.
byang chub sems pa’i gnas. bka’ ’gyur (dpe bsdur ma) [Comparative Edition of the Kangyur], krung go’i bod rig pa zhib ’jug ste gnas kyi bka’ bstan dpe sdur khang (The Tibetan Tripitaka Collation Bureau of the China Tibetology Research Center). 108 volumes. Beijing: Krung go’i bod rig pa dpe skrun khang (China Tibetology Publishing House), 2006–9, vol. 36, pp. 827–30.
byang chub sems pa’i gnas. Stok Palace Kangyur vol. 31 (phal chen, ga), folios 352.b–354.a.
Phangthangma (dkar chag ’phang thang ma). Beijing: mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 2003.
Denkarma (pho brang stod thang ldan dkar gyi chos kyi ’gyur ro cog gi dkar chag). Toh 4364, Degé Tengyur vol. 206 (sna tshogs, jo), folios 294.b–310.a.
Chinese
Buddhabhadra, trans. Dafang guang fu hua yan jing 大方廣佛華嚴經. Taishō 278.
Śikṣānanda, trans. Dafang guang fu hua yan jing 大方廣佛華嚴經. Taishō 279.
Western Languages
Cleary, Thomas. The Flower Ornament Sutra: A Translation of the Avatamsaka Sutra. Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1984.
Yi Ding. “A Philological Look at ‘Chapter Bodhisattva-Abodes’ in the Buddhāvataṃsaka: Its Reconstruction, Textual Origin, and Mahāyāna Context.” A paper presented at the International Conference on Mount Wutai and The Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra, Shanxi province, China, July 12–15, 2017.
Glossary
Types of attestation for names and terms of the corresponding source language
Attested in source text
This term is attested in a manuscript used as a source for this translation.
Attested in other text
This term is attested in other manuscripts with a parallel or similar context.
Attested in dictionary
This term is attested in dictionaries matching Tibetan to the corresponding language.
Approximate attestation
The attestation of this name is approximate. It is based on other names where the relationship between the Tibetan and source language is attested in dictionaries or other manuscripts.
Reconstruction from Tibetan phonetic rendering
This term is a reconstruction based on the Tibetan phonetic rendering of the term.
Reconstruction from Tibetan semantic rendering
This term is a reconstruction based on the semantics of the Tibetan translation.
Source unspecified
This term has been supplied from an unspecified source, which most often is a widely trusted dictionary.
Appearance of a Sage
- drang srong ’byung ba
- དྲང་སྲོང་འབྱུང་བ།
- —
Cave of Provisions
- brgyags kyi phug
- བརྒྱགས་ཀྱི་ཕུག
- —
Dharma Seat
- chos kyi stan
- ཆོས་ཀྱི་སྟན།
- —
Divine Aggregates
- lha’i phung po
- ལྷའི་ཕུང་པོ།
- —
Exalted by Love
- byams pas ’phags pa
- བྱམས་པས་འཕགས་པ།
- —
Golden Park of the Saṅgha
- dge ’dun gyi kun dga’ ra ba gser
- དགེ་འདུན་གྱི་ཀུན་དགའ་ར་བ་གསེར།
- —
Good Cave
- phug bzang po
- ཕུག་བཟང་པོ།
- —
Heap of Glory
- dpal gyi phung po
- དཔལ་གྱི་ཕུང་པོ།
- —
Heap of Incense
- spos kyi phung po
- སྤོས་ཀྱི་ཕུང་པོ།
- —
Increasing Joy
- dga’ ba ’phel ba
- དགའ་བ་འཕེལ་བ།
- —
Mountain of Meadows
- spang ri
- སྤང་རི།
- —
Mucilinda Cave
- btang bzung gi phug
- བཏང་བཟུང་གི་ཕུག
- —
Nārāyaṇa Cave
- mthu bo’i che phug pa
- མཐུ་བོའི་ཆེ་ཕུག་པ།
- —
Perfect Virtue
- dge ba’i phul du phyin pa
- དགེ་བའི་ཕུལ་དུ་ཕྱིན་པ།
- —
Possessed of Vajra Radiance
- rdo rje’i ’od ’phro ba can
- རྡོ་རྗེའི་འོད་འཕྲོ་བ་ཅན།
- —
Radiating Luminous Incense
- spos kyi ’od zer rab tu ’gyed pa
- སྤོས་ཀྱི་འོད་ཟེར་རབ་ཏུ་འགྱེད་པ།
- —
Relinquishing the Vase
- ril ba gtong ba
- རིལ་བ་གཏོང་བ།
- —
Satisfying Cave
- tshim par byed pa’i phug
- ཚིམ་པར་བྱེད་པའི་ཕུག
- —
Stable Roots
- rtsa ba shin tu brtan pa
- རྩ་བ་ཤིན་ཏུ་བརྟན་པ།
- —
Sthavira Cave
- gnas brtan gyi phug
- གནས་བརྟན་གྱི་ཕུག
- —
Teaching with Hands Folded
- khyor po ston pa
- ཁྱོར་པོ་སྟོན་པ།
- —
Vajra Mountain, Site of Four Great Oceans
- rgya mtsho chen po bzhi’i gnas rdo rje’i ri
- རྒྱ་མཚོ་ཆེན་པོ་བཞིའི་གནས་རྡོ་རྗེའི་རི།
- —
Walks with the Gait of a Lion
- seng ge’i ’gros su ’gro ba
- སེང་གེའི་འགྲོས་སུ་འགྲོ་བ།
- —