Quick Facts
Born:
625, Korea
Died:
702, Korea (aged 77)

Ŭisang (born 625, Korea—died 702, Korea) was a Buddhist monk and founder of the Hwaŏm (Chinese: Hua-yen) sect of Korean Buddhism. He devoted himself to the propagation of the teaching of the Avataṃsaka-sūtra (Garland Sutra), which provided ideological support for the political system of the state of Unified Silla (668–935).

Ŭisang became a monk about 650, and at 37 he went with his friend the monk Wŏnhyo to China, where he studied the Garland Sutra under the direction of Chih-yen, the 2nd patriarch of the Chinese Hua-yen (Garland) sect. While in China he wrote his major work, An Explanatory Diagram on the Garland World System, which elicited high acclaim from his master and is still read widely in the Buddhist circles of East Asia. On returning home in 671, he built, sponsored by King Munmu, the Pusŏk Temple as the centre of the Hwaŏm sect.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Avatamsaka-sutra

Buddhist text
Also known as: “Buddhāvataṃsaka-sūtra”, “Discourse on the Adornments”, “Garland Sutra”, “Huayan jing”, “Mahavaipulya-buddhavatamsaka-sutra”, “The Great and Vast Buddha Garland Sūtra”, “Wreath sūtra”, “Wreath-sūtra”
In full:
Mahavaipulya-buddhavatamsaka-sutra (Sanskrit: “The Great and Vast Buddha Garland Sutra”)
Also called:
Garland Sutra

Avatamsaka-sutra, voluminous Mahayana Buddhist text that some consider the most sublime revelation of the Buddha’s teachings. Scholars value the text for its revelations about the evolution of thought from early Buddhism to fully developed Mahayana.

The sutra speaks of the deeds of the Buddha and of their resulting merits that blossom much like a garland of flowers. The discourse begins with the Buddha’s enlightenment, attended by an anthem chorus of bodhisattvas (buddhas-to-be) and divine beings as numerous as the atoms of all the worlds. There follows a great assembly in the palace of the god Indra, whom Buddha instructs, and similar assemblies in other celestial regions accompanied by manifestations of great glory. In such settings the Buddha teaches that all beings have the Buddha nature, that all phenomena are mutually originating and interdependent, and that, finally, all is Buddha.

Several versions of the text seem to have existed, one reputedly containing as many as 100,000 verses. A translation titled Huayan jing first appeared in China about 400 ce. There it gave rise in the 6th century to the Avatamsaka school, otherwise known as the Huayan sect—a movement that reached its climax, as the Kegon school, in 8th-century Japan. The text has also given rise to a large number of commentaries.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Matt Stefon.