Avatamsaka Sutra

Avatamsaka Sutra (Skt. Avataṃsakasūtra; Tib. ཕལ་པོ་ཆེ་, Wyl. mdo phal po che) — one of the most important (and largest) of all Mahayana sutras.

It includes the Sutra of the Ten Bhumis and the Gandavyuha Sutra, which in turn includes Samantabhadra's Aspiration to Good Actions.

The Tibetan version in 45 chapters was translated in the 9th century by Surendra and Vairocana Rakṣita. It's a voluminous sutra comprising four volumes in the Kangyur (Derge edition).

Avatamsaka Sutra (Fo-tuo Ga-ye) was taught to Bodhisattvas and Buddhas and other higher beings at Bodhgaya directly after the Buddha’s enlightenment. This was the principle text of the Hua-yen school.

The Avataṃsaka Sūtra was written in stages, beginning from at least 500 years after the death of the Buddha.

It is "a very long text composed of a number of originally independent scriptures of diverse provenance, all of which were combined, probably in Central Asia, in the late third or the fourth century CE." Two full Chinese translations of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra were made.

Fragmentary translation probably began in the 2nd century CE, and the famous Ten Stages Sutra, often treated as an individual scripture, was first translated in the 3rd century.

The first complete Chinese version was completed by Buddhabhadra around 420 in 60 scrolls with 34 chapters, and the second by Śikṣānanda around 699 in 80 scrolls with 40 chapters.

There is also a translation of the Gaṇḍavyūha section by Prajñā around 798. The second translation includes more sutras than the first, and the Tibetan translation, which is still later, includes many differences with the 80 scrolls version. Scholars conclude that sutras were being added to the collection.

According to Paramārtha, a 6th-century monk from Ujjain in central India, the Avataṃsaka Sūtra is also called the "Bodhisattva Piṭaka." In his translation of the Mahāyānasaṃgrahabhāṣya, there is a reference to the Bodhisattva Piṭaka, which Paramārtha notes is the same as the Avataṃsaka Sūtra in 100,000 lines.

Identification of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra as a "Bodhisattva Piṭaka" was also recorded in the colophon of a Chinese manuscript at the Mogao Caves: "Explication of the Ten Stages, entitled Creator of the Wisdom of an Omniscient Being by Degrees, a chapter of the Mahāyāna sūtra Bodhisattvapiṭaka Buddhāvataṃsaka, has ended."

The sutra, among the longest in the Buddhist canon, contains 40 chapters on disparate topics, although there are overarching themes:

The interdependency of all phenomena (dharmas)

The progression of the Buddhist path to full Enlightenment, or Buddhahood

Two of the chapters serve as sutras in their own right, and have been cited in the writings of many Buddhists in East Asia.