| abstract | - The Ten Stages Sutra (Sanskrit Daśabhūmikasūtra-śāstra, Dasabhūmikabhāsya; (simplified Chinese: 十地経 traditional Chinese: 十地經 ||pinyin]]: shí dì jīng) also known as the Sutra of the Ten Stages or Daśabhūmika Sutra, is an early, influential Mahayana Buddhist scripture written by Vasubandhu in Sanskrit and translated into Chinese by Bodhiruci and others during the 6th century. The sutra also appears as the 26th chapter of the Flower Garland Sutra. In this sutra, the Buddha describes ten stages of development that a bodhisattva must progress through in order to accomplish full Enlightenment and Buddhahood, as well as the subject of Buddha nature and the awakening of the aspiration for Enlightenment. Supposedly, a sect, the Daśabhūmikā, arose in China at one time, centered on this sutra, but was later absorbed by the Huayan school. The teaching of the Ten Stages was absorbed into the Huayan's Avataṃsaka Sūtra as its twenty-sixth chapter, and can be found in modified form in the thirty-ninth chapter as part of the journey of the bodhisattva Sudhana. The Huayan school declined in China after the death of its fifth and best known patriarch, Zongmi (780-841), but they provided major foundational teachings for the Mahayana schools which exist today, such as Zen. The last vestiges of the Huayan school today exists as the Kegon school in Japan, and its last temple is the great Todai-ji, perhaps the largest wooden building in the world.
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