Description

The Flower Adornment Sutra is Bhikshu Dharmamitra's extensively annotated original translation of the Mahāvaipulya Buddha Avataṃsaka Sūtra or "The Great Expansive Buddha's Flower Adornment Sutra" which he has rendered from Tripiṭaka Master Śikṣānanda's circa 699 ce Sanskrit-to-Chinese 80-fascicle translation as the "Da Fangguang Fo Huayan Jing" (大方廣佛華嚴經 / Taisho Vol. 10, no. 279). Appended here as the conclusion to Chapter 39 is Dharmamitra's English translation of Tripiṭaka Master Prajñā's translation into Chinese of "The Conduct and Vows of Samantabhadra" which is traditionally included as the conclusion of Chinese language editions of this sutra. Altogether, this sutra consists of 39 chapters that introduce an interpenetrating, infinitely expansive, and majestically grand multiverse of countless buddha worlds while explaining in great detail the cultivation of the bodhisattva path to buddhahood, most notably the ten highest levels of bodhisattva practice known as "the ten bodhisattva grounds." To date, this is the first and only complete English translation of the Avataṃsaka Sutra. This special bilingual edition (English / Chinese) includes the facing-page simplified and traditional Chinese scripts to facilitate close study by academic buddhologists, students in Buddhist universities, and Buddhists in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mainland China, and the West.