Dà fāngguǎng fó huáyán jīng 大方廣佛華嚴經 (四十華嚴 / 入不思議解脫境界普賢行願品)
The Sūtra on the Great, Vast Buddha-Flower-Garland (Buddhāvataṃsaka) — the “Forty-fascicle Huáyán” / “Chapter on Samantabhadra’s Practice-Vow Entering the Realm of Inconceivable Liberation” by 般若 Prajñā (譯)
About the work
The Sì shí Huáyán 四十華嚴 in 40 fascicles is the third complete Chinese version of Avataṃsaka-tradition material — but, unlike the 60-fascicle Buddhabhadra and 80-fascicle Śikṣānanda versions, it is in fact a separate translation of only the Gaṇḍavyūha (the Rù fǎjiè pǐn 入法界品 / “Chapter on Entering the Dharma-Realm”) rather than of the whole sūtra. The work is therefore equivalent in content to chapter 34 of T0278 / chapter 39 of T0279 — but in a more expansive recension, with the famous Pǔ-xián xíng-yuàn pǐn 普賢行願品 (“Chapter on Samantabhadra’s Practice-Vow”) of fascicle 40 supplied as a coda not present in the older translations.
The Taishō apparatus’s parallel-listing accordingly notes: “Fascicles 1–39 = chapters 34 [of T0278] and 39 [of T0279]; fascicle 40 = chapters 31 [of T0278], 36 [of T0279], 296, 297” — i.e. the bulk of the work is parallel to the Sudhana-pilgrimage material, while the closing fascicle 40 corresponds to the famous Pǔxián xíngyuàn pǐn (the “Aspiration-vow of Samantabhadra,” T0296 and T0297, which had been transmitted in independent translations) and includes the Pǔxián shí dà yuàn 普賢十大願 (“Ten Great Vows of Samantabhadra”) that became the most beloved liturgical text of East Asian Pure Land and Huáyán Buddhism.
Prefaces
The Taishō print preserves the title-line “罽賓國三藏般若奉 詔譯” — “translated by the Kashmirian Tripiṭaka Prajñā by imperial command.” A long colophon at the end of fascicle 40 records the names of the various editorial collaborators in successive Yuán/Sòng/Míng-period recensions of the work — over a dozen monastic figures from the Hángzhōu and Cháng’ān monastic establishments — but no Tang-period prefatory document survives.
Abstract
The translation was undertaken by the Kashmirian (Jì-bīn 罽賓) Tripiṭaka master 般若 Prajñā / Bōrě (744 – 810 CE) at Cháng’ān between 796 and 798 CE under the patronage of Tang Dézōng 德宗 (r. 779 – 805). Per the Sòng gāosēng zhuàn (T2061, juan 2 biography of Prajñā) and the Lóngxīng biānnián tōnglùn 隆興編年通論 (T49 n2103), the work was prepared at the Chóngfú-sì 崇福寺 in Cháng’ān; 澄觀 Chéngguān, the contemporary Huáyán patriarch, served on the editorial team as polishing-prose master (潤文大德), with Yuánzhào 圓照 and others as scribes and editors.
The doctrinal-historical importance of the Sì shí Huáyán is twofold. First, it preserves the Pǔ-xián xíng-yuàn pǐn 普賢行願品 — the great closing chapter setting forth Samantabhadra’s “Ten Great Vows” — which is absent from the older translations. The Ten Vows (to worship all Buddhas; to praise the Tathāgata; to make extensive offerings; to repent and remove karmic obstructions; to rejoice in the merit of others; to ask the Buddhas to turn the Dharma-wheel; to ask the Buddhas to remain in the world; to constantly follow the Buddhas in study; to constantly accord with all beings; to dedicate the merit universally) became the foundational text of East Asian Pure Land devotional practice and of the lay Buddhist liturgy of mature Huáyán. Second, the version provides an independent witness to the Gaṇḍavyūha recension circulating in Khotan / Kashmir at the end of the eighth century, allowing comparison with both the older Chinese versions and the Sanskrit Gaṇḍavyūha preserved in Nepalese manuscripts.
The translation is conventionally read as the third “version” of the Avataṃsaka — Jiù yì 舊譯 (T0278), Xīn yì 新譯 (T0279), Sì shí 四十 (T0293) — although strictly only the Sì shí is a partial-text recension. From the late eighth century onwards the three were studied together in East Asian Buddhist contexts, with the Sì shí’s closing chapter providing the liturgical conclusion to East Asian Avataṃsaka practice.
Translations and research
- Cleary, Thomas, tr. Entry into the Realm of Reality: The Text; Entry into the Realm of Reality: The Guide. Boston: Shambhala, 1989. — Cleary’s English translation of the Gaṇḍavyūha / Sì shí Huáyán; the standard Western-language version.
- Cleary, Thomas, tr. The Flower Ornament Scripture. Boulder: Shambhala, 1984–1987 — includes the Pǔ-xián xíng-yuàn pǐn.
- Osto, Douglas. Power, Wealth and Women in Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism: The Gaṇḍavyūha-sūtra. Routledge, 2008. — The standard recent study.
- Suzuki, D. T. Essays in Zen Buddhism, Third Series. London: Rider, 1953 — long discussion of the Gaṇḍavyūha.
- Vaidya, P. L., ed. Gaṇḍavyūha-sūtra. Buddhist Sanskrit Texts 5. Darbhanga: Mithila Institute, 1960. — Sanskrit edition.
- Hamar, Imre. “The History of the Buddhāvataṃsaka-sūtra,” in Reflecting Mirrors (2007).
- Forte, Antonino. The Hostage An Shigao and his Offspring. Kyoto: ISEAS, 1995.
- Steinkellner, Ernst. Sudhana’s Miraculous Journey in the Temple of the Avataṃsaka. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1995.
Other points of interest
- The Pǔxián xíngyuàn pǐn 普賢行願品 of fascicle 40 became, in East Asian Buddhist practice, one of the three or four most frequently chanted texts in monastic and lay liturgy; the Ten Great Vows are the classical statement of the Mahāyāna lay devotional commitment.
- The translation team included 澄觀 Chéngguān, the contemporary Huáyán patriarch, who is the primary witness to the standardisation of the Pǔ-xián xíng-yuàn as the closing chapter of the Avataṃsaka corpus; Chéngguān subsequently wrote a commentary on the Pǔ-xián xíng-yuàn pǐn (T1736) as part of his expanding Yǎn yì chāo enterprise.