Part 3.1 - Regarding the name of the Dasabhumika Sutra

This text is known by variant names such as Dasabhumika, Dasabhumaka, or Dasabhumisvara. Acarya Asanga in his famous treatise namely, the Dasabhumi has referred to it by the name of Dasabhumaka.60 There appears the following stanza in all the manuscripts of the text before the prose portion of the introduction which provides information as to its exact title:Yasmin paramita dasottamagunastaistairnayaih sucitah sarvajnena jagaddhitaya dasa ca prakhyapita bhumayah / ucchedadhruvavarjita ca vimala prokta gatirmadhyama tatsutram dasabhumikam nigaditam srunvantu bodhyarthinah // All the scholars, however, are unanimous in holding the view that the above mentioned stanza did not form a part of the text in hand in its original form.61 But it certainly proves that the name of the text was later on standardized to Dasabhumika. At the same time it can be further emphasized that at the time of the composition of the text, the word Dasabhumisvara might have been popular as is evident from 60 Dasabhumika-Sutra P.L. Vaidya (ed.) Intro. p.1; and also Siksasamuccaya of Santideva. 61 ibid. p.1, fn. 1.

33 62 colophons available in all the manuscripts and versions. As regards to the meaning of the title, J. Rahder thinks that the word Dasabhumisvara stands for one who has mastered the ten stages in the career of a and is an epithet of Manjusri in the AryaBodhisattva, manjusrinamastasataka.63 The Dashabhumika-Sutra is considered as one of the most important Mahayana Texts by its distinctive contribution hence it is put in the group of principal texts called the Navadharma,64 in Nepal. It is one of the two independent Buddhist (Sanskrit) Sutras belonging to the Buddhavatamsaka-Sutra; other one being the Gandavyuha-Sutra." The entire Buddhavatamsaka-Sutra," was made available into two Chinese versions in sixty volumes and in eighty volumes during 418-420 62 R.L. Mitra, The Sanskrit Buddhist Literature of Nepal p. 79; also compare Johannse Rahder, Acta Orientalia IV, p.214. 63 Acta Orientalia IV, p.214. 64 The other texts that fall into this special category, i.e., Navadharma are:Astasahasrika-Prajnaparamita, Saddharmapundarika, Lalitavastu, Lamkavatara, Suvarnaprabhasa, Gandhavyuha, Tathagataguhyaka, Samadhiraja. 65 The Sanskrit text was published: Gandavyuha critically edited, collating six MSS., by D.T. Sunuki and H. Idzumi, during 1934-36. 66 The Buddhavatamsaka-sutra, though its Sanskrit text has not wholly been preserved, has been translated into Chinese with the Chinese equivalent Hua-yen (R) meaning "Adorned with Various Flowers".

34 and 695-699 A.D. respectively. The Dasabhumika-Sutra is in the twenty-sixth chapter among thirty-nine chapters in total in the former. The Avatamsaka-Sutra speaks of fifty two stages: ten faiths (+), ten abodes (+), ten conducts (+1), ten returnings (+), ten stages (+), equal enlightenment (**), and finally, marvelous enlightenment (miao jue) It seems that these 52 stages are only a form of classification of the Bodhisattvas according to their qualities and that they do not indicate the gradual stages of spiritual progress except the ten stages in the fifth item, that is, the ten stages (+), where we find mention of the bhumis. Besides, between the 3 rd and the 7 th centuries, it has been rendered into Chinese, Mongolian, Tibetan, etc., and this bears etc., and this bears evidence to its popularity as well as importance as a Mahayana work. The purpose of the Dasabhumika-Sutra is to present the ten stages (bhumi), in a systematic way, through which a Bodhisattva has to proceed before he finally finally attains Buddhahood. The accomplishments a Bodhisattva has to attain in each stage are elaborately explained in the Dashabhumika-Sutra.