The role and significance of Samantabhadra bodhisattva in the Avatamsaka

Abstract

Samantabhadra is one of the celestial bodhisattvas of Mahāyāna Buddhism who has become the object of worship in East Asian Buddhism and has been represented in various iconographic appearances in East Asian art since the 5th century CE. The earliest source on Samantabhadra is the Lotus sūtra, which was first translated by Dharmarakṣa in 286 CE under the title Zheng fahua jing正法華經, and later the famous translator Kumārajīíva (344–413) also translated it in 406 under the title Miaofa lianhua jing 妙法蓮華經. Samantabhadra appears in the last chapter of the scripture, ‘The Samantabhadra’s encouragement’ (‘Puxian pusa quanfa pin’ 普賢菩薩勸發品), which encourages all living beings to practice the teaching of the Lotus sūtra. Presumably, the Samantabhadra visualisation sūtra (Guan Puxian pusa xingfa jing 觀普賢菩薩行法經, T.277), which provides a very detailed depiction of the appearance of Samantabhadra bodhisattva riding his six-tusked elephant, was written under the increasing influence of the Lotus sūtra. This apocryphal scripture includes elements of visualisation practices that probably originated in Central Asia and a repentance ritual to erase all sins committed in present and previous lives. The third source of the Samantabhadra cult is the Buddhāvataṃsaka-sūtra, which was first translated into Chinese by Buddhabhadra (359-429) in 420 in 60 fascicles and later by Śikṣānanda (652-710) in 699 in 80 fascicles. The special feature of this scripture is that most of the time bodhisattvas deliver Buddha’s teachings. One of these bodhisattvas is Samantabhadra, who preaches one-third of the entire scripture. The titles of two chapters of the Buddhāvataṃsaka-sūtra mention the name of Samantabhadra. One of them is ‘Samantabhadra’s samādhi’ (‘Puxian sanmei’ 普賢三昧), and the other one is ‘Samantabhadra’s practice’ (‘Puxian xing’ 普賢行). The Tibetan version of the Buddhāvataṃsaka-sūtra translated in the 9th century includes another chapter related to Samantabhadra titled ‘The teaching of Samantabhadra’ (‘Kun tu bzang pos bstan pa’), which is not found in either versions of the Chinese translations of the Buddhāvataṃsaka-sūtra. However, Śikṣānanda translated it into Chinese as an independent sūtra under the title Da fangguang Puxian suo shuo jing 大方廣普賢所說經 (T. 298). This article includes the Hungarian translations of the chapters ‘Samantabhadra’s samādhi’ and ‘The teaching of Samantabhadra’ from Chinese sources with references to the Tibetan versions of the texts.