Gaṇḍavyūha Sūtra

The ‘Array of Flowers Sūtra’. Included in the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, this text outlines the path of a Bodhisattva in the form of the story of Sudhana's quest for teachings that will lead him to enlightenment (bodhi). In the course of his travels, he encounters 53 teachers, many of them male or female lay-persons, until his eventual encounter with the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra when he finally attains enlightenment. The text, impressive in its own right as a piece of literature, survives in Sanskrit as well as one Tibetan and several Chinese translations.