3. Daśabhūmika, The Ten Stages

Learning the Navagrantha Reading Guide

The following pages contain a summary of each chapter of the Ten Stages Sūtra. This is one of the nine most sacred texts of Mahāyāna Buddhism, the Navagrantha and more information about them can be found here. The page number references are to Cleary's translation as a chapter of the Avatamsaka Sūtra. Divisions are not indicated in Cleary's translation, but for ease of reading, they are made here. The Roman numerals are paragraph numbers.

Chapters

Context

The Ten Stages Sūtra (Daśabhūmika Sūtra) is a systematic discourse on the bodhisattva’s path to complete buddhahood. This sūtra exists in Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese. There was a translation by Megumi Honda in 1968, but I have not been able to locate it. Thus, the only location it can be found is Thomas Cleary’s 1993 translation as part of the collection to which it sometimes is a part: The Flower Ornament Scripture: A Translation of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra. However, the Ten Stages Sūtra, in India, usually circulated as an independent sūtra, as with the last chapter of The Flower Ornament Scripture, which Cleary translates from the Chinese, “The Entry into the Realm of Reality,” and which in Sanskrit is known as the Gaṇḍavyūha Sūtra, or The Array of Heroes Sūtra.

While other sūtras mention stages and levels (bhūmis), this is the principal place where the “ten stages” are discussed. For instance, the Perfection of Wisdom in 8000 Lines discusses the levels of the śrāvaka, pratyekabuddha, and bodhisattva, but not the ten stages. However, in terms of stratifying the path of the bodhisattva, the Perfection of Wisdom in 8000 Lines familiarised us with the categorisation of non-irreversible and irreversible (avivartika) bodhisattvas.

The sūtra was translated into Chinese as a part of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra several times. While there was an independent translation of the Ten Stages Sūtra by Dharmarakṣa in 297, a sūtra that covers the same material was first translated by Lokakṣema around 180, as part of the Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra. The difference in that text is that the Bodhisattva Dharmamati learns each bhūmi from the Buddhas from different worlds of the ten directions through visions. The larger Avataṃsaka Sūtra version instead is taught by Vajragarbha Bodhisattva (Cleary translates his name as Diamond Matrix) by the power of the Buddha and links many more aspects of the Bodhisattva path to the stages, including the perfections. The first version of Avataṃsaka was translated into Chinese in 421 by Buddhabhadra from Khotan, and has 34 chapters (60 rolls in Chinese) (some chapters, however, are full sūtras in and of themselves, like this one). The version of the Avataṃsaka from which this translation is taken was translated by Śikṣānanda in 699, and has 39 chapters (80 rolls in Chinese). The Tibetan translation is closer to the 39-chapter version.

From the perspective of a Mahāyāna practitioner, fitting into the Avataṃsaka phase of the Buddha’s career, the Ten Stages are taught to celestial bodhisattvas not long after the awakening of the Buddha. In fact, it takes place in the second week after his awakening, in the palace of the king of the heaven of control of others’ emanations (Parinirmita-vaśavartin; a particular kind of deva, a level two above Tuṣita).

Notes on the Translation

Cleary was an accomplished translator and held a doctorate in East Asian Languages from Harvard University. However, as Cleary was translating from Chinese, terms that have become commonplace in English language Buddhism in their Sanskrit forms are not always translated as such but are given a literal translation from the Chinese characters. This means that most proper names which are not common, such as bodhisattva names, are just translated directly, e.g. “Diamond Matrix,” “Moon of Liberation,” etc. We are not used to using English terms as names, so just be prepared for this. However, this can give rise to confusion with some terms, for instance, “Enlightening Being” is always used where typically we would just translate “Bodhisattva,” i.e. “Bodhi” = Enlightening, and “Sattva” = Being.

What is it all about?

The Ten Stages, roughly speaking, are the steps on the path of a bodhisattva to Buddhahood. It is presented within this sūtra as completely comprehensive. The Avataṃsaka Sūtra contains this within the context of a larger set of steps, but the Ten Stages Sūtra can stand alone and be used as a guide by itself. It can teach one how to cultivate in various ways, what to aim for. Even if we are not even on the first stage, we can learn what our next step is, but also what we can already achieve, even though it may become completely attained at a later part of the path.

Five Paths

It is common for the Ten Stages to be presented according to the Five Pathway Minds. This gives one a bigger picture of how to develop the path and is therefore useful. Alexander Berzin’s presentation is my source here.[1] He suggests thinking of these less as situations, and more as states of mind which we cultivate and develop, hence he calls them “Pathway Minds.”

The Ten Stages correspond in the following way to the Five Paths:

[1] https://studybuddhism.com/en/advanced-studies/lam-rim/the-five-paths/the-five-paths-advanced-presentation

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