The “Chapter on Gocarapariśuddhi” in Buddhāvataṃsaka is a manual on generating Bodhicitta in Mahāyāna practice. It is the only chapter in Buddhāvataṃsaka which translates proses into verses. Chinese Buddhism interprets the practice of Gocarapariśuddhi as vows or precepts, which differ from its original concern. Very little we know about its recension background. Moreover, the conversion from prose to verse does create difficulty to both translators and readers. In order to solve the above problems, this research first clarifies the objective of the text, meanwhile investigates how do monks from India, Tibet and China make use of it. By comparing and analyzing the differences between the “Chapter on Gocarapariśuddhi” of The Sixty-Fascicle Chinese Buddhāvataṃsaka, The Eighty-Fascicle Chinese Buddhāvataṃsaka and སངས་རྒྱས་ཕལ་པོ་ཆེ་སྤྱོད་ཡུལ་ཡོངས་སུ་དག་པའི་མདོ, I managed to identify the relationship between the three recensions as well as the problems faced by both Chinese and Tibetan translation texts. In India, this chapter is only known as “Gocarapariśuddhisūtra” and it is widely used as a practice to generate Bodhicitta. Besides, the practice does accumulate merits, can be a kind of vows practice and it is used to guard the minds too. It appears as sūtra and chapter form in both Tibet and China. Tibetan monks make use of the teaching as antidote of laziness and methods to transform neutral deeds into virtues, meanwhile the Chinese monks interpreted the teaching as vows, precepts and Pure Land practice. The independent transmission of “Gocarapariśuddhisūtra” in India and China are two separate recensions. The chapter in Chinese and Tibetan Buddhāvataṃsaka are close to the Chinese independent recensions. In the present study, I find out that the “Chapter on Gocarapariśuddhi” in The Eighty-Fascicle version is near to the Tibetan version; it is very much different from what is known to the academic world. It is important to get accustomed to the characteristic of the text, its interpretation and translation style. By reconstructing the Indian text, we may be able to trace some sort of wordplay in the text, which impossible to perceive through translation itself. Mastering all the above factors will contribute to a correct and subjective understanding of the text.
