In Search of the Bodhisattva Way: The Child Sudhana's Journey to Enlightenment from the Avatamsaka Sutra...

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Kosei Morimoto Yoshiro Ogura

In Search of the Bodhisattva Way

Name: In Search of the Bodhisattva Way
Price: 75 AUD
Availability: PreOrder
ISBN: 9781645473831

The Child Sudhana's Journey to Enlightenment from the Avatamsaka Sutra

Kosei Morimoto, Yoshiro Ogura, Joseph Britton , Eri Suzuki Tomita

$75

Hardback

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English

Shambhala Publications Inc
22 September 2026

Religion & beliefs

A retelling of Sudhana's story from the Avatamsaka Sutra, this book chronicles a child's quest to seek spiritual wisdom from fifty-five bodhisattvas. Each chapter focuses on a different bodhisattva, with accompanying images from a 12th-century Japanese painted scroll.

A retelling of Sudhana's story from the Avatamsaka Sutra, this book chronicles a child's quest to seek spiritual wisdom from fifty-five bodhisattvas. Each chapter focuses on a different bodhisattva, with accompanying images from a 12th-century Japanese painted scroll.

What does it mean to dedicate yourself to the spiritual path with the innocence of a child? The answers to that are revealed in the story of a little boy named Sudhana, protagonist of the longest chapter in one of the oldest and most prominent Mahayana Buddhist sutras.

In Search of the Bodhisattva Way is Kosei Morimoto's summary of ""Entering the Dharma Realm"" (Gandavyuha), the final chapter of the Avatamsaka Sutra, which had a lasting influence on painting and sculpture across Asia. This full-color book contains images from The Painting Scroll of the Fifty-Five Avatamsaka Sites, created by an unknown artist dated to the end of the 12th century and designated a National Treasure of Japan.

The core of the book consists of fifty-five short chapters, each of which centers around a different bodhisattva. The early Indian Mahayana cosmology and doctrine represented in these narratives are grounded in the idea of emptiness but also an expansive, infinite notion of enlightened mind illuminating everywhere. For example, the bodhisattva Megasri, the first master Sudhana visits, shows with his supernatural power that there are countless enlightened beings in an infinite number of worlds. Sagaramegha, the second master, shows how to separate one's consciousness or soul from the physical body, thereby being able to fly in the air or appear in multiple locations. It is only at the end of his journey that Sudhana is shown the direct path to enlightenment.

This work is spiritual, artistic, and accessible, while maintaining academic rigor. It includes an introduction detailing the sutra's long reception history by the author, Dr. Morimoto, the former head of the Japanese Avatamsaka (Kegon) school and abbot of Todai monastery.

By: Kosei Morimoto, Yoshiro Ogura
Edited by: Susan O'Leary
Translated by: Joseph Britton, Eri Suzuki Tomita
Imprint: Shambhala Publications Inc
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 178mm,
Weight: 369g
ISBN: 9781645473831
ISBN 10: 164547383X
Pages: 368
Publication Date: 22 September 2026
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

KOSEI MORIMOTO (1934-) entered Todai Monastery at age fifteen and served as the abbot of Todai Monastery and the head of the Kegon (Japanese Avatamsaka) School from 2004 to 2007. He received his PhD from Kyoto University in Islamic studies and is the author of several publications on Avatamsaka Buddhism in Japan and the Nara period of Japanese history, as well as Islamic history, economics, and Ibn Khaldun.