About 2,500 years ago, Buddha revolutionised the intellectual world with his idea that desire is the cause of suffering. He invented practices that would end desire and so suffering. He established a community of monks to carry forward his message. But as the centuries passed, the monks built on his ideas. This gave rise to many schools of thought. One such school of thought that emerged 500 years later, known as Mahayana (the greater vehicle), gave rise to a Sanskrit text known as Gandavyuha Sutra, which means the Excellent Manifestation Sutra.

Legend has it that the Sanskrit text was sent by the king of Odisha to China. There, it was translated and now exists in Chinese form. What is remarkable about this text is that it uses pilgrimage as the method of achieving enlightenment, where you travel and meet many teachers, who are called “Kalyana Mitra” or friends who enable spiritual fulfillment. This is amongst the first books, where the idea of the guru, as we know it today, is established. Here, a student is expected to completely surrender to the guru, and not to use his own powers of discrimination.