Our hero in this sutra is Sudhana, a wealthy merchant who goes on pilgrimage in search of the truth. In his journey he encounters more than 50 incredible gurus, all with different manifestations, including a child and a prostitute. In his quest, Sudhana learns that to apply the bodhisattva path, he has to let go of a narrow, limited view of conventional reality and be open-minded to the infinite or Mahayana view.

The sutra is not just a buddhist fairy tale but a deconstruction of our limited viewpoint of the world around us and what we think as reality. The final guru is the bodhisattva Samantabhadra and the sutra ends with his Prayer of Aspiration.

You can now also read the Stem Array Sutra on the 84000 Reading Room.

Translation: Chinese, French, Japanese, Russian and Spanish.