The Ocean-Like Samādhi of the Visualization of the Buddha and the Avataṁsaka Sūtras: The Word Zahua.

Abstract

The Sūtra on the Ocean-Like Samādhi of the Visualization of the Buddha is one of the six Visualization Sūtras that were translated in the fifth century. However, because it has some philological and linguistic errors, some researchers currently regard it as an apocryphal text, This text has some main sources, for example, the Samādhi texts, and according to some, the Mahāyāna sūtras, the commentaries, and the Huayan sūtras. I notice that the word zahua (雑華) occurs thrice in this text. Zahua represents the Huayan sūtras and the Mahāparinirvāṇa sūtra. It is so used in relation to the Huayan sūtras in the Da zhidu lun (大智度論).Thus, I attempt to prove the relationship between this sūtra and the Huayan sūtras through the word zahua.